High Ropes - 06/14

High Ropes Rescue Refresher

Instructors - Askea O' Dowd, Me (Emmet Ó Seochrú)

When I got the job in Killarney High Ropes I had to do a small refresher with the boss just to show that I still knew what I was doing after my year working at Zipit Forest Adventures in Lough Key, Co. Roscommon. My Boss Askea Told me to do the course first just so I knew how it went before doing rescues. This course was very different to Zipits courses as this one had a hook and caribeaner system where as Zipit had the 'bornack' system. 

It took me about an hour to do the course and after that we went straight into training. We went up onto the first obstacle which was a tight rope. Here Caroline acted as the person being rescued and I had to do it. 

She had to act as if she was stuck on the platform before the tight rope and was too scared to move on. I then had the set up the I.D (gri gri) 

and lower her down. She also had to act to be scared of the I.D so that made it even trickier. When that was a success we moved on to the next rescue. 

Here Caroline slipped on the tight rope and I had to go out and rescue her. These kind of rescues are a lot harder as you as the rescuer has to balance on the obstacle while rescuing the person. Here I had to set up the I.D off the belay cable and lower her down that way. This can also cause problems as your own carribeaners are on the same cable so when you lower the person off that cable, the weight of them can throw you off balance. This was also a success though as I was able to get Caroline down safely while keeping my balance at the same time.

The last rescue I had to do was when Caroline was suspended in the middle of a zip line and not able to move either way. Here Askea was telling me to stand on one platform on either one side or the other and throw a rope with a carribeaner on it to the subject. the subject should then hook it onto themselves and I then pull them in. 

I completely disagreed with this and showed her what I thought should be done. I zipped out to her in the middle of the line, hooked one of my carribeaners onto her and then pulled her all the way in. This is way quicker and also a lot safer.