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cutty
Apr 3, 2006, 10:01 PM
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Sorry if General isn't the right place for this. Nothing seemed clearly better. Anyway...
Yesterday I ended up rescuing a hiker. She'd scrambled down a steep, mossy ramp on a cliffside, and when she tried to scramble back up the moss gave way and she started slipping toward the cliff edge. Another hiker ran over to where my friends and I were climbing, so we went over to see what we could do to help. The end result: everyone safe and uninjured. Yay.
I've been going over the whole scenario in my head ever since and analyzing what I could have done better. There's one thing in particular that sticks out that I don't have an easy solution for, so I'm hoping some of you will have some suggestions.
The situation: I'd just rapped down to where she was, and my first goal was to secure her so that if she fell she wouldn't die. She was sort of lying along the ramp, holding onto some jackets people above had tied together and lowered to her. She was tiring, and she was slowly slipping toward the edge as the moss gave way. There seemed to be a significant risk that she could lose her holds any moment and possibly slide over the edge.
I didn't want to risk disturbing her or the moss and causing her to fall. In terms of gear I had a spare harness, a bunch of biners, a couple draws, and a variety of slings of differing lengths. My immediate solution was to take a sling, girth hitch it around her waist and clip it into my belay loop. If she slipped and fell, she wouldn't die, but it would hurt a lot, probably cause injuries, and be a nasty situation to try to get her back out of. But the important thing seemed to be to first eliminate the risk of her falling down the cliff.
I don't think I was wrong in that assessment, but the girth hitch seems far from ideal.
I considered improvising a chest harness, but the way she was positioned I felt there was too much risk of dislodging her if I tried to rig anything around her upper body. I considered tying a bowline in the rope, but I was worried it would take too long, and would be too hard to tie under the circumstances. I considered folding my long sling until I could clip the loops together into a rough swami, but I was worried that it wouldn't work well for some reason (too long, too short, miss one of the loops when clipping), and then I'd have wasted potential precious time while risking dislodging her while trying to rig it.
In hindsight, the best idea I've come up with is using my daisy around her waist so at least I could clip it to size, but that didn't occur to me in the moment, and I'm not even sure if my daisy was on me anyway.
So, to sum up:
* hiker in precarious position, potential risk of falling at any moment
* no safe access to upper body
* enough room to get something around her waist, but perhaps with a tiny risk of dislodging her
What could I have done better?
Once I had her girth hitched in, I immediately belted her into the swami part of the harness I had, and clipped her into that, and then worked on getting the leg loops in, so she became much safer quite quickly, but I'm still uncomfortable thinking about what that sling would have done to her if she had fallen. Still better than dying, but....
Oh, and as a final note. I was so very, very glad I'd read Self Rescue.
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trenchdigger
Apr 3, 2006, 10:17 PM
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Well, first things first. The main rule in a rescue situation is that your safety comes first. Coming in second is the safety of your fellow rescuers. And third comes the safety of the person(s) being rescued.
One thing that comes to mind that may have been more ideal in the situation assuming your climbing partners are competent and similarly skilled as you, is to have them lower you to the hiker rather than you rappelling. With them in control of the line, you are free to secure the person in danger without risking letting go of your rappel rope. Also once you do secure the victim, your friends could improvise a rigging to haul you back up to safety.
It sounds like the girth hitch was a viable temporary solution, though there may have been a better solution. To me it sounds like a decent choice.
Good on you for being willing to help out.
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landgolier
Apr 3, 2006, 10:51 PM
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Not a bad move, given the circumstance. The daisy thing would have been good, but I would have just clipped both ends of the sling. Might have been kind of big, but it's pretty hard to fall out of something like that if you don't raise your arms. You can always pull a little bit of one end past the biner and tie an overhand to shorten it. After that, I would have put her in a 2 runner chest harness as well, and then done what you did. The other alternative would be to girth 3 runners or use a cordelette to make something you could wrap around her waist a couple of times and then clip the ends together and get another biner or a girthed runner around the whole mess. That's an old-school swami minus the 2" webbing, and god knows some whippers have been taken on those.
Beyond that, I agree with the lowering comment. Way safer, and since you obviously weren't too far down you could have used the other half of the rope to tie her in and raise her first. Hauling 2 adults together 1:1 and possibly through a belay device takes some grunt, as you guys probably learned.
