Lucas Volunteer Fire Department

2003 Volunteer Certification Training
Adv 14 - Ropes & SCBAs
Collin County Community College
October 11, 2003
Photos by David Leonard
Members of the Lucas Fire Department continue to work toward their Advanced Firefighter Certification at the Collin County Community College's Fire Science Training facility.

This month's class covered Ropes and Rope Rescue

Topics included:

  • Rescue Knots
  • High Angle Rescue
  • Rope Anchors
  • Rapelling Safety
  • Transfering a victim to a rescuer's rope
The class was held inside the College's fire tower with the students lowering themselves from a third story catwalk down to the bottom of the tower.

A portion of the team was assigned the responsibility of rigging a safe lowering system. The system was required to be secured to stable anchor points and still be accessible by those being lowered.

The riggers also had to prepare a set of secure "safety" lines to protect the "rescuers" in the event something should go wrong with the primary lowering system.

Two other members designated as the "rescuers" were required to don the safety harness and correctly attach themselves to the lowering system.

Once the instructors determined the system was safe, the rescuers "went over the side" to secure the victim.

The victim in this exercise was a window washer that had fallen from his scaffolding and was suspended by a safety harness. The rescuer was required to lower himself/herself (that's for you "Red") down to the victim, secure the victim to the rescue rig, release the victim's harness and lower both people safely to the ground.

Each member of the class took the role of rescuer as many times as necessary until they were able to comfortably don the harness and safely lower themselves to the ground.