January 23, 2025 • 48 mins
This episode features Grant Light, Josh Blum and John Vance.
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This episode was recorded on January 16, 2025.
A technical rescue operation at a Duke Energy smokestack highlights the critical importance of communication, teamwork, and planning in emergency situations. The coordinated efforts of multiple teams allowed for the safe extraction of a worker trapped 150 feet in the air.
• Overview of the emergency call and initial fire department response
• Assessment of the worker's situation and elevator stability
• Communication with technical experts for real-time updates
• Formulation of a rescue strategy with a focus on safety
• Use of crane technology over alternative rope rescue methods
• Successful communication between rescue teams on-site
• Post-incident debriefing to assess response and identify lessons learned
• Importance of training and understanding equipment in rescue scenarios
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Welcome everyone to the B-Shifter Podcast.
You've got John Vance here,along with Josh Blum, and today
Grant Light is with us.
Good day, gentlemen.
How are you doing?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Doing wonderful.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
All good, just still got a ton of white stuff on the
ground here and I think recordcold temperatures coming this
week for sure.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Cincinnati you guys have been hammered.
I mean, are you at record snowright now?
Is that the deal?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
I think we've got record snow and then we've got
more snow on the ground Thanwe've had for any period of time
I think ever.
And then I think Monday, thiscoming Monday, I think it's
going to be like record cold.
Those guys coming in town for atrainer Phoenix, las Vegas and
Houston I told them you betterpack an extra bag.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
We had some there in town.
It was cold.
We had to provide them withcoats.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
I am at the AVVCTC in beautiful Phoenix right now
it's a balmy 68 degrees.
It almost feels like we have alittle bit of a marine inversion
.
So there's actually a littlehumidity in the air, which feels
fantastic.
But unfortunately I'm going tohave the harsh slap of reality
around 1030 tomorrow when I landat MSP and find myself back in
(01:40):
Minneapolis with much of thesame weather.
So I'll enjoy this while I can.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
John, I'm super happy that humidity must be causing
your mustache to grow back.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
I know you like that.
It's kind of like a chia pet.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Yeah, I like the John Vance mustache better than the
13-year-old boy look.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Oh, thank you very much.
It's funny.
I did a class and somebodycalled it my credibility
mustache.
You're growing a credibilitymustache, aren't you Got to be
recognized as an incidentcommander?
You need a mustache Mustache.
Today we're going to talk aboutan incident that Grant
responded to recently, and itwas a technical rescue incident,
(02:19):
and Grant is also a member ofthe USAR team very experienced
with technical rescue incidents,and you happen to respond to
them a lot.
Why don't you set the stage forus, grant, and let us know what
this incident was and how youguys got called to it?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
So I'm on a couple of different teams.
This was the Northern Kentuckytechnical rescue team got called
.
So there's a power plant downriver from Covington, kentucky,
owned by Duke Energy.
Basically it's got a 600, 900foot smokestack and at the 300
foot level they go up to thatlevel quite often and there's
(03:00):
some they can do some testing ofthe smoke that's coming out,
all of whatever they got to do.
There's like you go inside thesmokestack there's like a little
space there with a desk andsome meters and all kinds of
stuff that they go up there andthen do their job and then they
come back down to get there.
There is an external littleteeny, weeny, one and a half man
elevator that runs on theoutside exterior of the
(03:23):
smokestack elevator.
That runs on the outsideexterior of the smokestack A guy
was going up that got to about150 feet-ish and then a part
that keeps the elevator lockedonto the track.
It's just a tubular track thatgoes up.
It's kind of a set of wheelsthat kind of lock in Like on a
roller coaster.
You see the wheels that kind ofgo on the sides of the track.
(03:45):
That piece fell off.
Well, it partially fell off andjammed up the machine.
So then they stopped moving.
They tried to lock the brakes,move the brakes, they did a
couple things to try to get itto move and then the piece kind
of swung around and was now kindof kind of hanging there below
(04:07):
the below the uh, the one manexternal elevator.
So at that point they were likewe're not doing anything else,
like we're, we're done, we don'twant to screw with it.
Um, they ended up calling localfire department.
They don't really have anon-site team, um, so they called
the local fire department,which called the techno rescue
team which got a bunch of usthere.
So that's kind of how it laidout Originally.
(04:29):
Man stuck 150 feet in the airin an elevator on a smokestack.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
So was this a rope rescue?
Is that?
Is that what you were planningon at first, or were you looking
to mechanically take over theelevator?
What was the objective when youfirst got there?
Speaker 2 (04:47):
So we obviously were not the first people on the
scene.
We were called after, you know,fire department got there.
Some other people showed up InKentucky the EMA director.
Ema people are kind ofoverriding, they have a lot of
authority.
In some states they're more ofa support and in kentucky
they're kind of more of a a bigpart of what goes on, especially
(05:09):
in something like this.
Um.
So they were there and umoriginally.
So we had a couple plans going.
So first off, we had to findout kind of what happened.
How's the guy in there Find outwhat the elevator company says?
You know how precarious is thisposition.
So that was really the firstthing they had.
(05:31):
They called the elevator People, had a big discussion with them
about you know what actuallymoves the elevator, how does it
actually go up and down.
And in today's technology theadvantage you got is you can
zoom in on it with your camera,take a picture, zoom in on that
picture, take a screenshot andthen send that to the elevator
people and they can actuallylook at it, as opposed to you
(05:52):
kind of trying to describe it.
You can actually, you know,send them pictures of what's
really going on and then theycan go like OK, that piece is
important For its movement, butit is not important for it to
stay to fall or not fall.
It's not that, you know, it'snot a cog in the wheel of moving
up and down, but it does keepthe elevator lined up.
(06:13):
And they suggested not movingit, so we didn't.
But they said it was not intheir word.
You know, it's not going tofall, it's going to stay where
it is.
That doesn't keep it fromfalling in any way, shape or
form.
So that was good news.
And then it came down to howare we going to get the guy out
of there, kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
He was stable, no medical emergency or anything.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
No problem at all.
Very cool, dave.
I don't even know his last name, I just know it was Dave on the
radio.
Because I had a radio, I couldtalk to him.
How you doing, dave, I'm fine,okay.
Um, we did talk to Dave and Iasked him if he had a cell phone
so we could have a much longerconversation, that kind of thing
.
And uh, he said no, so they'renot on on the site, they're not
(06:58):
supposed to have cell phones.
So he said no, I ain't got one.
So so everything had to be overthe radio.
The issue we had is they toldus his radio battery was getting
low, so that's why we weregoing to try to shift to the
cell phone plan.
So that didn't work out.
We just gave him theinformation, said you know, turn
it off for 15 minutes, we'll,you know, turn it back on and
and we'll, we'll talk to youagain, you know in a little bit
(07:20):
kind of thing.
So we just overcame that issueby just limiting what we the
conversation.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Grant.
What was the was there?
Was there any value in?
I know you've spent some timein some of these places.
You know along the Ohio riverthere's coal powered.
You know energy plantseverywhere, so they're not all
exactly the same.
You know a lot of them that Ithink that we've done training
in for on-site groups, right,the?
(07:47):
you know the elevator runs onthe inside and some of them does
run on the outside and you knowall of that.
But you know, is there?
I guess that's almost like amaybe, like a start of a
pre-plan in your head whenyou're going into that Is there?
Was there value in that?
Were you thinking about that?
Were there.
Were there people therethinking about it?
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Well, one thing I guess a lot of people may not
know and we learned because,josh, you and I did trainings
down in some of these plants isthat the smokestack is really
two layers.
There's an inner layer, whichis usually brick, and then an
outer layer that you don't wantto see, which is concrete.