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cutty
Apr 3, 2006, 11:00 PM
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In reply to: Well, first things first. The main rule in a rescue situation is that your safety comes first. Coming in second is the safety of your fellow rescuers. And third comes the safety of the person(s) being rescued.
That's what I kept focused on the whole time. Hard to help the situation if you're a bloody mess at the bottom of the cliff. On the topic of my safety, there's a couple things I can see in hindsight I could have done better. Some of it was just a lack of experience and practice, and I'm really happy I've identified some things to focus on. There's a few things I'd do differently if I had to do it over again, but I don't think I made any big mistakes. (i.e. I don't see anything I did that endangered my life beyond the risks inherent in this sort of situation.)
In reply to: One thing that comes to mind that may have been more ideal in the situation assuming your climbing partners are competent and similarly skilled as you, is to have them lower you to the hiker rather than you rappelling.
Good point. It didn't really seem like a great option in that situation. The anchors I rapped off were a fixed pin in a crack about 3m from the edge and a tree that was way further back (and nowhere near the pin). We ended up fixing the rope to both. I didn't have enough gear to extend an anchor that far to belay off of.
I guess an option would have been to fix one end of the rope, and tie a belayer into it at the top of the cliff. There probably would have been plenty of rope left to lower me to her, as she wasn't that far down. I'm not sure that would have been a better situation. Better, perhaps, with static rope. I'll rig up something similar in a controlled environment in the future and try it out.
I think in the end the rappel rig was faster and simpler to set up. And once I'd rigged a backup on my rappel my hands were free...
So many choices. I have a newfound appreciation for people on rescue teams who have to make these choices all the time.
In reply to: It sounds like the girth hitch was a viable temporary solution, though there may have been a better solution. To me it sounds like a decent choice.
Thanks for the feedback!
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heximp
Apr 3, 2006, 11:03 PM
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You did good... Pat yourself on the back for you did save a life.
Yeah, the daisy chain sounds good... Yet, you also said that you were not sure you had one. Being belayed also would have lowered the risk upon yourself if your partners were there... Then again, they might not have had a clear view of you and the victim's position. This opens the possibility that being belayed might have dislodged the victim. Being belayed would have risked being lowered on top of her, or being lowered upon the unstable perimeter; causing the accident that you were trying to prevent.
I think the results speak for themselves upon effectiveness.
I don't think you could have done a better job.
The fact that your still questioning and trying to learn about this situation shows that you have an incredible mind. you must be a wonderful climber.
I hope you are around when I get into trouble.
"I am in awe of you!"
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epoch
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Apr 3, 2006, 11:12 PM
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It is good that you are in the mindset to have a debriefing and it is good that you are in the mindset to get answers to how you could have done it better. Mind you that this is a very broad forum to ask, and the answers obtained here are going to be from varied professions, expierence, and training. Alas, I am not a resuce professional, but have had training and done signifigant research into it so that I might be prepared to handle the situation.
I would agree that it would have been better to be lowered. Did you happen to have an auto-block in your rappel system? Or did you tie a mule knot? As a temporary harness your use of a sling around her waist was acceptable. It would have done the job, right? The fact that you put a harness on immediately after securing her was good. There are allot of what ifs that will float out there. As well as several hypothetical situations that will pop into your mind. The fact that you had familiarized yourself with self-rescue techniques is first and foremost the best thing that you did. By enabeling yourself to have the tools and thought process in place you were ahead of most. The key to many rescues, due to thier individually unique situations, is SAFE improvization. Without carrying another 200 lbs of rescue-specific gear, in my opinion, you did an outstanding job and will be remembered by the hiker and her party for years to come.
As mentioned above,
In reply to: Well, first things first. The main rule in a rescue situation is that your safety comes first. Coming in second is the safety of your fellow rescuers. And third comes the safety of the person(s) being rescued.
Edit: Because I can.
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cutty
Apr 3, 2006, 11:24 PM
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I'm adding "experiment with improvising up swamis" to my todo list, and I think I'll buy a couple slings of a more appropriate size for the task.
In reply to: Hauling 2 adults together 1:1 and possibly through a belay device takes some grunt, as you guys probably learned.
