Members of the Smithville-DeKalb County Rescue Squad spent the weekend brushing up on their training in rope rescue techniques.
Mike Crum, Captain of the Metro Nashville Fire Department, conducted an instruction class on Saturday at the local rescue squad building. The group then traveled to a location on Highway 96 in Liberty Sunday to practice the use of ropes in rappelling down a rock bluff .
Joe Johnson, member of the local Rescue Squad, told WJLE Sunday the training is designed to better prepare members of the rescue squad in the event of catastrophic events. “We had a re-certification on rappelling with ropes which are used in going down bluffs or steep places to reach people who are hurt and then carrying them back up. We use (ropes to rappel) in caves and bluffs on the lake,” he said.
“Mike Crum is a Captain and rope instructor for the Metro Fire Department and he donated two days of his time Saturday and Sunday to teach us the proper and safe way to recover anyone who might fall and get hurt. We went through this class once before but we have some new people (members) who hadn’t been through it (class) or hadn’t done the rappelling. For those who didn’t (rappel during the exercise) we had places (assignments) for them at the top of the bluff in making sure the ropes were anchored properly. We got our people (members) familiar with the harness and how to put it on correctly and how to get the patient up safely in a basket. Mike taught us how to do that,” said Johnson.
“The Rescue Squad asked me to come and do a refresher on a class I did about two years ago here. We were just honing their skills and getting them ready for an emergency in which they would need to be using ropes, whether it be a cave, the side of a bluff, or a river bank. It’s just easier for the rescue people if we can use some ropes and pulleys,” said Captain Crum in an interview with WJLE. “You don’t have the tall buildings here like we do in Nashville but the system they (rescue squad members) are learning this weekend will work anywhere. In the rescue world we don’t do a whole lot of rappelling or climbing of rope anymore. What we do now is we lower a rescuer down and haul a rescuer back up. It’s a lot safer and a lot quicker and it can be a lot less time consuming. It’s awful hard to bring a patient back up with you when you are climbing the rope. There is a little bit of classroom work that comes with this. I am not real big on classroom work. I like for people to actually get their hands on the rope and see how the system works. These guys this weekend have been fantastic work with. They are very attentive,” said Captain Crum.