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Second Edition : Sample Pages Life On A Line iii SAMPLE PAGES ONLY : NOT FOR RESALE OR EXTRACTION Contents INTRODUCTION 1 1a: The reasons behind this book 1 1b: A microscopic introduction to cave rescue 2 1c: Loads and Forces in a rescue system 4 1d: The way cave rescues ‘work’ 8 1e: Paperwork and management 10 CASUALTY CARE 13 2a: The premises of Casualty Care 13 2b: Bending rules, and patients 13 2c: Clinical Spine Clearance 14 2d: Suspension trauma 15 2e: What skills to know 17 2f: Medical Comms 19 2g: Casualty Microenvironments 19 2h: Suits of Armour and Dragons 20 ROPE & CORD 21 3a: Construction and materials 21 3b: EN, NFPA & UIAA standards for rope 23 3c: Choice of rope diameters for rescue 25 3d: The Nylon and Polyester Debate 26 3e: Accessory cord 27 3f: Transport and storage of rope 27 3g: Washing and drying rope 29 3h: Breaking in new ropes 30 INTRODUCTION TO KNOTS 31 4a: The elements of a knot 32 4b: Permanent knots 34 4c: Knots in cord and tape 35 4d: Freeing tight knots and the prybar krab 35 4e: Why knots are weak 36 4f: Knots we don’t want you to use 36 4g: Cowstails 38 ESSENTIAL KNOTS 39 1. Figure-8 40 2. Figure-9 43 3. Stein Knot 45 4. Yosemite Mountaineering Bowline 47 6. ‘Alpine’ Butterfly Knot 48 7. Italian Hitch 50 8. Tensionless Hitch 51 9. Classic 3-wrap Prusik Knot 52 10. Hedden Knot 53 11. Klemheist Knot 54 12. GARDA Hitch 55 13. Tape Knot 56 14. Double Fisherman’s Bend 57 The graphics quality is lowered on this sample. You may not extract material from this file for any commercial use or publication. See http://www.lifeonaline.com/legal/ for info. iv Life On A Line Second Edition www.lifeonaline.com SAMPLE PAGES ONLY : NOT FOR RESALE OR EXTRACTION 15. Triple Fisherman’s Bend 58 16. Barrel Knot 59 17. Constrictor Knot 60 18. Dog & Tails 62 FORCES & FRICTION 63 6a: What exactly is friction? 63 6b: Friction and real-world equipment 67 6c: Friction values for devices and edges 69 6d: Vectors and finding the Force 70 PULLEYS & DESCENDERS 73 7a: Pulleys 73 7b: Choosing your pulleys 74 7c: Ratchet Pulleys 76 7d: Descenders 79 HARDWARE & FABRICS 85 8a: Karabiners 85 8b: Maillon Rapides 87 8c: Slings 88 8d: Polymers used for textile equipment 89 8e: Common chemicals and their effects 93 8f: Materials used in commercial ropes 94 8g: Rope clamps 95 8h: Energy absorbers 97 8i: Swivels 98 STRETCHERS 99 9a: Basket litters 99 9b: Neil Robertson Stretchers 100 9c: Cocoon Stretchers 100 9d: Spinal splints 101 9e: Vacuum Splints 102 9f: Foam Sandwiches 102 9g: Stretcher lifting geometry 103 9h: Bridles for horizontal lifting 104 9i: Is length important? 106 9j: The ‘safety link’ in a stretcher 106 9k: Casualty fall arrest harnesses 107 9l: The barrowboy 107 ANCHORS 109 10a: How strong should an anchor be? 110 10b: Slinging 111 10c: Natural anchors 112 10d: Props 114 10e: Ground stakes 115 10f: Camming devices 116 10g: Bolts and hangers 117 10h: Rigging to anchors 124 10h: Classes of anchor 126 The graphics quality is lowered on this sample. You may not extract material from this file for any commercial use or publication. See http://www.lifeonaline.com/legal/ for info. Life On A Line v SAMPLE PAGES ONLY : NOT FOR RESALE OR EXTRACTION BELAYS & BACKUPS 131 11a: The forces during a fall 131 11b: Belay devices 133 11c: Fall arrest lines 135 11d: Backup systems 136 11e: Sharing anchors 137 11f: Routing the backup line 138 SIMPLE HAULING 139 12a: Lowering systems 140 12b: The goals of hauling systems 140 12c: Rope capture systems 141 12d: Mechanical Advantage 144 12e: The V-rig - 2:1 advantage 145 12f: Pulley systems with friction 145 12g: The block and tackle 147 12h: The Z-rig - 3:1 advantage 147 12i: Multiplying mechanical advantage 148 12j: More than 3:1 149 12k: Jiggers 150 12l: Inchworms 152 12m: Load release hitches 153 COMPLEX & SRT RESCUE 155 13a: Counterbalance systems 155 13b: Passing rebelays and deviations 157 13c: Quadpods, tripods and headgear 158 13d: SRT rescues 162 13e: How much is too much? 165 TRAVERSES 167 14a: The knotty traverse 167 14b: The Tarzan traverse 169 14c: Highline traverses - simple style 170 14d: Tensions in highline traverses 171 14e: Building highlines without computers 175 14f: Materials for runaway lines 176 14g: Highline traverses - crane jib style 178 14h: Cableways 180 SPECIAL RESCUE 181 15a: Expedition Rescue 181 15b: Expedition First Aid supplies 182 15c: ‘Rescue’ gear for an expedition 183 15d: Self-contained rescues 184 15e: The alert system for remote areas 184 15f: Large animal rescue 185 15g: Lifting rocks 