Vertical Rescue Philosophy

The aim of vertical rescue is to save lives and minimise suffering - the same aim as any field of rescue, first aid or casualty care. It is important to keep this in mind when considering Vertical Rescue, as all too easily when the pressure is on, rescuers get tunnel vision, become eraptured in the technicalities, or otherwise absorbed in the job and lose sight of the real goal.

Vertical Rescue is by its nature a hazardous activity. The philosophy of vertical rescue is all about balancing risks and the task. In many cases, particularly when rescuing people from abseiling or climbing accidents, the rescuers must not only be able to safely handle the same hazards that brought the casualty unstuck, but they must then still have enough capacity to reassure and manage the casualty, and effect the rescue in a safe manner! Vertical Rescue is not to be undertaken lightly.

When designing a vertical rescue protocol, there are some critical factors that must be kept in mind. Often vertical rescues involve fall victims and this typically means serious injuries such as head, spinal and internal injuries. In many of these cases, if the casualty is alive when rescue arrives, the pressure is ON! With serious injuries, medical personnel often talk about the magic hour. If the right medical help can be started within an hour of the accident, the chances of recovery are greatly improved. In a lot of cases it may take an hour or more to respond, so time is of the essence! As a result the protocol must be versatile, simple, and safe.

Controlling Risk

Controlling Risk starts with the design of the vertical rescue protocol, and continues through every aspect of vertical rescue. The most important philosophical aspects of controlling risk are:

• Hazard Identification
• Risk Management
• The KISS Principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid!)
• Versatility

Hazard Identification

Hazard Identification starts when the protocol is being designed and continues on the job. When designing the protocol consider the common hazards that vertical rescues involve: heights and depths; falling objects and debris; sharp edges; slippery or loose surfaces; obstacles such as trees and rocks; friction; etc. The protocol must be capable of dealing with all the common hazards. In some cases, a service or unit may only have to deal with a reduced subset of the possible hazards. For example, their biggest pitch might be less than 50 metre high and they only have to deal with sea cliffs and high rise buildings. An industrial rescue team may only have man-made structures less than 50 m high to accomodate in their protocol. These sorts of reduced hazard response needs can help to greatly simplify the rescue protocol and the training required.

A good way of designing a protocol, in fact the only thorough way, is to do a Failure Mode Analysis on the whole system. This involves considering every link in the Vertical Rescue System and identifying how it can fail, and then identifying what is built into the protocol to prevent, or at the very least control, that failure mode. If there is no control for a failure mode, the protocol is not complete, so it is not safe.

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