By Tom Sitz
You’re on the roof when your partner has a sudden cardiac event or some other type of injury that leaves him unresponsive. How does a lone firefighter rapidly extricate this down firefighter to give him the best chance of survival? Well, if your department is running a five- or six-member truck and parking a tower ladder (chauffeur is at the truck with the platform up) in front of every dwelling fire, this really shouldn’t be that hard to figure out. A better question to ask is, How does the understaffed, underequipped fire department rapidly extricate this firefighter so that he can receive advanced medical care within two to three minutes after collapsing?
Following is a technique in which a lone firefighter on the roof and one on the ground (could be the incident commander or the pump operator—remember, this is a life-and-death situation) can move this firefighter to the ground using only the equipment they carry and a roof ladder within two to three minutes (with practice).
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When the Painesville Township (OH) Fire Department is fully staffed (about 25 percent of the time), we respond with a lieutenant and three firefighters out of one station and three firefighters out of the second station. The other 75 percent of the time we are running three and three, responding in one engine and one squad (ambulance). We do have a reciprocating automatic mutual-aid agreement with a neighboring department on all reported building fires; if they are available, we end up with nine to 11 firefighters on the scene, showing up in groups of three, spaced a couple of minutes apart for the first 10 minutes. As you can see, it is pretty rare for us to be able to put more than two firefighters on the roof initially to vent an attic fire, just like 90 percent of the rest of the country.
All firefighters on my shift carry the same basic self-rescue/”keep-yourself-out-of-trouble” equipment in their bunker gear. This equipment includes the following: a 40-foot personal rescue rope with two carabiners; 161/2-foot one-inch tubular webbing (16 feet so you can put yourself in a rescue harness when you’re breathing apparatus-equipped; six inches for the water knot); a knife; a flashlight; eye protection; hearing protection; two door wedges; and a door latch strap.
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We have unannounced gear inspections every other month to check this equipment. Besides the obvious fact that everyone keeps their personal equipment squared away, this also has the added benefit of having all on the shift see in which pocket other members carry the equipment.
EQUIPMENT NEEDED
You will need the following equipment for this technique: two bags of personal rope (we use 40 feet of 8mm static kernmantle); two 161/2-foot one-inch tubular webbing in a water knot (second webbing is needed only if the firefighter is not breathing apparatus-equipped); and a roof ladder (hope-fully already deployed, since you are working on a peaked roof).
BREATHING APPARATUS-EQUIPPED FIREFIGHTER REMOVAL
Step 1: Assess the down firefighter and give a “Mayday” call.
Step 2: If the firefighter is in danger of sliding down the roof, rapidly secure him to the roof ladder or another substantial object. You can do this very quickly by rolling the firefighter on his back or side and placing his air bottle between the ladder rungs. You can also take the down firefighter’s personal rope and tie his breathing apparatus into the roof ladder (see photos 1 and 2).
Step 3: Make your anchor point by wrapping your tubular webbing around a rung and pulling it through itself. Take one carabiner off your rope and hook it to the webbing (see photos 3 and 4).
Step 4: Turn the breathing apparatus harness into a rescue harness. Place your other carabiner through both shoulder straps and clip it back on the rope. Tighten the chest straps. Loosen the waist straps; flex one leg at the knee. Buckle the waist strap mid-thigh and tighten, trying to keep the leg in a flexed position (see photos 5 and 6).
Step 5: Put a Munter Hitch in the standing end of your rope, and tie it into the carabiner. To make a Munter Hitch, hold the rope palms-down and bring your right palm to your left palm, making a loop. Hold the loop in your left hand and, with your right hand, grab the right side of the rope a couple of inches behind the loop and bring it to the top of the loop. Tie it into the carabiner at this point. To test your knot, when you pull on the load side of the rope it should pull the running end through the knot. When you pull on the running side, the knot should flip, locking your load in place. The firefighter minding the hitch should be facing it so his back will be toward the ground. This re-quires the ground firefighter to give commands to the roof firefighter—for example, “Feed slack,” “Lock the load” (see photos 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11).