Heheh. We didn't end up having to deal with that. With both ends of the rope fixed, I was able to get us on seperate ropes so we could be hauled out separately. And by some strange coincidence, the fire department showed up to take over literally at almost the exact moment I got the second leg loop done up on her. So there was plenty of grunt available, and with us both being safe at that point I was quite happy to relax and let them do their thing. :-)
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dvd
Apr 3, 2006, 11:25 PM
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first off, congrats and good job, you, your partner and the victim all got away unscathed
one thing i can add to think about is that might have been better to connect her to the rope instead of to your harness, with the temporary girth hitch, that way had she come unglued while you where sticking her in the harness, she wouldnt have been hanging off of you.... but thats a thought that comes from the safety and comfort of my couch not hanging in the seat of my harness
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kman
Apr 3, 2006, 11:36 PM
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You say your from Vancouver. Where exactly was this?
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cutty
Apr 3, 2006, 11:47 PM
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In reply to: It is good that you are in the mindset to have a debriefing and it is good that you are in the mindset to get answers to how you could have done it better.
In reply to: The fact that your still questioning and trying to learn about this situation shows that you have an incredible mind. you must be a wonderful climber.
I have to point out that this is something I've learned from "you" -- referring to the online climbing community in general. I try to lurk in the background of every "what went wrong" post I can find, and I think I've learned a lot from it. I give credit to all the people who've set the good examples in the past. Ignoring the inevitable "bad apples", there's a fantastic willingness to take responsibility for one's actions, learn from your mistakes, and -- perhaps most courageously -- to tell everyone else about your mistakes so everyone can benefit.
I'm just standing on the shoulders of people who've gone before me and trying to follow their example. :-)
...and thanks to everyone who has replied already, or has yet to reply. I can barely keep up with all the posts right now, and I appreciate every single one. (Well... so far!)
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jeremy11
Apr 3, 2006, 11:51 PM
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Good topic. Experience only teaches when it is evaluated. That is why an effective debrief is the key to experiential education.
Why did you not just finish the rappel to the bottom of the cliff - seems safer and easier, unless there was a long hike out, it was multiple rappels, etc.
Great job on pulling it off safe and sound.
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spoon
Apr 4, 2006, 12:04 AM
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Congratulations on your rescue!
I've seen an improvised harness made with a double shoulder length runner that might have been useful here. Take the runner and put it around your waste so that you are holding both ends in one hand in front of you. Since the runner is a loop, there should be two strands running around your waist. Reach back between your legs and pull the bottom of the two strands running around your back forward through your legs. You should now have three loops in front of you. Clip all three loops together with a locking carabiner. Although this harness is far from ideal, it won't cinch up like a girth hitch and it has leg loops. One major consideration is the size of the person you are making the harness for. It is a pretty good size for my 32 inch waist, but it probably wouldn't work on someone with larger than a 36 or 38 inch waist, and it would be pretty large for someone with a much smaller waist.
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cutty
Apr 4, 2006, 12:12 AM
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In reply to: Did you happen to have an auto-block in your rappel system?
Not when I started rapelling down, I didn't. It was a judgement call. I know in theory how to rig an autoblock, but I'd never rapped with one before. Ironically it was on my list of things to practice that day, but in that situation I felt that having never tried it before added an unknown variable into the system. Maybe I'd screw it up and jam it in my belay device. Maybe it would lock unexpectedly and throw me off balance at exactly the wrong time and knock the hiker off the cliff. I decided it was better to get down there first, get stable, get her temporarily secured (one-handed) and then back up my rappel.
I don't at all think that was "ideal", and if she'd just been stuck without an immediate risk of falling I would have gone with the backup and trusted myself to work out any problems on the way down.
Judgement call. Next time I'm rappelling I'll be getting the experience I need so I never have to make that one again.
In reply to: Or did you tie a mule knot?
Despite knowing how to do that, I didn't think of it at the time because my plan was to rig the autoblock once I was down there. Thanks. I'll add that to my notes. Under those circumstances I think that would have been a better choice.
In reply to: As mentioned above, In reply to: Well, first things first. The main rule in a rescue situation is that your safety comes first. Coming in second is the safety of your fellow rescuers. And third comes the safety of the person(s) being rescued. The reasoning behind this is that you don't want to, in the process of rescuing, make more people that need to be resuced.
