Caving rescue practice

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Graham Coates is going through his CIC assessment and was going to the Yorkshire Dales Guides barn to do some rescue practice so I met him and learnt something.

Rescues practiced -

• If belaying from above with a gri gri, convert it to a haul. This is fairly straight forward; lock off the gri gri with the rope, make a z rig or counterbalance and haul away.
• If belaying from above with an Italian Hitch, convert it to a haul. Fasten your foot loop to the Y hang and use your hand jammer on the other end to hold the loaded rope. Release the Italian Hitch and replace it with a Stop or pulley jammer. Remove the footloop and hand jammer, make a z rig or counterbalance and haul away. - I need to check the strength of my Petzl dyneema footloop.
• Caver stuck on rope whilst jumaring up, I am above with a spare rope. On the end of the spare rope tie a Fig 8 and attach a hand jammer to it. Rig an inverted Stop onto the spare rope and clip into the Y hang. Push the hand jammer down the loaded rope leaving sufficient rope on the loaded rope between the jammer and the Y hang so that when you cut it you can tie two overhand knots in each end. **Make sure that the jammer and spare rope is not twisted round the loaded rope. It’s possible to place it so that there’s a natural gap between the loaded rope and the spare rope. This really, really helps when you come to cut the loaded rope! **Once the jammer is pushed down as far as it’ll go cut the loaded rope, tie an overhand above the now cut rope, just above the jammer, and one just below the Y hang. Don’t cut too close to either the Y hang or the jammer. Lower the caver to the ground.
• Rescuing an abseiler from above with no spare rope, past a rebelay. The aim is to lower to the ground. This is trickier although the concept is easy. Down jumar to the caver, stopping just above. him and lock off his abseil device. Clip your long cowstail into his central maillon (or his long cowstail into your central maillon?) and prepare your short cowstail, or preferably, two chained karabiners. Stand in your footloop, release your chest jammer and lower yourself until you can attach your short cowstail to his central maillon. I used an extra karabiner clipped to my long cowstail karabiner and my central maillon. Release your hand jammer and abseil down to the rebelay using his abseil device. For this manoeuvre to work it needs a very short link ( two karabiners is perfect) and a hand jammer attachment which is long enough to enable you to stand up, release your chest jammer and then sit down two karabiners length below the caver being rescued. It’s longer than my current hand jammer attachment!

** **Abseil down to the rebelay and stop next to it. Make sure that the rope loop isn’t tangled, between you legs, twisted between you and the other caver etc. Attach your Stop to the next rope, as close to the knot as possible, and lock it off. Continue abseil on the other cavers abseil device until you load your Stop. Unload his abseil device, remove it and abseil to the floor on your Stop. If the belay loop isn’t long enough to allow you to remove the other cavers abseil device you’ll have to cut the rope. Attaching your Stop as close to the knot as possible helps avoid this.

Things to do:

Replace the top bobbin on my Stop, mine slips even on 10mm rope.

Consider using a normal central maillon instead of a twist lock. Some rescues result in the central maillon twisting round which abraids your harness when you use a twist lock. A normal maillon has more room on the bottom to clip into and clipping here avoids the maillon twisting round.

Lengthen my hand jammer cowstail. 

Remove my short cowstail loop. I currently use a french style SRT. I have two long cowstails, one of which has my hand jammer attached to it. My foot loop is a Petzl dyneema adjustable cord which can be securely attached to my foot and clipped into my harness gear loop with a karabiner. When I need it I take it off my gear loop ( I can’t drop it at this stage as it’s attached to my foot as well as passing through a couple of rubber loops on my leg) and clip the karabiner into the hand jammer karabiner. My short cowstail is a short loop of rope which I attach my long cowstail karabiner to. I quite like it but it is a bit untidy and can look a bit confusing sometimes. Two karabiners, or an extra karabiner attached to my long cowstail karabiner, is a better length for rescues. It’s not as good for abseiling past rebelays but it’s not a massive issue.

Check the strength of my Petzl dyneema footloop.

Practice more rescues!