Ropes, pulleys, knots, thoughts save lives

Photo By Collen McGee | Spc. Terrence Fantroy-Hankins, attached a rescue line and began to retrieve a bridge worker, portrayed by a manikin, after a simulated fall from the 3-mile creek bridge during a training exercise designed to put the Ropes Technician Course training to the test Sept. 26. Fantroy-Hankins is a member of the Army Reserve from Hutchinson, Kansas. (U.S. Army Photo by Collen McGee)  

FORT RILEY, KS, UNITED STATES

10.03.2019

Story by Collen McGee 

Fort Riley Public Affairs Office

Fort Riley Fire and Emergency personnel train. They learn techniques to save lives and keep themselves safe while doing so. Most recently, firefighters from Fort Riley, two Soldiers
from an Army Reserve unit in Hutchinson, Kansas, and another one from Watervliet Arsenal, near Albany, New York, went through an 18-day course to be classified as rope technicians.
The use of ropes, pulleys, carabiners and specific knots for specific jobs were all taught in the classroom by a two-person mobile training team out of Goodfellow Air Force Base, San Angelo, Texas. After the classroom, firefighters practiced on a scenario that played out from a bridge over 3-Mile Creek on Fort Riley’s Huebner Road.
The firefighters were practicing a rescue where two manikins, portraying bridge repair technicians, had an accident from a bridge that left one on the bank with a broken leg and one suspended from his safety harness. The bridge was rendered unsafe and the rescuers had to find another way to reach, treat and retrieve the workers.
They had to build their own way to reach the injured bridge workers. That system had to start with a solid connection to the ground.
“They are creating a picket system anchor so they can do a highline rescue and a low angle rescue,” said Air Force Tech. Sgt. William Wailgum, instructor for the course.
The anchor consists of six metal pickets pounded into the ground with a sledge hammer in the shape of a pyramid pointing at the opposite side of the creek.
From there, ropes would cross the creek, be passed through pulleys and a Paratech bipod support system, to provide an artificial high point, and then they were anchored to a vehicle. Then a series of more ropes and knots will hold the tension creating a support system that crossed the creek and its approximately 35-foot deep channel.
The Ropes Technician Course gave the firefighters the knowledge to build the apparatus that would get them safely back to level, solid ground.
It also provided a redundant system so that if one rope were to break, there was a backup already secured to the rescuers and the apparatus they built.
“I wish it were that easy,” said Fort Riley Fire Lt. Noah Van Schaick. “It sometimes is, but it doesn’t help to hurry.”
He explained that rushing to failure isn’t safe for the victim or the rescuer.
“We take risks, but they are calculated risks,” said Fort Riley Fire Capt. Randy Engel. “If the bridge was in play, we’d just go off the bridge.”
That is where the thinking comes in. Decisions had to be made about how to employ the rope gear now in place.
For the high ropes rescue of the man hanging from the bridge, Spc. Terrence Fantroy-Hankins, of the Army Reserve unit in Hutchinson, Kansas, was harnessed and hauled to the suspended victim with ropes, pulleys, guide lines, safety gear and all.
When he reached the bridge manikin, he turned upside down and connected a line to the worker’s safety harness. Once connected, Fantroy-Hankins disconnected the worker from his safety harness and transferred his weight to the rescue system. The hardest part was done.
Now it was time to bring the injured worker on the bank up over the rocks to the top of the ravine. Wailgum said the more critical of the two was the victim with no apparent injuries suspended by his safety harness. The pressure of being suspended, once released, could cause what he called suspension shock and can be fatal. So, getting that person off the bridge was the top priority.
The second victim was being seen to by a rescuer who walked down the rocks at the end of a rope system which also went through the bipod and helped keep enough tension on the descending firefighter to ease the descent along the rocky sides of the channel and provide some level of safety.
The rocks lining the creek’s bank also meant that bringing a litter-bound patient up from the bottom wouldn’t be a matter of tying off the Stokes basket, or metal litter, and pulling it up. To minimize the risk of further patient injury, the team had to decide if they would lower the Stokes basket to the rescuer and raise the victim on the high ropes, or walk it down with two more rescuers and have all three walk it up on a low rope rescue.
The team chose the low ropes as the easiest and safest for that part.
Sometimes, one rope isn’t enough to extricate a victim from a chasm.
“This works best when done at the length of the rope,” said Fort Riley Fire Lt. Randy Lara. “But, they can knot ropes together in extreme cases. However, that does introduce other concerns with the ability to anchor the weight of the rescuers and the person they came to help.”
Choosing the ropes, the apparatus, the anchors and the method were all a part of this culmination of training, according to Air Force Tech. Sgt. Trevor Williams, the second half of the mobile training team out of Goodfellow. Once this part of the training is complete, the team heads back into the classroom for a lesson on rescuing in confined spaces.
“The course consists of three blocks of training,” said Williams. “Fundamentals, Rope Rescue and confined spaces.”
The mobile training team had been suspended from traveling in recent years due to funding, but this year they were finally able to get out and Fort Riley made the list. From here, they head to Scott Air Force Base in Illinois.
“I had to look it up,” said Wailgum. “I didn’t know where Fort Riley was.”
Not only did he have to find it on the map, Wailgum said his expectations after finding it in Kansas were also blown away.
“I expected it to be flat,” he said. “I didn’t expect to see all the trees, hills and how green it was. It’s beautiful here."

• Date Taken: 10.03.2019
• Date Posted: 10.04.2019 12:55
• Story ID: 345925
• Location: FORT RILEY, KS, US