I've spent a lot of time working around machinery that makes our Jeeps look like toys. I've also spent the last five years of my professional life working as a high angle rescue technician. This has taught me a few things about safe and unsafe ways to use equipment in dangerous settings. I've seen a lot of close calls and some bad outcomes in situations that give real meaning to the term "high stakes".
For what it's worth, these are the things that are in the front of my mind when I think about what I witnessed on Saturday.
#1. High quality hardware. Everything from bolts and nuts holding tow hooks onto bumpers through to hitch pins, shackles and snatch blocks. Spend the money, do the research, buy the good stuff. Make sure that the stuff you bought last year hasn't rusted...and check it BEFORE you're stuck. Preferably when you're still in town so that you can replace it! If you're not sure about what the quality of the hardware is, then replace it all. Doing that is cheap compared to the alternative
#2. Check it, use it, clean it, and check it again. Even with the best equipment in the world, it can be weakened by heavy use, improper loading, corrosion, impact damage, or simply time. Even if you've never used it, a "soft" item like a tow strap has a fixed shelf life. In the high angle rescue world, you don't ever use anything that you don't know the entire history of, and you don't ever use a harness or rope that has exceeded it's reccomended lifespan.
#3. The line of fire. Even if you're 300 feet away from a recovery, you may still be at risk. As some of us saw on Saturday, distance from the recovery (or even a vehicle between you and where the recovery is occuring) is no insurance that you're protected. Pay attention to what's happening, analyze where the danger may be something fails, and move yourself and other people out of the danger zone. If you're not sure where the danger zone is, move well away, and don't be in a direct line (forwards or rearwards) with the direction that the pull is happening.
#4. There are no exceptions to the laws of physics. When compared to the amount of energy that we load into a system of tow straps or winch cable during a recovery, our bodies (and even our Jeeps) are fragile things. Once that amount of energy is transfered into a piece of metal, the potential for disaster is huge. This reality is made even worse by the fact that we're essentially on our own out there. 911 doesn't work in most of the places that we do recoveries.
Topic: nov 29 (Read 14283 times)