187 WINCHES 189 16a: Styles of winch 189 16b: Powered ascenders 190 16c: Precautions using powered winches 191 The graphics quality is lowered on this sample. You may not extract material from this file for any commercial use or publication. See http://www.lifeonaline.com/legal/ for info. vi Life On A Line Second Edition www.lifeonaline.com SAMPLE PAGES ONLY : NOT FOR RESALE OR EXTRACTION EQUIPMENT CARE 193 17a: Cleaning your gear 193 17b: Inspection procedures 194 17c: Frequency of inspections 195 17d: Labelling 197 17e: Inspecting textiles (ropes & webbing) 198 17f: Inspecting metal 201 17g: The impact of legislation 204 17h: Destruction, Death and eBay 205 REFERENCES & LINKS 207 18a: Official standards and information 207 18b: National rescue bodies and links 207 18d: UIAA Standard Equivalents 208 18e: References used in the text 209 18f: Media credits and contributions 210 INDEX 211 © Printing and copying this book As you’ve obtained the book electronically, many of you will want to print it onto good old-fashioned paper. We’re fine with that - you can print out the entire book to make a single copy, or print out selected sections. Once you’ve made your printout we have no objection to you passing it amongst your team or club, posting pages on the notice board or laminating them and taking them down a hole. You just can’t start making multiple copies and giving them away like they’re free, and you cannot sell printouts you’ve made in your store, on your website or in the local bar. It’s a small world and we know the people who’ve tried it in the past. You will receive slappage. We also insist that the electronic version of the book is kept secure and private. You are not permitted to place the book, in any format including but not limited to the original PDF file, on any computer network accessible to the public. This includes posting the book or sections of it to a website (even behind a member’s area or password- protected folder), sharing via peer-to-peer or burning more than one CD or DVD copy. You may not re-sell electronic copies of this book without a written license agreement and per-sale payments to us. You may not use this book as-is for commercial training or education where delegates are charged fees or as a constituent part of any official policy or operational code of practice. We are prefectly happy with rescue teams adopting the protocols in our book as ‘standard practice’, but do not wish to see a complete copy of this book attached to the back of a training manual or policy document published by someone else! We have taken the time to write it, you can therefore take the time to rewrite it. For the full terms and conditions of the eBook license, see http://www.lifeonaline.com/legal The graphics quality is lowered on this sample. You may not extract material from this file for any commercial use or publication. See http://www.lifeonaline.com/legal/ for info. Life On A Line vii SAMPLE PAGES ONLY : NOT FOR RESALE OR EXTRACTION Life On A Line the story continues he original edition of Life On A Line was several years in the making, and was expected to circulate around a few Tcave rescue teams and sport cavers. In reality, we’ve seen a little over 100,000 downloads of the book, and almost half of those are outside the ‘planned area’ of the UK. Copies have surfaced as part of conferences, been adapted into official training programs, and been nailed to notice boards from the far reaches of the Urals to Federal agencies in the US and Australasia. Fine by us, but clearly a book written for British cavers needs a lot of interpretation to be applied to urban search and rescue teams, high angle riggers and a TV crew working in the Amazonian rainforest. The world also moves on, and whilst we have been updating LOAL1 in chunks, it came time to rebuild the beast from the ground down (pun intended), taking into account new equipment, test results and techniques. The book is still aimed at cave/mine rescue teams working within the volunteer sector, but it’s broadened to fit better with ‘paid industry people’ such as confined space rescue units and USAR. We’ve increased the detail on standards and the differences between ‘work’ and ‘rescue’, so that teams can decide how to implement the techniques based on their country and legal status, but what we really must stress above all else is that LOAL2 remains a book about rescue. The idea that it’s an emergency and you, the Insanely Sexy Rescuer, are the last and only hope of the poor casualty is paramount.
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