I don't know why this is whatit is.
(08:29):
And then there's a spacebetween those two at the bottom
that can be much larger than asit goes up and up and up.
As that thing goes up, thatspace gets closer and closer
together.
So if you stand back and lookat the smokestack, you can see
that it's tapering in.
The internal one generallystays straight and then the
outside one tapers in.
So much, in this instance, atthe 300-foot level, we ended up
climbing up.
So at the 300-foot level you'restill climbing between those
(08:53):
two layers.
At the 600-foot level you wouldstill climbing between those
layers.
To go to the 900-foot you haveto go outside and climb an
external ladder.
So those layers are gettingcloser and closer and closer
together as they go up.
And then there was walkways,internal and external, at 300
(09:15):
and 600.
And then you had to go the restof the way up.
We didn't go that far, but ifwe had to, you would have had to
been on the exterior of thesmokestack to do the rest of the
climb.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
So that smokestack's 1,000 feet.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Nine-something, yeah, wow, wow, yeah, that's a lot of
steps.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Yeah, when you're flying the CVG here and you look
along that river, there's Idon't know probably 50 of them
that you see right around CVGand between, between Southern
Ohio, and then you know Kentuckyand Indiana, all all up and
down through there, all of theold or the Duke energy plants
and now they're being, you know,some of them being converted
(09:57):
over or whatever, but they're,they're, they're mostly all the
same.
All, mostly, all those coalpowered plants are similar in
how they're laid out and builtand what they do and how they
work.
And you know, I guesstechnology advancements, but the
smokestacks, a lot of thosewere type of incident, using the
critical factor, riskmanagement, all the different
(10:18):
components of blue card and howdo you interface that to the
rest of the command system?
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Well, I mean, I think , just like anything else, the
critical factors are somewhateasy to figure out, just like
you asked.
You know, like, first off, isthat elevator stable, not stable
?
That's really the mostimportant thing.
Do we have a bigger issue?
If somebody, if they caught tothe elevator people and they
said, yeah, that piece likekeeps it from falling, well,
(10:55):
then now we got to figure a wayto try to grab the elevator or
get the.
You know, we have to deal withthat.
We're having them say that it'snot going to fall.
That was a huge step forward,right?
So then the next thing, as yousaid, is the guy.
Is he in any issue?
You know, is Dave have aproblem?
Does he?
You know, and there was, he hadno real issues.
(11:16):
He said, you know, I'm fine,I'm good, it was cold, but he
was a worker that was preparedfor that.
You know, it's an external rideup that elevator, whether it's
working, not working.
So he wasn't, you know, didn'thave his Bermuda shorts on, so
he was all ready to go.
So then it just became a what'sthe safest way to do this?
And you know, not always thecoolest way to do it, but the
(11:37):
safest way to do this and thosediscussions were going on with
the Duke people, the EMA people,the fire department people and
the tech rescue people.
So that was there, was, youknow, the management.
It was all like a unifiedcommand.
Basically, what you missed werein, that was I know this sounds
weird to say, but you were in abubble.
(11:59):
You're in a protected,chain-linked, secured space.
I mean, all those power plantsare all secured.
So there was good, bad orindifferent, no media to deal
with, no, anybody but us.
Right, there was nothing elsethat we had to like.
Oh, we got to go talk to thesepeople and who are those people
over there?
And it was all.
It's very controlled.
So that really made it easy,because it was just us there
(12:22):
coming up with a joint plan andthen, um, then going with that
plan, kind of thing so what didthe plan end up being and how
did you guys communicate that?
put together the IEP and and getit done so, um, the the safest
way, the the safest way was toget, because he was only at 150
(12:45):
feet only, but he wasn't at 300or 600.
So it was to get a crane anduse a man basket to lift the
crane.
You know, lift the man basketup, bring it up beside the
elevator, get him out that way.
So that crane.
So they do a lot of work there.
Obviously, you know it's a bigplant.
So dealing with crane peoplewas no issue for them.
(13:08):
You know, they made some callsand they said it would be there
in like an hour and 10 minutes.
And I think it pulled in at anhour, whatever, whatever they
said it was there, like that.
So they needed a crane, a manbasket, um, and so that that
showed up, just fine.
Well, that that was that called.
They said it would be there.
They've been there before.
So it wasn't like this was, youknow, the crane?
(13:29):
People were like, yeah, we knowexactly how the setup is there.
Yeah, no problem.
So then the plan B was a roperescue which brought.
So we obviously couldn't takethe elevator up, so we had to
climb it.
So not a big deal.
In the first there's a 50-footsection.
(13:49):
Well, 35, 50, whatever.
You climbed up and then therewas a ring there, a catwalk ring
that went around the wholeinside, and then you moved over
to just a straight ladder.
A straight ladder that went upto the 300-foot mark.
Straight ladder that went up tothe 300 foot mark.
So, um, and we did ask CJeannie, like is that 300,
really 300?
Or is it you just call it 300and it's 280 or something like
(14:12):
that?
And they said, no, it's 300.
So a 300 foot rope wasn't goingto work.
So that was, you know, part oflike hey, we got to make sure
all these numbers, you know, areright.
If they said it was oh well,it's really 250, we just call it
300.
Well then we might've got awaywith a shorter rope, but okay,
we had 600 foot ropes there, soit's not a big deal.
So there was a group of four ofus.
(14:34):
We talked it out on the groundwhat our plan was.
We were going to climb I wantto say minimally, and just take
a.
We had a 600 foot tagline thatwe could lower down and start
pulling up equipment, if thatmakes sense.
So we weren't trying to carryall that stuff up, cause that
would have just been a lot ofwork.
The other thing that you don'trealize is that that space
(14:55):
between those two smokestacks isnot out in the open air and
that inner smokestacks hot, andso we're all out in, you know,
10, 20 degree weather, whateverit was, with all our warm
weather stuff on.
But thank God there was acrossover at the 30-foot level
because we got to there.
It's like this ain't working.
(15:16):
So everybody most of us tookoff, like took a moment, took
off our harness, took our bigcoats off, our sweatshirts off,
all that stuff, but the harnessis back on, and then just kind
of stuck it behind our backbetween the harness and
ourselves, and then the climatewas no problem, but it was hot
in there.
So we just dressed down and wegot up.
(15:37):
So the problem not problem.
They had a system for um mancapture.
So as you climbed up, thispiece slid on a pipe and then,
if you were to lose your footingor whatever it would, I want to
maclay lock to keep you fromfalling.
Um, that, that piece that theygave us to say here, this is
what you use, worked fine, butit didn't match the ladder that
(16:01):
goes up to the 300 foot level,so that really that system was
only designed for whatever.
That first level is 35 feet,something like that 50, I don't
know what it was, but it wasdesigned for that because they
do that a lot.
And I've since talked to thesafety guy at the location and
I've today actually.
I talked to a guy who does a lotof standby.
(16:22):
He's a fireman days off, hedoes confined space standby and
all that and he said, yeah, theynever climb that ladder, and
that's what the CG&E or the Dukeguy told me.
He said we never climb thatladder up there.
They're actually, I think,today going to do a thing where
they actually climb it, just tosee how that all works out.
So we so that piece didn't fit.
(16:43):
All of us had um lobster claws,so just a big like giant
carabiner that you can lock,unlock and then use that to just
climb hook, climb, hook as youclimb up.
So we just switched over tothose and then climb the other
250, whatever it was, up to the300 foot level.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
It really wasn't that big a deal um to do and, uh,
you were mentioning they evenyou know one of the first
alternatives that they weregoing to try their ladder truck
and that didn't even come upright.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Nobody's got a 150 footer.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
No, this isn't China.
