ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area RESCUE at 400+ feet

KAUFMAN,TEXAS
A guy passed out today from HEAT while 400 feet up on a radio or phone tower. He was able to secure his safety harness to the ladder before he passed out and fell dangling from the ladder.
That had to be an amazing rescue to see do not know if they use a helicopter with a swing a man from a cable to him rescue or how they got him down for sure .
Several years ago i saw a guy plucked from a 1000 ft. by some guy swinging from a cable out to him and clamping himself to the guy on the ladder and then the chopper pilot lowerd them both to the ground.Any one here how they got this guy down and or have any of you ever been in this type of situation

hi doc;
not every town, at least out here in the sticks can afford a 'rescue from hieghts' team. http://www.rescueresponse.com/html/training.html
so, many times there are select members throughout a rural area that collect it's worthy members to form an ad-hoc team.
it's an interesting nitch full of mountanering gear, kernmantle ropes, carabeaners, and many fancy knots.
much of it looks fairly wild, but there is a lot of redundant safety incorporated, as well as much training. the closest i got was to be the volly patient at a drill, and was 'rescued' via stokes basket. it was pretty cool, they did good, no cowboy stuff. some of the dudes into this can tie a bowline with one hand, the viens in thier forearms stick out like garden hoses if they even scratch their nose....

When I was in the Navy, aboard USS Ranger CV-61, I used to have to climb up to the "Range Light". That's the red light on the very top of the mast of the ship. I don't know how high it was, but I will tell you that my back side was puckered up tighter than a drum.

This reminds me of an event that happened up here in the province of quebec within the last year. A man flying his private Cessna crashed into the top of a radio tower some 100 metres (300+ feet) up. The aircraft was lodged firmly with the (presumably) dead pilot in the tower. After concluding that the guy wires would prevent any sort of helicopter rescue, not to mention how they would cut the man out of the plane once they were there, they were forced to cut the guys, and let the tower fall over some 8 days later, much to the distress of the unfortunate widow. Made for an interesting landmark for a week, to say the least.

seems there's a lot of heat stroke deals down there in Texas latley...