I had a moment after I was all rigged in, doublechecked, and ready to rappel where I considered whether I knew enough about what I was doing. I wasn't going to go over that edge if I thought I was likely to make the situation worse than it already was.
There were a lot of people shouting out "helpful suggestions". Most of them just casual hikers who clearly (in my judgement) didn't have a clue. There was at least one guy there with climbing experience who had a clue, and he was extremely helpful. I really had to decide where I was on the spectrum before I continued.
I think that's part of the reason I was wanting to discuss this here too. This isn't the only situation I've been in like this, just the only climbing one. But even so, it's the day afterward and all I can do is replay the whole thing over and over in my mind. I can't help but think of how easily somebody with a rope and a bit of climbing gear could take a bad situation like that and make it worse. I took a complete stranger's life into my hands yesterday. I'd do it again without hesitation under the same circumstances, and with more confidence the next time, but it's a heavy, heavy responsibility.
I can't help but ponder the kind of trust involved. I'm sure the hiker believed implicitly that I wasn't going to do something to get her killed. It's worth thinking about.
Ok, I kinda wandered off track there...
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dirtineye
Apr 4, 2006, 12:16 AM
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I like your rap, since you did use a backup. When you go to the victim you could and probably should have put in a backup knot as well on your rap line.
I like your anchor. Trees are good, and you can set them up fast.
Really, you did a great job.
You were probably right to connect her to yourself. Seems like we were taught that for the situation you were in, which is similar to a piggyback rap situation withan injured party.
And as long as you had two prussik loops and a sling with two biners you could always have ascended your way out, but it doesn't sound like that was even needed.
Maybe someone who does rescue all the time will comment, but I'd be happy to have you around.
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cutty
Apr 4, 2006, 12:21 AM
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In reply to: one thing i can add to think about is that might have been better to connect her to the rope instead of to your harness
Thanks! I did think of that earlier today while I was driving, but I didn't get a chance to write it down (I've been taking notes) and it slipped my mind afterward. I'll add that in...
Once I had the harness on her, I got her connected directly to the rope, and eventually off my own harness. But you're absolutely right. It would have been better to get her on the rope earlier. I think the initial clip into my harness was still a good choice because it was quick and immediate. But my next priority probably should have been to tie an eight-on-a-bight and get her on that.
Thanks!
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cutty
Apr 4, 2006, 12:33 AM
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In reply to: Why did you not just finish the rappel to the bottom of the cliff - seems safer and easier, unless there was a long hike out, it was multiple rappels, etc.
I think it may have been both.
I couldn't see the base of the cliff because of the shape, and the rope definitely didn't reach, and I doubt there were bolts down further. And I don't have the gear or knowledge to build an anchor with anything else, assuming there were opportunites anyway. And if that wasn't all enough, the rope was fixed due to the previously mentioned difficulty in anchoring in the first place.
Assuming we did rap to the bottom. If there's a trail that leads back up from down there, I'd put money on it being a miserable, overgrown thrash.
Finally, she'd only scrambled down a few meters from the top, so getting her back out once she was safe on the rope wasn't a big deal.
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cutty
Apr 4, 2006, 12:37 AM
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In reply to: You say your from Vancouver. Where exactly was this?
Apparently it's called Quarry Rock, or at least that's what it was called on the news. It's the cliffs overlooking the sea near Deep Cove. The first big lookout along the Baden-Powell trail. Apparently a boy and his dog had to be rescued from the exact same place earlier in the week. :-(
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dingus
Apr 4, 2006, 12:42 AM
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Yo, I think your concern about a sling harming the hiker were overblown.
Nice job helping her out whilst avoiding creating a scene.
DMT
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cutty
Apr 4, 2006, 12:52 AM
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In reply to: I've seen an improvised harness made with a double shoulder length runner that might have been useful here.
Thanks. I'll try that out. She might have been a bit large for it, but I think I could have improvised something up to make it work. I'm definitely going to spend some time experimenting with different ways of improvising up swamis and harnesses and so on.