Yeah, it's European.
So you know, when you'reinterfacing, you know coming in
is really the expert ontechnical rescue and the people
who are going to oversee thatpart of the operation.
When you're talking to command,are there things that you ask
command or is there some waythat you get that established
(17:36):
that they are looking at riskmanagement and monitoring?
Essentially, they had their acttogether.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Yeah, because it was this closed group.
Everything was justface-to-face out in the open.
You know, it wasn't like yougot to know.
They didn't bring in a bigcommand post.
We're just all standing therebasically in the base of the
smokestack.
And then, you know, we had a guywho was in charge of the rescue
side.
So we talked to him and saidhere's what we, you know.
He said, yeah, you're going torun the rope thing.
Okay, you guys are going to dothe man basket thing.
(18:05):
You figure out what you need.
You figure out what you need,how we're going to make all this
work.
So we kind of came up with ourplan, what our thoughts were,
without ever having been upthere.
And so then we, you know, andthen the other team that we all
met back together again saidhere's kind of what we think,
and then.
So then he said, yeah, theytalked to the elevator people
that's good, the crane's on theway.
(18:26):
So he, he was kind of ourmiddleman to the overall
overarching management of DukeEnergy and the fire department
and the EMA, that kind of thing.
But there was no like we couldhave walked over to the Duke if
there was really any questionsfor them.
We realized early on that theyjust they use the elevator.
So the questions about how theladder and attachment they we
(18:47):
don't know because we don't usethat.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
We don't do that, so okay what was the time elapsed
from the time the firedepartment originally got called
and you could be approximate toto when the the patient was
removed?
Speaker 2 (19:03):
well when we got there.
So so probably two, a littleover two hours, two and a half
hours maybe, because it wasn'tan hour for the crane to get
there.
So there was a littleconversation to make that happen
.
So we were, I was getting therewith another guy and when we
started having the originalconversations they said, hey,
(19:23):
they've already called for acrane.
So now you know it may havetaken us, from when we
originally left, half hour toget there, crane an hour, and
then really, once it was there,it wasn't that long to get him
down.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
With a crane company.
Is that a crane company youguys have dealt with before?
Did you say that, and do theyknow the kind of rigging that
needs to happen for a rescuetype situation, or is it just
normal rigging that they woulduse to move manpower anyway?
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Yes, it's normal man basket rigging.
A couple of the people thatwere put on that group are on
the federal team that I'm on andwe do a HERS class.
So a lot of those guys have hadrigging.
We do man basket work with thathers class we do so they they
were there to help kind ofaugment the hey, this is what we
need.
That's different than puttingdudes in this thing to cut
(20:09):
something with a torch orsomething like we're going to
step out of it.
So we need to be able to havean extension on this.
And so they were able to kindof explain what what we were
going to do, different than whatthe riggers, crane people are
used to.
So it wasn't like like hey,just going to pay him this, I'm
hanging, we're actually going tostep out and then climb down
inside that car and put aharness on Dave and then hook
(20:31):
Dave up, get him out into theman basket and then we're going
to come out and get the manbasket.
So that was, you know, a littledifferent than what the crane
people are used to, kind ofthing.
Right, but I don't, I don'tthink there was any real
pushback, it was just like we'llexplain it to you and we'll
work on it together.
Then we'll go do it kind ofthing.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Yeah, great, I think one of the things just to circle
back around on and that wholecrane thing is, uh, um, you know
, in that world sometimes wedon't know how we feel about
that, right, depending on whowho is it as somebody on site?
Do they know the people?
And in this case the guy wasn'thurt, but it still was an
unstable position.
I mean, even the company saidyou know what?
(21:12):
Yeah, this, this car is notgoing to move, but they're not
there.
They're telling you it's notgoing to move and hoping that it
doesn't, right, but uh, that'sa big difference.
I think when you're talkingabout you're going to be moving
somebody out of something thatis broken 150 feet in the air in
a basket that's hanging Right.
So you know that whole processof you know what does that
(21:36):
really look like?
And you know you guys obviouslyhad you know plan B set up of
just doing the rope system, hadyou know plan b set up of just
of doing the rope system, um,but that's one of those things.
I think that what's the riskinvolved here?
And then, what are ourresources?
Like?
Who is this really so?
Like you said, you know havingguys that are part of that team
(21:57):
in northern kentucky, butthey're also, you know, on the
federal team as rescuespecialists or or heavy riggers
or whatever.
You know that's a big deal.
So, you know, knowing thosepeople, and then, uh, just want,
I want to talk about a littlebit of like we've kind of
breezed over it and, you know,we, we kind of talked about the.
It was controlled a little bitmore because there was no
(22:17):
outside influence, becauseyou're inside of a, you know,
secured facility basically.
But you know, how know, how,how does that, how does that
really work in this instance andlike in other instances that
you've been exposed to orexperienced with, with, uh, an
outside team coming in andcollaborating and working with
(22:39):
you know, the local jurisdiction, and then the people who are
there on site, who are thesubject matter experts, who we
really need to lean on them,kind of like at a hazmat
incident, like, oh, absolutely,what is what is really going on
here?
So can you just elaborate onthat a bit?
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Well, the we've, we've been involved, or I've
been involved in incidents.
We, the team, the teams I'mwith, where kind of what you say
?
They've gone the whole gamutwhere you, we've walked up and
they go, it's yours, you knowlike you do, you do your thing
and we'll just kind of step backand then, when we've done other
(23:15):
incidents, we, we, we're, we'renot comfortable with that.
So we, we want their peopleinvolved to know what we're
doing.
We don't want them just to gohey, whatever you say goes like.
We want to be questioned, wewant to be asked, you know what
we're doing.
We don't want them just to go,hey, whatever you say goes like.
We want to be questioned, wewant to be asked, you know, like
so, so they fully understandwhat we're going to do.
Um, that takes a little bitlonger in some instances, um,
but everybody's on the same page, as opposed to somebody walking
(23:37):
away go, I got no clue whatthey're talking about.
Well, we'll explain it to you,we'll.
We'll put it in plain English.
And we want your buy-in, wewant everybody's buy-in.
Especially, you know, like yousaid, the fire chief of that
local jurisdiction is ultimatelyin charge and the Duke people
are ultimately in charge.
So we want them to understand,like exactly, you know, what
(23:58):
we're doing here, like how we'regoing to do.
I think they, I think theyunderstand the man basket side a
whole, because that's somethingthat they do a lot there.
Right, that's a big, giantplant and they have to get to
places and that's that's notforeign to them what we were
going to do with it climbingonto that thing, and then and
I'll get to a conversation aboutthe doors on the, on the, on
(24:19):
the car, that kind of stuff,that's a little different.
So there was a conversationabout that, so I'll just go
there that elevator, when itgets to its normal point, has a
side door that opens, all right,and then it has an escape hatch
on the top.
So there was talk about well,we can just put the man basket
(24:41):
next to the side of it and justopen that door.
And and our people were like no, no, no, no, that's a open, he
doesn't have a anywhere to clipon inside there.
You open that door and the wind, and it's windy, the man
basket's blowing around, I meanlike you're 150 feet in the air,
big wind, with, you know, beingpulled around a curved tower,
(25:02):
um, so we did not want to dothat.
That would.
They were like, well, yeah,can't you just go up and open
that thing and have them climbover?
And it's like no, no, no, no.
So there was a big conversationabout that.
We would rather get it up tothe point where we can go down
through the hatch.
Get him in a good harness.
Get him, you know, knowing whatit is.
