One Of Those Guys
When I was a kid my father and I used to go to watch firefighters, police or National Guard units do their specialized training. We'd sit on the sidelines and watch as SWAT officers practiced their movements, as divers surfaced from some underwater adventure. When sirens screamed into our neighborhood, he'd take me to watch as firefighters put out the flames in someone's house, or in one incident I'll always remember, rescue a dog who had skewered his paw on a fence.
I'd always sit back in awe and think of how much fun it must be to climb a hundred some odd foot ladder and then rappel down on a thin piece of rope. I always wanted to be "one of those guys."
Last week I took a special rope rescue course in Franklin, my girlfriend's hometown. Instructors from the Mass Firefighting Academy showed us how to tie advanced knots and rig up anchor systems so that we could abseil down to the rescue. We took thin pieces of nylon webbing and rope, each rated for up to 9,000 lbs, and twisted them into contraptions meant to hold our weight. All of this was well and good on the ground, when our lives are not at risk.
The following day we were up on the roof of a three story office building. The instructors had rigged up a series of lines for us to rappel down in order to get us acquainted with the basics of rope rescue. This particular course was the gateway course to the MFA's technical rescue school, a program of study that teaches everything from ice and water rescue to confined space and trench rescue. As such, we needed to get comfortable with heights-- fast. So after a brief lesson, the instructor, a rescue tech for the Urban Search and Rescue team, showed us how to thread our A plates for rappeling and told us to walk off over the side of the building, backwards.
That first backward step will be with me forever, a mix of fear, exhilaration and "what the fuck am I doing?" Learning to trust a 10mm thick rope was not easy, but it was an amazing experience. Wind whips gently at your face three stories up, looking down produces a cold feeling in the stomach. And then you realize, I have to turn around and walk off that ledge .
After pushing myself over the edge three times, we call it a day. I've grown pretty comfortable with the technique and realize that I can do it one handed which will certainly help in a rescue situation.
The third and final day we practice climbing back up the rope using a trio of devices known as ascenders. The principle is quite simple, you basically just shimmy and muscle your way up the rope with brute strength. After reaching the required height, a belayer lowers you back to terra firma and you go back up to the roof for a self rescue and then a victim rescue drill. The self rescue is meant to take the stress off of your A plate, the rappeling device. This would be needed if the line became fouled or comprimised in anyway. You tie off to the rope with a 6mm chord known as a prusiks and pull yourself out of the way to take your weight off of the device, allowing you to manipulate the line.
Finally we come to the rescue, a victim sits on a ladder two stories down and the objective is for the student to rappel down and "pick" him off with a strap and then lower safely to the ground.
When my turn to rescue a classmate rolls around, I check my gear and look down to figgure out where I'm going. My victim is a firefighter from Hopedale in a bright yellow helmet. But then something else catches my eye. A father and his young son are standing on the opposite side of the safety tape we used to cordon off our training area. The father looks up, a hand over his eyes against the glaring sun and the boy points, I can tell by his head movements that he's talking. Smiling, I prepare to finish my assignment and wonder if the boy is telling his dad "I wanna be one of those guys."
I'd always sit back in awe and think of how much fun it must be to climb a hundred some odd foot ladder and then rappel down on a thin piece of rope. I always wanted to be "one of those guys."
Last week I took a special rope rescue course in Franklin, my girlfriend's hometown. Instructors from the Mass Firefighting Academy showed us how to tie advanced knots and rig up anchor systems so that we could abseil down to the rescue. We took thin pieces of nylon webbing and rope, each rated for up to 9,000 lbs, and twisted them into contraptions meant to hold our weight. All of this was well and good on the ground, when our lives are not at risk.
The following day we were up on the roof of a three story office building. The instructors had rigged up a series of lines for us to rappel down in order to get us acquainted with the basics of rope rescue. This particular course was the gateway course to the MFA's technical rescue school, a program of study that teaches everything from ice and water rescue to confined space and trench rescue. As such, we needed to get comfortable with heights-- fast. So after a brief lesson, the instructor, a rescue tech for the Urban Search and Rescue team, showed us how to thread our A plates for rappeling and told us to walk off over the side of the building, backwards.
That first backward step will be with me forever, a mix of fear, exhilaration and "what the fuck am I doing?" Learning to trust a 10mm thick rope was not easy, but it was an amazing experience. Wind whips gently at your face three stories up, looking down produces a cold feeling in the stomach. And then you realize, I have to turn around and walk off that ledge .
After pushing myself over the edge three times, we call it a day. I've grown pretty comfortable with the technique and realize that I can do it one handed which will certainly help in a rescue situation.
The third and final day we practice climbing back up the rope using a trio of devices known as ascenders. The principle is quite simple, you basically just shimmy and muscle your way up the rope with brute strength. After reaching the required height, a belayer lowers you back to terra firma and you go back up to the roof for a self rescue and then a victim rescue drill. The self rescue is meant to take the stress off of your A plate, the rappeling device. This would be needed if the line became fouled or comprimised in anyway. You tie off to the rope with a 6mm chord known as a prusiks and pull yourself out of the way to take your weight off of the device, allowing you to manipulate the line.
Finally we come to the rescue, a victim sits on a ladder two stories down and the objective is for the student to rappel down and "pick" him off with a strap and then lower safely to the ground.
When my turn to rescue a classmate rolls around, I check my gear and look down to figgure out where I'm going. My victim is a firefighter from Hopedale in a bright yellow helmet. But then something else catches my eye. A father and his young son are standing on the opposite side of the safety tape we used to cordon off our training area. The father looks up, a hand over his eyes against the glaring sun and the boy points, I can tell by his head movements that he's talking. Smiling, I prepare to finish my assignment and wonder if the boy is telling his dad "I wanna be one of those guys."
posted by Nick Stabile at 8:32 PM
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