Step 6: The firefighter is now tied into the system and can be secured to the ladder by making a bight in the running end of the rope and tying a clove hitch around a rung. You need do this only if you did not place the firefighter on the roof ladder and he is in danger of sliding off the roof.
Step 7: Take the other personal rope out of the down firefighter’s pocket, or untie it from the ladder. Make a handcuff knot in the middle of the rope, and lower both carabiners to the firefighter on the ground. To tie a handcuff knot, make two loops in the middle of the rope. Pull the right loop over and through the left loop while pulling the left loop under and through the right loop. Place the two loops over the firefighter’s ankles and tighten the loops by pulling out the slack in them (see photos 12, 13, 14, and 15).
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Step 8: The firefighter on the ground begins to slide the down firefighter along the roof by pul-ling on the rope. The firefighter on the ladder feeds slack through the Munter Hitch by pulling on the load side (see photo 16).
Step 9: When the down firefighter goes over the edge of the roof, he gets picked up by the Munter Hitch; lower him to the ground by sliding the running end through the hitch. The roof firefighter can stop the descending firefighter by pulling on the running side of the rope, flipping the knot, locking the load into place. This can be done and held onto with one hand. To start the descent again, pull on the load side to flip the knot back and feed slack to the running side. (Note: You may not be able to always flip the Munter Hitch when it picks up the load over the edge of the roof. I believe the diameter of your rope and a different carabiner configuration affect this, but we have been successful every time we ran this drill in locking the descending firefighter into place by just using the grip strength of one hand.) The Munter Hitch itself creates enough friction so that just gripping the running side of the rope stops the load from moving, whether vertical or horizontal (see photos 17 and 18).
NONBREATHING APPARATUS-EQUIPPED FIREFIGHTER REMOVAL
Step 1: Same as above.
Step 2: If the firefighter is in danger of sliding down the roof, you can rapidly place him in a handcuff knot, then wrap your carabiner around a rung once or twice and clip back on the rope.
Step 3: Same as above.
Step 4: Place the firefighter in a rescue harness and roll him on his side. Lay out your one-inch webbing next to the firefighter in a large circle so it goes from his armpit to mid-thigh, and roll him back onto the strap face up. Pull up the strap around the side of his chest, and hold. With your other hand, grab the strap between his legs and pull up to his chest and over the strap around his chest. Clip a carabiner into the two loops you just created around the firefighter’s chest. The firefighter is now in a rescue harness (see photos 19, 20, and 21).
Step 5: Same as above.
Step 6: Same as above.
Step 7: Same as above.
Step 8: Same as above.
Step 9: Same as above (see photo 22).
This technique can be used on all roof pitches. In fact, the steeper the peak, the safer it is, because the rescuer never has to get close to the edge. If the down firefighter gets caught up on the edge, the firefighter on the ground can pull him free. The roof in these photos had an 8/12 pitch, which made it unsafe to leave the ladder more than one to two feet, which the rescuers never did.
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I fully understand that the breathing apparatus manufacturers did not intend for their apparatus to be converted into a rescue harness, but it works and it can be done safely. This is just another tool to place in your “toolbox” like the head-first ladder slide and the self-rescue rappel from a second-story window—all techniques in which the aggressive firefighter needs to be proficient by constantly practicing. This is an excellent evolution for RIC/FAST drills. Try it. I think you will be pleasantly surprised at its simplicity and speed of setup.
Thanks to Painesville Township Fire B shift for their assistance with this article.
Endnotes
1. Norman, John. “Firefighter Rescue, Part 2.” Firehouse, November 1993.
2. Noonan, Dan. Public Safety Consultants’ Extreme Firefighter Rescue Seminar.
TOM SITZ is a lieutenant and a 17-year veteran of the Painesville Township (OH) Fire Department. He is a shift supervisor and training officer. Sitz has an associate degree in fire science and is a state-certified instructor, inspector, and haz-mat technician.
Photos by author.