I mean, he wears a harnessevery day, not our harness,
(25:33):
right, he wears a worker'sharness, um, so, you know, make
him comfortable in a enclosedspace with that.
Then get him up on top withwith ropes on him and then, uh,
actually we had like a littlefour to one so he could, we
could tighten it up as he movedforward.
We could keep him, you know,tight and then step into the
basket and then the next our guythen could go up and do the
same thing.
So there were.
There were like their versionof yeah, just go up and open
that door and he climbs out.
It's going to be good.
And our version of he's 150feet up with no railing, no,
(25:57):
nothing that that don't workright, it's going to be a little
harder to go out the top, butit's going to be way safer
because at the top of the littleelevator was a railing, so we
can get him up there and get himcomfortable and then he can,
you know, we can hook up somestuff on him to make it safe and
then he can step into therailing, so kind of just letting
them understand the the processwe were envisioning.
(26:19):
So they were like, oh okay, weget it.
Now you're so.
Yeah, you're right, you'reright, we could open that door,
but there's nothing stoppingsomething bad from happening
that car jiggles or drops ordoes something weird.
It ain't worth it.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
If this had been a rescue situation where you'd
come in and say, hey, this guy'shaving an immediate medical
emergency or he was injured andyou're going to have to expedite
that, would you have doneanything different?
He was injured and you're goingto have to expedite that, would
you have done anythingdifferent.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Well, I mean, I mean, well, I don't know, I don't, I
don't think setting up a wholerope system and doing all that I
don't think in the end wouldhave been faster.
The crane got there pretty fast, you know, within an hour when
they called it the setup for theman basket, you know, to hook
that up and then test it and doall the things and hook our
ropes on it.
(27:08):
The things we needed to donon-standard work out of it, um,
really didn't take that longCause, like I said, we were
really lucky.
The guys who were assigned thatjob knew about rigging, so they
kind of they were able to totalk, to talk to their, to the
crane people, explain how wewere going to do this, what we
wanted to do.
They weren't speaking in twodifferent languages, so that
(27:29):
really helped out.
And then, and then they, theymoved off on it.
You know it was.
It was really, I think theright people were there to make
it work out pretty well.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
When you're working with outside agencies and this
sounds like it went well, agreat cooperation, and you guys
work together on a regular basis.
But back in the brief periodthat I was involved in technical
rescue, we'd go 70 miles awayand oftentimes you know it'd be
a farm where the farmer didn'teven want to call 911 to begin
(28:00):
with, they were trying to takecare of it themselves or the
local jurisdiction tried to takecare of it, not having any
technical rescue training.
So you know, as a sidebar tothis and again, this incident
went well.
But how do you kind of mentallyprepare yourself as you're
responding in to try to get asituation like that under
(28:20):
control and start to actuallymanage the risk with the
critical factors, having adecent incident action plan?
When you're not, it's not inyour favor with the local
jurisdiction or the personshaving the emergency.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
I think a lot of that comes down to people skills
probably.
You know, when you show uplike're like a, we're like a
third party there, right, youhad the fire departments there,
whoever's there, and then thistechnical rescue team was kind
of the third party.
We we in this instance, we kneweverybody, so it was not an
issue.
But we've been called way faraway, um, and shown up more in
(28:59):
trends.
I think, josh, I think you wereat a trench rescue we made
years ago.
You showed up and there was abunch of people in the trench
and and so you can't just go hey, you know, you got it.
You kind of do some just in timetraining to the chief, kind of
like, hey, here's the risk,here's what's going on.
Yes, I, you know they're downin there, but you know, you know
(29:26):
you're going to get pushed backand that just starts a downhill
slide, kind of being more ofthe hey, let me, without you
knowing it, let me quickly teachyou, like, what the dangers are
here.
You know the dangers are this,this, this and this.
You're putting your people atextreme risk.
We can't even see this guy.
He's totally buried, like thechances of survival are very
slim.
But but there's nothing shorthere.
(29:48):
You're putting your people atan undue risk, and so usually,
if you kind of just kind of layit out nicely, not telling but
teaching in a way, they kind ofcome around and go, okay, yeah,
you're probably right, like hey,we should get them out of there
.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Yeah, maybe we should get them out of there.
Yeah, maybe we should.
So, looking, uh, that youmentioned the harness, and the
uh industrial harness isdifferent than the rescue
harness.
How different is that?
And is one more cumbersome thanthe other?
Speaker 2 (30:15):
oh, for lack.
Uh, well, they're, they're.
They don't have as manyattachment points generally.
They're generally just designedto be off their back.
The the connection point is aharness, does a strap they're
all one piece, so one big to beoff their back.
The connection point is aharness does a strap.
They're all one piece, so onebig long strap off their back,
not on their waist where it'seasier to move around, and stuff
like that.
They're, really.
They wear those things all dayand they may, if they're lucky.
(30:38):
They'll never hang in thatthing, ever, because it's really
just designed for oops, I fell,I didn't grab onto this or I
leaned out too far, or whateverreason.
It's just a design to catchtheir, capture them if they fall
.
And then it's not going to becomfortable at that point
because it's not designed to behung in where ours are designed
to be sat in, hung in, hold youin the right place, not cut off
(31:01):
circulation here or there, thatkind of stuff.
So they're, they're, they'redesigned to be I don't want to
say more comfortable, but yeah,kind of more comfortable and and
ergonomically better forsomeone to be in than the worker
style so you guys get to them,you're going to get them in the
basket, you get them down, andwhat happened after that you
know once, once you startedremoving them so the man's
(31:25):
basket got there.
They had a like a pike poleceiling hook with them so they
could pull themselves in andclose and hold on.
We can talk about the rope sidehere in a little bit, but so
the wind is blowing, movingaround, so they got there.
There are, you know, two peoplein there so one's able to hold
on.
The other guy climbed over onan extended rope, you know.
So he's, he can't be, he can'tbe hurt.
(31:46):
So he climbs over, talks todave, they get that, they open
the hatch and then he climbsdown in there with dave.
He, he lured the horse down tohim and and dave was like I
don't know, I don't know how toput this on.
I mean it's a harness, I get it, but I don't know it's, it is a
little more complicated thanthe ones they wear, many more
adjustments, and all thatbecause you're designed to be
(32:07):
hanging in it, not wearing it,eight hour day and never using
it.
So that guy climbed down inthere with him and that was a
big conversation we had beforewe did any of that Way.
Back down on the ground waslike how are they sure that
thing can't move?
Because our fear is our guyclimbs down in there and that
(32:29):
thing drops, it's going to.
He's tied to that man basket,it's going to rip him through
that opening at the top.
So like we hit, I mean we hadto really believe the crane, the
elevator people when they said,yeah, it's not going to move.
Okay, at some point you justgot to go.
Hey, yeah, it's not gonna move.
Okay, at some point you justgotta go.
Hey, that it's your.
You know, it's your thing.
(32:49):
You know we at this point wetrust you.
We've asked you 10 differentways and you keep saying the
same thing.
I guess we're gonna have to gowith it.
So go ahead, yeah, keep going.
So he.
So he climbed down in there withdave the rescuer, helped him
get it all, get it all set up,and then you know they have.
I wasn't there, so I wasn downin there with Dave the rescuer,
helped him get it all, get itall set up, and then you know
they have.
I wasn't there, so I wasn't inthere.
But you know the conversationlike, here's how this is going
(33:10):
to work, we're going to be fineand from my conversation with
Dave by the radio calm as acucumber, no big deal, just
normal guy like no big deal.
So they he climbed out and thenclimbed into the man basket, as
he, you know, came out and goton the roof with a little
railing around it.
