5thelement

I’ve never been an NPTC Assessor for any Aerial certification. You must have got the impression by now that most people involved on here couldn’t give a monkeys what TG1 says? They certainly aren’t going to open up when the OP won’t even be straight up wether he is even towing the line, why should they? I had a chat to a few guys Ive known in the Industry for years in the UK earlier, I asked them about it, they laughed their cocks off. So it’s pretty simple to be compliant, it’s up to you really.

I’m pretty sure I saw a spectacularly drunk you at a Kaiser Chiefs gig at Bedgebury a few years back?

Although I dislike the modern way of watching gigs through the screen on your phone, rather than the gig itself, I do wish I had taken more photos of a lot of bands I’ve seen over the years. The Sugarcubes in Iceland circa 1988 where fantastic, fresh faced pixie Bjork at her finest sonically. Living in Manchester I got to see a lot of bands on my doorstep, Iggy, Lou,Bowie,Smiths, Happy Mondays, Stone Roses, James, Blur on their first tour of the Uk at Warrington Rugby Club,(Daman Albarn introduced the band as ‘ we are from from London’ and immediately got hit with a can of Holsten Pils in the face) welcome to the North! He took it well, Mazzy Star and Sparkhorse on at the same venue, and probably my most watched band, The Fall, I’ve got quite a few photos of those guys other the years.

Personal opinion aside. TG1 doesn’t apply to me as I don’t climb commercially in the UK, so I haven’t given it much thought on how I would be compliant if need be, but it really wouldn’t be that hard. This will surely depend on your status, employed, sub contract climber or employer, with many variables. The large operators like Gristwood and Toms will have HR departments, internal trainers and the financial clout to tick all the boxes effectively, job done if your employed there. Employed elsewhere, your at the mercy of the employer, good or bad. They will either take this seriously or not, you could pressure them, they see you as a shit stirrer and you get the chop, or they could see it as a simple exercise and get on it. Contract climber subbing for different companies. The companies may take this seriously and do regular practice with employees without your involvement, may involve you as a regular part of a team, or ignore it all together, you need to be proactive on this. Self employed/owner operator, it’s up to you to decide how best to manage your compliance. There have been several ideas put forward in this thread, none are hard to apply. At the end of the day, if you can’t rely on any of the above you could self rescue and just do what Dan Blocker suggested earlier, rec climb, bbq, beer and most importantly, make a record with as much detail as possible. Photos, various kit and scenarios, with or without safety line, with or without belay system and timings of all rescues etc. Post a first draft on here and tag one of the AA in on here, see what their response is, if positive crack on, if not, edit and review the information.

Your either physically performing aerial rescue practice and recording the information to comply with TG1, or your not. What you did or didn’t say you do is irrelevant.

I questioned why the 4 aerial rescue cases you mentioned couldn’t self rescue, apart from being unconscious, as it would be the quickest and safest way down. Having a competent climber on the ground to perform a rescue, then allowing the main climber to climb and cut without ppe and then need rescuing is utter madness, no matter how much rescue practice has been done. I have never claimed that rescuing a casualty isn’t an option, it is and always will be on all of my jobs, I obviously put more thought and provision on self rescue and less weight on being rescued, this comes from previous practice and the luxury of experienced ground staff who have my back. Do you comply with TG1 in performing mandatory aerial rescue or not? The OP has stated he doesn’t. If not, what valid reason do you have for this?

I have not claimed that at any point in this thread. Neither have I ‘Risked Assessed’ out the option of aerial rescue for myself or others on my job, If I can’t self rescue there will always be a competent climber on site to get me down. If TG1 states that Aerial rescue is mandatory, what reasons can you give for why you are not complying with it?

If you actually read my posts my position is pretty obvious.

In this situation, knowing the climber had epilepsy, you would always have a safety line and recovery plan in place, 30 minutes is an unbelievable time to be suspended in a harness, glad you even got down safely.

