Aerial Rescue Practice

[5thelement]

3 minutes ago, Steve Bullman said:

Highly unlikely

 

People respond differently under pressure though, I worked with a climber that would feel faint and hit the floor like a lead balloon at the first sight of blood.

[5thelement]

Although competition climbing and work climbing differ, the aerial rescue practice scenarios in the competitions could be used as a template for recording your own work based practice data.

The AA quite often sponsor these climbing events so I can’t see why the scenarios couldn’t be replicated and recorded in the same manner.

 Not just time in minutes, but a point score system for implementing the emergency plan, first aid in the tree, once on the ground etc etc. 
I can’t see how a list of information recorded this way could not be deemed “comprehensive”.

 

Edited July 16, 2023 by 5thelement

[Puffingbilly413]

I think someone mentioned this above somewhere but it many cases it will still come down to money.  Firms pay climbers to climb - climbers get paid more than groundworkers ergo from a purely financial perspective people don't want to pay a climber to do groundwork and be on standby to rescue.

 

If you train your ground staff to be as competent at aerial rescue as the regular climbers then they will make that transition (probably) to climbing and the firm will be back where they started.

 

This could be mitigated by having pre installed rescue lines that save time in the event of a rescue and mean an occasional climber can access the tree more quickly.  But this puts more time on the job and people seem IME reluctant to do it in practice.

 

We should def practice rescue and fist aid scenarios more often but we don't.  Especially in small firms where time is money even more so than in larger ones where they have more scope to absorb it.

 

What's the solution? As with all costs they have to be factored into the job. So ultimately customers have to be willing to pay towards this in their bills.  Assuming this isn't really the case just now then jobs need to cost more or we have to take less money to compensate. Both are tricky to resolve obviously.

[5thelement]

1 hour ago, Puffingbilly413 said:

What's the solution? As with all costs they have to be factored into the job. So ultimately customers have to be willing to pay towards this in their bills.  Assuming this isn't really the case just now then jobs need to cost more or we have to take less money to compensate. Both are tricky to resolve obviously.

When we used to do them regularly we where operating as a team consisting of 4 full time climbers, 2 climbers/groundies and 2 non climbing brash draggers. The company did a mix of around 70% domestic, 20% street trees and council land, and 10% on large commercial sites like universities.

We wouldn't conduct them on domestic jobs where the customer may think they where paying for us to practice this, street trees where early start, job and knock and get out of dodge, so the university campus work, which was usually conducted outside of term time and quiet, is where we would do them.

Usually a group of trees requiring all staff present, we would choose a tree to finish on, break the back of the job, then ease up on the last day, do the rescues and use up the short dated First Aid kit.

Minimal cost if any, but may not be possible for everyone.

[AHPP]

6 hours ago, Mick Dempsey said:

There’s a thread on an American forum I’m on where a guy talks about his dads death in a tree, suffocated by his harness in a rigging mishap.

His two non climbing groundies had to stand helpless and watch.

I’ll get a link put up in a short while.

 

My dad was killed in the tree | The Tree House

MASTERBLASTERHOME.COM

---

My dad was kill in April, it’s been really hard because I feel like I should have been there. I...

 

Can you post the photo on his post here, save me joining the forum. Can only see thumbnail as guest. 

[Mick Dempsey]

19 minutes ago, AHPP said:

Can you post the photo on his post here, save me joining the forum. Can only see thumbnail as guest. 

That’s a shame, there’s a video where he explains how it happened.

He would normally have been there to rescue him, but he was out of town.

 

[Steve Bullman]

 

[AHPP]

1 hour ago, Mick Dempsey said:

That’s a shame, there’s a video where he explains how it happened.

He would normally have been there to rescue him, but he was out of town.

 

 

Cheers. Can see the thread and video, just not the full size photo,

[Mick Dempsey]

3 minutes ago, AHPP said:

 

Cheers. Can see the thread and video, just not the full size photo,

Ok, it’s there for everyone to see now, I thinks it’s worth a watch.