Then they tightened up thestrap between them so there was
(33:30):
no fall factor and then he justclimbed into the basket.
Dave's good, they have himclipped onto the railing, just
like you're supposed to, andthen they stretch the piece out,
give it to our, our rescuer,and then he climbs out on the
roof and then moves into the,into the man basket kind of
thing.
So it was all.
Once Dave was set, the harnessis on him.
Without it was, it was overpretty fast, a little lower into
(33:53):
the ground yeah and any.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Uh.
So, and once he was on theground, maybe a little medical
surveillance, or were you guysjust like I'm gonna be totally
honest here.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
I was 300 feet, but I asked they took him in the
medic unit, talked to him,checked him out.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
He was fine all right , he had no like cold anything,
he was fine so you guys hot washthis afterwards or any lessons
learned after or anything thatyou guys talked about, that you
would do different next time.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Uh yeah.
So, um, on the rope side, ourplan, um, we, we learned some
things.
So we didn't carry everythingwith us.
We had just a little teeny,weeny rope that we lowered, a
Caribbean with a heavy Caribbeanlowered it to the ground and
what we realized was, as we werelowering that down, it was
going way far away, like it wasgetting blown by the wind a lot.
(34:43):
So it's like we can't, really wecan't, just lower a guy over
the edge here because he's goingto get blown away.
We have no way to get him backto the elevator, like so, um,
the elevator came up, it's, it'snormal operation.
It comes up through the ring wewere on and then it unlatches a
door that opens, and then youjust walk in that ring, go
inside, do your thing, um, so wewalked around the ring, we were
(35:06):
able to look at the other sideof that cage and figure out how
that door was released.
So, for, you know, basically wewere going to, with you know,
lobster, claws on, all tied off,lift him up so he, a guy could
reach over and push this littlelever, and then we were going to
be able to open the doors.
So then our plan was to usewhen we were going to, if you
(35:29):
know, if we ended up having todo it, we were going to lower a
guy down because right on thetrack, that, that, that the that
the elevator rides on, so thatthey can hold on to that track
as we lower them down so theydon't get blown away, because if
they got, you know they're notgoing to fall, but if they get
blown 30 feet away I don't knowhow we get them back.
It's like wait for the wind tostop, I guess Hopefully he
(35:52):
swings back in.
So we were going to do that,have him be able to grab onto
something as we lowered him sothat he would be right on top of
that elevator when he got downthere.
And then the process would havebeen harness on Dave, all that
stuff.
And then because of that, we'vehad a couple you know
conversations of either a trackline that would move Dave away
(36:15):
from the elevator so that ropewould not rub on it, and then
down to the ground, or have therescuer just sit on the top and
just kind of keep the rope awayfrom the elevator, lower Dave
down, bring the rope back up,haul our guy back up, and then
we climbed down the ladder.
But none of that.
None of that happened becausethe crane worked so well but it
(36:37):
was safe, it was better, it wasfaster, it was safer for
everybody.
I mean, none of that happenedbecause the crane worked so well
but it was safer, it was better, it was faster, it was safer
for everybody.
I mean it's the way to go.
So the hot wash yeah, we all metafterwards, you know, the rope.
People explained, like what ourplan was, because we really
didn't have a plan until we gotup there to see you know what
was there, how it would all workout.
And then the crane peopleexplained all the stuff they did
(36:59):
.
Any issues?
There really weren't any issues.
It worked out, you know, prettyas they had envisioned it would
.
It worked out pretty well.
And then our thing you know wewere secretly hoping that the
crane wouldn't make it there butso we could do a road rescue.
But it made it there.
It worked out fine.
We climbed.
I really I climbed up 300 feet.
(37:20):
So instead of staying on theground watching it like that, I
could lean on a railing andwatch it like that.
So the big rescue happened.
But I mean it worked out, itwas.
I mean it was kind of likereally nice, no big to do.
All the ideas worked out asplanning on minor adjustments,
and then um, and then they did.
(37:40):
It worked out right and dave'sfine, we're fine, everybody's
fine, and 300 feet back down,ain't that big a deal no, I mean
that we were.
Speaker 3 (37:50):
The reason that we're blue card, you know all hazards
management.
The reason that we're doingthis you know eight functions of
command for technical rescue is, you know, really, these
incidents and that, uh, thelocal jurisdiction if they, when
they don't have that capability, you know what, what can they
do and what you know can't theydo.
And, john, you kind ofmentioned it, if this was a big
(38:13):
rescue, like guy was hurt orsomething, what could you or
would you have done different?
You know, sometimes thattriggers the local jurisdiction
if they don't have thecapability to, you know, do some
things that maybe theyshouldn't.
So that's what's behind.
You know the eight functions ofcommand for technical rescue
that the group's been working onof what that really looks like.
(38:34):
Working on of what that reallylooks like and it's really
application of the system.
But how do you apply the systemto various technical rescue
incidents?
And you know, I think, what welearned today from you know,
some of the stuff Grant talkedabout.
You know, working with thelocal jurisdiction, working with
the subject matter experts thatare there on site talking to
(38:54):
people who are familiar with thecrane, uh, resource.
You know, command function onedeployment like what?
Who's here, what can we do withthem?
And I always make the extreme.
You know if, if you're anengine, you can't flow elevated
water.
So if you need a ladder, if youneed to do that, you need a
(39:14):
ladder.
If you need to do that, youneed a ladder truck.
Well, different people havedifferent skill sets, right?
So you know understanding, youknow all of that and knowing
when you're at your capacity orwhen you need, when you need
support.
So really all of that linesback up to the.
You know the whole system.
And then you know really thestrategic decision making model,
(39:36):
talking about the criticalfactors which clearly they
evaluated all of that.
You know kind of inside and out, made some decisions about risk
management, like, yeah, we dogot some time because we've
gathered information that thecompany said this thing's not
going to fall, the guy seems tobe stable.
You were able to talk to him.
You know all of those parts andpieces, developed an incident
action plan, not one, not not a.
This is what we do every time.
(39:57):
But you know, had, you knowthey already called the crane
we're gonna hopefully that worksor, in your case, maybe
hopefully it doesn't work, butuh, and then having the backup
for the, you know the ropesystem in place.
So it it's, it's all the modelwe talk about, right?
So you know it was a slow,rolling offensive strategy with,
(40:19):
you know, two incident actionplans a primary and a backup
plan of what we're going to do.
You know differently, and I'msure there were people there
thinking about like, well, ifthis doesn't work, what, like
what?
What's the next step?
And then you know, having thosepeople thinking about what is
what's standing between ussolving the problem.
So some of the stuff Granttalked about, like the wind and
(40:40):
the person getting blown, youknow, further away from where
the basket is and the basketblowing around, and you know the
not opening the door on theside and all of those things,
right, that's, that's all,really.
I mean it's decision making,right, really, uh, I mean it's
decision making right based offthe critical, based off those
critical factors that you alland, uh, you all identified,
along with the people on site.
(41:01):
And you know local, the localfire department.
So I mean nice success storywith a technical rescue event.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
So yeah, it was, um, it it was really, and I I can't
it's.
I've been at a lot of eventslike this where they're out in
the open and there's a lot moreinfluences played, and this was
to me it seemed like it was justtotally different because it
was just a closed site.
These people were here.
(41:30):
We're going to fix this, we'regoing to take care of it.
There wasn't just a lot ofoutside influences trying to
pressure.
You know, the media, this andI'm not against the media, just
you know.
Just, they want thisinformation, they want this.
I mean just all those thingsweren't there and it was.
It was really nice to just havethe people you needed to talk to
there, be able to just walk upand talk to them, have a
(41:50):
conversation, make a plan, makea backup plan.