Although I still would have hesitated under the circumstances about doing anything that involved multiple passes around her body for fear of dislodging her. From the feedback I've had so far, I think the best alternative I'd have had to my girth hitch would be a shorter sling clipped end to end, and then connect that to my harness. With the gear I had, if I had it to do over again, I'd have wrapped the sling around her, tied an overhand knot at an appropriate point, and clipped the loop to the knot, and then clipped the free part to my harness. She'd still be alive if she fell, and it wouldn't constrict as much. And it would be just as fast to rig.
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cosmiccragsman
Apr 4, 2006, 12:58 AM
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Good Work Cutty! There are always different ways to rescue a person.
it always depends on the situation. She is safe, that's what is important.
I give you a trophy for the rescue.
Cosmiccragsman
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cutty
Apr 4, 2006, 1:01 AM
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Ok. My last post for a while. I think I'm caught up. Sorry for the flood, but hopefully it's worth reading. It's certainly worthwhile for me, so thanks everyone for participating...
In reply to: I like your rap, since you did use a backup. When you go to the victim you could and probably should have put in a backup knot as well on your rap line.
Agreed. I thought of it a bit later, and I did do that. I haven't written out all the details of the procedures I went through yet, but I basically worked to layer on redundancy once the immediate crisis was over. We both ended up with redundant and independent connections to the rope.
In reply to: And as long as you had two prussik loops and a sling with two biners you could always have ascended your way out, but it doesn't sound like that was even needed.
Yeah, had the fire department not shown up I would have set us up to ascend the rope. That was my vague plan going into it, although I hadn't worked out the details in my head yet. Hmm... another thing to experiment with, perhaps.
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boondock_saint
Apr 4, 2006, 1:54 AM
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I read through most of the posts and I think you did a fantastic job. Minor improvements here or there (accoridng to what some suggested) but like someone wrote, it's all about improvisation. And you did just that, with a lot of thought and it seems like you covered just about all the what if's.
Good job man, you're a real hero.
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cracklover
Apr 4, 2006, 2:05 AM
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Sounds good. I think the sling girthed around her waist is fine.
The one thing I really don't like is the idea of you operating on her one-handed. Sorry to say it, but that's just stupid, since you know how to mule off your device. It'll take longer for you to work on her with one hand, make everything more fidgety, and seriously increase the risk of you winding up needing a rescue (or worse) too.
Anyway, kudos to you for helping her out!
GO
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robw21217
Apr 4, 2006, 2:37 AM
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congrats on a job well done. It sounds like you did a pretty good job of things. I just wanted to share a few things I've learned over the years. I was a volunteer firefighter for about 15 years, and took a few rope/high angle rescue classes. The basics we were taught about situations like yours were fairly similar to what you did. We would probably rappel in a case like this too. You have more control over your descent. Being lowered doesn't work well. You overshoot, and then your screwed. One thing we would do in the fire service is make sure we were also belayed. Takes a lot of gear to set up two ropes though. Now, heres where those big clumsy fig.8 with ears come in. It's possible to lock off the rope with one of those without it girth hitching on itself and stranding you. That's why I always have one in my gear bag. Upon reaching the victim, you could lock off, and with two hands improvise a quick swami, then connect that person into your belay line. If you put an in line 8 knot in for your connection, you can leave a tag line with an 8 on a bite to tie in the vic. Now with everyone safely on a belay, it greatly increase your options. We probably would have used a pick up strap, and rappelled two person to the bottom if height weren't an issue. Otherwise some sort of haul system would be used. All this takes alot of gear though, and sometimes you just don't have it.
Sounds like you made some sound choices. Nice to know people are willing to help when others are in trouble. We climbers sometimes get a bad rap whenever a situation like this occurs, and the person in trouble seems to rarely be a climber. Hopefully your local news will show this for what it was. An inexperienced person somewhere they shouldn't have been.
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dirtineye
Apr 4, 2006, 3:15 AM
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In reply to: Sounds good. I think the sling girthed around her waist is fine. The one thing I really don't like is the idea of you operating on her one-handed. Sorry to say it, but that's just stupid, since you know how to mule off your device. It'll take longer for you to work on her with one hand, make everything more fidgety, and seriously increase the risk of you winding up needing a rescue (or worse) too. Anyway, kudos to you for helping her out! GO
And just where do you see that he worked one handed, or needed to mule off his device? he had a rappel backup, and a backup knot.
Yes it would be stupid to do what you suggest he did, but he didn't do that.
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