So basically your bigging up aerial rescue practice as mandatory, claiming your doing it, yet haven’t got any timings/data/images that might be useful for others to look at to offer discussion on how they might be improved, how one mechanical device reduced rescue time over friction hitches etc. Ive already said how long the Aerial Rescues we practiced would take, between 6 minutes up to double that, in most cases of severe bleeds, we deemed that to be too long. It’s a public forum but as I don’t agree with your view so I shouldn’t comment or have any further discussion, is that right?

I haven’t a clue what you are talking about. I haven’t made any claims that someone else carrying out an aerial rescue isn’t valid, of course it is in some circumstances, but self rescue if possible is the fastest and safest route, what part of that are you struggling with?

I currently live in France and I work here, in the UK and several other countries worldwide, what’s your point?

A prepared and competent climber who completely ignored the Health and Safety at Work act and allowed his colleague to cut in the tree with no PPE on?

The requirement and ability to be rescued is always there on any job I am on, I just put more weight and thought into self rescue than relying on others to do so, apart from being unconscious, I am confident I will get myself to the ground. How many times do you practice aerial rescue? Show us the recorded data that you have collated as evidence for your business as part of the MHSAWA.

Your Aerial rescue timings might be actually something like accurate, the rest of what you are claiming sounds like bullshit.

Not written anything off, just did some practice times with some very capable climbers, obviously not as good as you mind, your times must be competition grade. You’ve not supplied any data, just opinion and claiming you know of 4 recent arial rescues, let’s see your actual timings for your practice rescues instead. Arterial bleeds from thigh cuts, where these guys not wearing PPE then?

Thankfully I only work with very experienced colleagues. I’ve been climbing nearly 30 years, some guys I work with have more time under their belt, so 2 BBQ’s a year aren't really going to improve this. When we used to practice aerial rescue, the times would vary from around 6 minutes to double that, too long, I could apply a tourniquet and be down with the squad first aid kit in under a minute in most cases. Its up to you to do what you think is right, I’ve worked out what’s the best for me. For the guys who are practicing arial rescue regularly, let’s see some photos of the trees next time, with timings for each rescue, let’s see the data rather than opinion and we can make our own minds up on its importance.

Why where these climbers not equipped to stop an arterial bleed themselves and get themselves to the ground? Rather than relying on a person on the ground to get set up and rescue them (how long does this take in reality), slower than the time it takes for catastrophic blood loss from an arterial bleed in nearly all cases?

I have always had a healthy fear of heights, which got a little keener just after my first child was born. I’m quite happy tied in with rope and harness, but put me on a ladder at gutter height, and I’m shaking like a shitting whippet.

There are several there that are very vague in detail to say the least, where any these people doing someone a favour, working for payment or not? So a non working member of the public has been added to the HSE statistics, thats fact. Wether or not this happened on Council land isn’t stated, If so, the council would have had to report the death to RIDDOR anyway, not feel “obliged”too ask the HSE to investigate.

There are several case studies there where people are described as “self employed” or “contracting” when they are obviously people having a pop at tree work, if they aren’t being paid (reward) they aren’t at work, no ropes, no harnesses, working from ladders, really. One 85 year old member of the public was killed in a tree felling incident with his family collecting firewood, how is he not a member of the public? or has been deemed to be working? yet they still make it into the statistics.

I agree, but to have proper apprenticeships you would have to have regulation in place so the apprentice can be trained properly and meet a given criteria, how and who is going to conduct this?

When I did my RFS at Reasheath College back in the 90’s, I had excellent training/tuition, it gave me the grounding to keep myself safe and efficient since then. So your proposing no training, no assessments, no HSE? How will this benefit the industry as a whole then?

It’s been the dream for our entire careers, unfortunately it’s just a dream and will never happen, sadly.

Not all injuries are serious enough to need reporting to Riddor and not all serious injuries and near misses get reported either, otherwise the the HSE would have very accurate numbers, apart from fatalities, they haven’t. How many gardeners, builders have a go tree surgeons are currently doing tree work under the radar in the UK do you reckon, are these people being injured and reporting to RIDDOR?