Everybody, you good with this.
You shoot holes in our plan.
We'll shoot holes in your plan.
We're good.
I think we're good at that.
Okay, what do you guys need toclimb?
Start climbing, you guys.
The truck should be here in alittle bit.
Get the stuff you need to makethat man basket work with a step
off and go down in a holeoperation different than what
(42:12):
they normally do from a manbasket Get that ready to go, and
once that showed up it clickedright into place.
It worked really well.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
All right, you guys got time for a timeless tactical
truth.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
All right, let's do it.
Timeless tactical truth fromAlan Bernasini.
You can get the deck of cardsat bshiftercom, and today we're
looking at the 10 of clubs.
And this one says commandofficers generally establish and
(42:45):
continue command inside theirregular response vehicle as a
standard practice.
Now things get real drawn out.
You have more players involved.
You know, is it possible tostay inside an SUV for this long
?
Should we?
Because we don't have an IDLH?
Is it okay to get out?
What do you guys think aboutthat?
(43:06):
And really, you know, josh,maybe from you, what's the blue
card answer?
And Grant, what's the practicalanswer with you as a technical
rescue team member command as atechnical rescue team member.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
Well, I'll kick it off as a as a you know the blue
card answer is um, you know we,we stay in the vehicle.
And we know why we stay in thevehicle because we want to be
protected from you know theoutside elements.
Good place to think you canwrite stuff down.
You got a lot of referencepoint stuff there.
Uh, everybody else, they'rekeeping everybody else away from
you, like they.
They're not going to come therewhen I'm on the fire.
Well, they do a couple of timesand then they just don't come
(43:41):
back right after after a while.
But it's different.
And I'm listening to the radio.
I'm I'm an active listener,right, a primary piece of being
an incident commanders, I'm anactive listener.
I don't want to miss any radiotraffic.
I should never miss any radiotraffic.
And then you know, in this typeof an incident there's going to
be a command team and it'sgoing to also have, you know, a
(44:07):
lot of people from anytimeyou're on a commercial site,
you're going to have thatsubject matter expert influence,
right.
So at a hazmat incident, Imight have the plan operator and
some chemists and I want themright there with me.
Well, they're not all going topile in the car.
So ideally, you know, in time,if I could have a command van
there, if you could have acommand van there, that's really
(44:27):
good.
But I've been to plenty ofincidents where the at a fixed
location, where is the commandteam?
If you will, fire departmentresponse team, subject matter
experts, uh, maybe police, youknow, end up in a corporate
(44:48):
office space that is actuallydesigned to be a command
location, on, like a chemicalsite, or sometimes in these
other industrial, like verylarge industrial facilities like
this, you know that are, youknow, three, four, five, 600
acres.
You know, oftentimes they havea place there.
So it's almost like its ownlittle.
It's almost like its own littleemergency operations center and
(45:09):
command can, you know, operatefrom that point.
But really the key to it is iswhoever that team makes up.
That team, you know, just hasto stay together.
Right, we just have to put aleash on everybody.
It's hooked to the center poleand nobody, nobody leaves this
site.
Um, but the listening is stillimportant, but the thinking and
(45:32):
networking and running stuff upagainst each other is, you know,
oftentimes even more important.
And this isn't, these aren'tfast paced events, these are,
you know oftentimes long.
You know drawn out, drawn outpieces, so you know Grant can
talk to like what did it looklike there?
Speaker 2 (45:52):
Well, the I think the other thing is you just like
that we talked about the cranelike the fire department or
techno rescue team, somebodysays, yeah, I think we could do
this with a man basking with acrane.
Well, the fire department isnot going to call the crane
company because the cranecompany is going to want to know
who's paying for this.
No-transcript, we'll send itout there.
(46:27):
We'll figure it all out later.
Most likely they're going towant to know who's paying for
this, right?
So just, everybody's kind ofgot to be where you can have
that conversation.
The fire department or rescueteam has their conversation.
Then the managers of that go tothe next group and say, ok,
here's our plan, you need to bea part of this, right?
So the Duke guy may not need tobe in the conversation we have
(46:52):
with the fire guys, right?
The tech rescue has the fireside saying here's what we think
will work, here's what we thinkwill be best, not best, that
kind of thing.
And then, okay, they parse itout and they go, okay, and then
he moves down to all, right, nowhe's going to go to that group.
So they all need to be able tobe together and kind of be able
to converse back and fortheasily Because I mean, there's,
(47:13):
that's their guy right, in theend it's their guy up in there.
And you know, we don't wantthem to again.
We want them to know everythingwe're doing and then when we
need stuff, we go to them andsay, here's what we need, you
know, and like they go, okay,we'll get it.
Okay, good enough, thanks.
Speaker 1 (47:28):
Grant, thank you very much for being here today and
sharing this incident with uswith us, I mean, you are a great
storyteller and your experienceis so valuable to share with
all the listeners here onB-Shifter, so thank you very
much for sharing that incident.
I'm glad the outcome was good,everyone was safe, no one got
hurt and certainly you guys didit in a safe way and managed it
(47:49):
very well.
So thank you for sharing thatwith us today.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
Absolutely.
It was great being here.
I got my steps in that day.
Speaker 1 (47:55):
All right.
All right, josh and Grant.
Thank you very much.
Thanks for being on the episodetoday and we'll talk to you
soon.
Thanks, john.
Thanks for listening to BShifter.
Welcome everyone to the B-Shifter Podcast.
You've got John Vance here,along with Josh Blum, and today
Grant Light is with us.
Good day, gentlemen.
How are you doing?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Doing wonderful.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
All good, just still got a ton of white stuff on the
ground here and I think recordcold temperatures coming this
week for sure.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Cincinnati you guys have been hammered.
I mean, are you at record snowright now?
Is that the deal?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
I think we've got record snow and then we've got
more snow on the ground Thanwe've had for any period of time
I think ever.
And then I think Monday, thiscoming Monday, I think it's
going to be like record cold.
Those guys coming in town for atrainer Phoenix, las Vegas and
Houston I told them you betterpack an extra bag.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
We had some there in town.
It was cold.
We had to provide them withcoats.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
I am at the AVVCTC in beautiful Phoenix right now
it's a balmy 68 degrees.
It almost feels like we have alittle bit of a marine inversion
.
So there's actually a littlehumidity in the air, which feels
fantastic.
But unfortunately I'm going tohave the harsh slap of reality
around 1030 tomorrow when I landat MSP and find myself back in
(01:40):
Minneapolis with much of thesame weather.
So I'll enjoy this while I can.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
John, I'm super happy that humidity must be causing
your mustache to grow back.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
I know you like that.
It's kind of like a chia pet.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Yeah, I like the John Vance mustache better than the
13-year-old boy look.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Oh, thank you very much.
It's funny.
I did a class and somebodycalled it my credibility
mustache.
You're growing a credibilitymustache, aren't you Got to be
recognized as an incidentcommander?
You need a mustache Mustache.
Today we're going to talk aboutan incident that Grant
responded to recently, and itwas a technical rescue incident,
(02:19):
and Grant is also a member ofthe USAR team very experienced
with technical rescue incidents,and you happen to respond to
them a lot.
Why don't you set the stage forus, grant, and let us know what
this incident was and how youguys got called to it?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
So I'm on a couple of different teams.
This was the Northern Kentuckytechnical rescue team got called
.
So there's a power plant downriver from Covington, kentucky,
owned by Duke Energy.
Basically it's got a 600, 900foot smokestack and at the 300
foot level they go up to thatlevel quite often and there's
(03:00):
some they can do some testing ofthe smoke that's coming out,
all of whatever they got to do.
There's like you go inside thesmokestack there's like a little
space there with a desk andsome meters and all kinds of
stuff that they go up there andthen do their job and then they
come back down to get there.
There is an external littleteeny, weeny, one and a half man
elevator that runs on theoutside exterior of the
(03:23):
smokestack elevator.
That runs on the outsideexterior of the smokestack A guy
was going up that got to about150 feet-ish and then a part
that keeps the elevator lockedonto the track.
It's just a tubular track thatgoes up.
It's kind of a set of wheelsthat kind of lock in Like on a
roller coaster.
You see the wheels that kind ofgo on the sides of the track.
(03:45):
That piece fell off.
Well, it partially fell off andjammed up the machine.
So then they stopped moving.
They tried to lock the brakes,move the brakes, they did a
couple things to try to get itto move and then the piece kind
of swung around and was now kindof kind of hanging there below
(04:07):
the below the uh, the one manexternal elevator.
So at that point they were likewe're not doing anything else,
like we're, we're done, we don'twant to screw with it.
Um, they ended up calling localfire department.
They don't really have anon-site team, um, so they called
the local fire department,which called the techno rescue
team which got a bunch of usthere.
So that's kind of how it laidout Originally.
(04:29):
Man stuck 150 feet in the airin an elevator on a smokestack.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
So was this a rope rescue?
Is that?
Is that what you were planningon at first, or were you looking
to mechanically take over theelevator?
What was the objective when youfirst got there?
Speaker 2 (04:47):
So we obviously were not the first people on the
scene.
We were called after, you know,fire department got there.
Some other people showed up InKentucky the EMA director.
Ema people are kind ofoverriding, they have a lot of
authority.
In some states they're more ofa support and in kentucky
they're kind of more of a a bigpart of what goes on, especially
(05:09):
in something like this.
Um.
So they were there and umoriginally.
So we had a couple plans going.
So first off, we had to findout kind of what happened.
How's the guy in there Find outwhat the elevator company says?
You know how precarious is thisposition.
So that was really the firstthing they had.
(05:31):
They called the elevator People, had a big discussion with them
about you know what actuallymoves the elevator, how does it
actually go up and down.
And in today's technology theadvantage you got is you can
zoom in on it with your camera,take a picture, zoom in on that
picture, take a screenshot andthen send that to the elevator
people and they can actuallylook at it, as opposed to you
(05:52):
kind of trying to describe it.
You can actually, you know,send them pictures of what's
really going on and then theycan go like OK, that piece is
important For its movement, butit is not important for it to
stay to fall or not fall.
It's not that, you know, it'snot a cog in the wheel of moving
up and down, but it does keepthe elevator lined up.
(06:13):
And they suggested not movingit, so we didn't.
But they said it was not intheir word.
You know, it's not going tofall, it's going to stay where
it is.
That doesn't keep it fromfalling in any way, shape or
form.
So that was good news.
And then it came down to howare we going to get the guy out
of there, kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
He was stable, no medical emergency or anything.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
No problem at all.
Very cool, dave.
I don't even know his last name, I just know it was Dave on the
radio.
Because I had a radio, I couldtalk to him.
How you doing, dave, I'm fine,okay.
Um, we did talk to Dave and Iasked him if he had a cell phone
so we could have a much longerconversation, that kind of thing
.
And uh, he said no, so they'renot on on the site, they're not
(06:58):
supposed to have cell phones.
So he said no, I ain't got one.
So so everything had to be overthe radio.
The issue we had is they toldus his radio battery was getting
low, so that's why we weregoing to try to shift to the
cell phone plan.
So that didn't work out.
We just gave him theinformation, said you know, turn
it off for 15 minutes, we'll,you know, turn it back on and
and we'll, we'll talk to youagain, you know in a little bit
(07:20):
kind of thing.
So we just overcame that issueby just limiting what we the
conversation.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Grant.
What was the was there?
Was there any value in?
I know you've spent some timein some of these places.
You know along the Ohio riverthere's coal powered.
You know energy plantseverywhere, so they're not all
exactly the same.
You know a lot of them that Ithink that we've done training
in for on-site groups, right,the?
(07:47):
you know the elevator runs onthe inside and some of them does
run on the outside and you knowall of that.
But you know, is there?
I guess that's almost like amaybe, like a start of a
pre-plan in your head whenyou're going into that Is there?
Was there value in that?
Were you thinking about that?
Were there.
Were there people therethinking about it?
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Well, one thing I guess a lot of people may not
know and we learned because,josh, you and I did trainings
down in some of these plants isthat the smokestack is really
two layers.
There's an inner layer, whichis usually brick, and then an
outer layer that you don't wantto see, which is concrete.
I don't know why this is whatit is.
(08:29):
And then there's a spacebetween those two at the bottom
that can be much larger than asit goes up and up and up.
As that thing goes up, thatspace gets closer and closer
together.
So if you stand back and lookat the smokestack, you can see
that it's tapering in.
The internal one generallystays straight and then the
outside one tapers in.
So much, in this instance, atthe 300-foot level, we ended up
climbing up.
So at the 300-foot level you'restill climbing between those
(08:53):
two layers.
At the 600-foot level you wouldstill climbing between those
layers.
To go to the 900-foot you haveto go outside and climb an
external ladder.
So those layers are gettingcloser and closer and closer
together as they go up.
And then there was walkways,internal and external, at 300
(09:15):
and 600.
And then you had to go the restof the way up.
We didn't go that far, but ifwe had to, you would have had to
been on the exterior of thesmokestack to do the rest of the
climb.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
So that smokestack's 1,000 feet.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Nine-something, yeah, wow, wow, yeah, that's a lot of
steps.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Yeah, when you're flying the CVG here and you look
along that river, there's Idon't know probably 50 of them
that you see right around CVGand between, between Southern
Ohio, and then you know Kentuckyand Indiana, all all up and
down through there, all of theold or the Duke energy plants
and now they're being, you know,some of them being converted
(09:57):
over or whatever, but they're,they're, they're mostly all the
same.
All, mostly, all those coalpowered plants are similar in
how they're laid out and builtand what they do and how they
work.
And you know, I guesstechnology advancements, but the
smokestacks, a lot of thosewere type of incident, using the
critical factor, riskmanagement, all the different
(10:18):
components of blue card and howdo you interface that to the
rest of the command system?
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Well, I mean, I think , just like anything else, the
critical factors are somewhateasy to figure out, just like
you asked.
You know, like, first off, isthat elevator stable, not stable
?
That's really the mostimportant thing.
Do we have a bigger issue?
If somebody, if they caught tothe elevator people and they
said, yeah, that piece likekeeps it from falling, well,
(10:55):
then now we got to figure a wayto try to grab the elevator or
get the.
You know, we have to deal withthat.
We're having them say that it'snot going to fall.
That was a huge step forward,right?
So then the next thing, as yousaid, is the guy.
Is he in any issue?
You know, is Dave have aproblem?
Does he?
You know, and there was, he hadno real issues.
(11:16):
He said, you know, I'm fine,I'm good, it was cold, but he
was a worker that was preparedfor that.
You know, it's an external rideup that elevator, whether it's
working, not working.
So he wasn't, you know, didn'thave his Bermuda shorts on, so
he was all ready to go.
So then it just became a what'sthe safest way to do this?
And you know, not always thecoolest way to do it, but the
(11:37):
safest way to do this and thosediscussions were going on with
the Duke people, the EMA people,the fire department people and
the tech rescue people.
So that was there, was, youknow, the management.
It was all like a unifiedcommand.
Basically, what you missed werein, that was I know this sounds
weird to say, but you were in abubble.
(11:59):
You're in a protected,chain-linked, secured space.
I mean, all those power plantsare all secured.
So there was good, bad orindifferent, no media to deal
with, no, anybody but us.
Right, there was nothing elsethat we had to like.
Oh, we got to go talk to thesepeople and who are those people
over there?
And it was all.
It's very controlled.
So that really made it easy,because it was just us there
(12:22):
coming up with a joint plan andthen, um, then going with that
plan, kind of thing so what didthe plan end up being and how
did you guys communicate that?
put together the IEP and and getit done so, um, the the safest
way, the the safest way was toget, because he was only at 150
(12:45):
feet only, but he wasn't at 300or 600.
So it was to get a crane anduse a man basket to lift the
crane.
You know, lift the man basketup, bring it up beside the
elevator, get him out that way.
So that crane.
So they do a lot of work there.
Obviously, you know it's a bigplant.
So dealing with crane peoplewas no issue for them.
(13:08):
You know, they made some callsand they said it would be there
in like an hour and 10 minutes.
And I think it pulled in at anhour, whatever, whatever they
said it was there, like that.
So they needed a crane, a manbasket, um, and so that that
showed up, just fine.
Well, that that was that called.
They said it would be there.
They've been there before.
So it wasn't like this was, youknow, the crane?
(13:29):
People were like, yeah, we knowexactly how the setup is there.
Yeah, no problem.
So then the plan B was a roperescue which brought.
So we obviously couldn't takethe elevator up, so we had to
climb it.
So not a big deal.
In the first there's a 50-footsection.
(13:49):
Well, 35, 50, whatever.
You climbed up and then therewas a ring there, a catwalk ring
that went around the wholeinside, and then you moved over
to just a straight ladder.
A straight ladder that went upto the 300-foot mark.
Straight ladder that went up tothe 300 foot mark.
So, um, and we did ask CJeannie, like is that 300,
really 300?
Or is it you just call it 300and it's 280 or something like
(14:12):
that?
And they said, no, it's 300.
So a 300 foot rope wasn't goingto work.
So that was, you know, part oflike hey, we got to make sure
all these numbers, you know, areright.
If they said it was oh well,it's really 250, we just call it
300.
Well then we might've got awaywith a shorter rope, but okay,
we had 600 foot ropes there, soit's not a big deal.
So there was a group of four ofus.
(14:34):
We talked it out on the groundwhat our plan was.
We were going to climb I wantto say minimally, and just take
a.
We had a 600 foot tagline thatwe could lower down and start
pulling up equipment, if thatmakes sense.
So we weren't trying to carryall that stuff up, cause that
would have just been a lot ofwork.
The other thing that you don'trealize is that that space
(14:55):
between those two smokestacks isnot out in the open air and
that inner smokestacks hot, andso we're all out in, you know,
10, 20 degree weather, whateverit was, with all our warm
weather stuff on.
But thank God there was acrossover at the 30-foot level
because we got to there.
It's like this ain't working.
(15:16):
So everybody most of us tookoff, like took a moment, took
off our harness, took our bigcoats off, our sweatshirts off,
all that stuff, but the harnessis back on, and then just kind
of stuck it behind our backbetween the harness and
ourselves, and then the climatewas no problem, but it was hot
in there.
So we just dressed down and wegot up.
(15:37):
So the problem not problem.
They had a system for um mancapture.
So as you climbed up, thispiece slid on a pipe and then,
if you were to lose your footingor whatever it would, I want to
maclay lock to keep you fromfalling.
Um, that, that piece that theygave us to say here, this is
what you use, worked fine, butit didn't match the ladder that
(16:01):
goes up to the 300 foot level,so that really that system was
only designed for whatever.
That first level is 35 feet,something like that 50, I don't
know what it was, but it wasdesigned for that because they
do that a lot.
And I've since talked to thesafety guy at the location and
I've today actually.
I talked to a guy who does a lotof standby.
(16:22):
He's a fireman days off, hedoes confined space standby and
all that and he said, yeah, theynever climb that ladder, and
that's what the CG&E or the Dukeguy told me.
He said we never climb thatladder up there.
They're actually, I think,today going to do a thing where
they actually climb it, just tosee how that all works out.
So we so that piece didn't fit.
(16:43):
All of us had um lobster claws,so just a big like giant
carabiner that you can lock,unlock and then use that to just
climb hook, climb, hook as youclimb up.
So we just switched over tothose and then climb the other
250, whatever it was, up to the300 foot level.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
It really wasn't that big a deal um to do and, uh,
you were mentioning they evenyou know one of the first
alternatives that they weregoing to try their ladder truck
and that didn't even come upright.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Nobody's got a 150 footer.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
No, this isn't China.
Yeah, it's European.
So you know, when you'reinterfacing, you know coming in
is really the expert ontechnical rescue and the people
who are going to oversee thatpart of the operation.
When you're talking to command,are there things that you ask
command or is there some waythat you get that established
(17:36):
that they are looking at riskmanagement and monitoring?
Essentially, they had their acttogether.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Yeah, because it was this closed group.
Everything was justface-to-face out in the open.
You know, it wasn't like yougot to know.
They didn't bring in a bigcommand post.
We're just all standing therebasically in the base of the
smokestack.
And then, you know, we had a guywho was in charge of the rescue
side.
So we talked to him and saidhere's what we, you know.
He said, yeah, you're going torun the rope thing.
Okay, you guys are going to dothe man basket thing.
(18:05):
You figure out what you need.
You figure out what you need,how we're going to make all this
work.
So we kind of came up with ourplan, what our thoughts were,
without ever having been upthere.
And so then we, you know, andthen the other team that we all
met back together again saidhere's kind of what we think,
and then.
So then he said, yeah, theytalked to the elevator people
that's good, the crane's on theway.
(18:26):
So he, he was kind of ourmiddleman to the overall
overarching management of DukeEnergy and the fire department
and the EMA, that kind of thing.
But there was no like we couldhave walked over to the Duke if
there was really any questionsfor them.
We realized early on that theyjust they use the elevator.
So the questions about how theladder and attachment they we
(18:47):
don't know because we don't usethat.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
We don't do that, so okay what was the time elapsed
from the time the firedepartment originally got called
and you could be approximate toto when the the patient was
removed?
Speaker 2 (19:03):
well when we got there.
So so probably two, a littleover two hours, two and a half
hours maybe, because it wasn'tan hour for the crane to get
there.
So there was a littleconversation to make that happen
.
So we were, I was getting therewith another guy and when we
started having the originalconversations they said, hey,
(19:23):
they've already called for acrane.
So now you know it may havetaken us, from when we
originally left, half hour toget there, crane an hour, and
then really, once it was there,it wasn't that long to get him
down.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
With a crane company.
Is that a crane company youguys have dealt with before?
Did you say that, and do theyknow the kind of rigging that
needs to happen for a rescuetype situation, or is it just
normal rigging that they woulduse to move manpower anyway?
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Yes, it's normal man basket rigging.
A couple of the people thatwere put on that group are on
the federal team that I'm on andwe do a HERS class.
So a lot of those guys have hadrigging.
We do man basket work with thathers class we do so they they
were there to help kind ofaugment the hey, this is what we
need.
That's different than puttingdudes in this thing to cut
(20:09):
something with a torch orsomething like we're going to
step out of it.
So we need to be able to havean extension on this.
And so they were able to kindof explain what what we were
going to do, different than whatthe riggers, crane people are
used to.
So it wasn't like like hey,just going to pay him this, I'm
hanging, we're actually going tostep out and then climb down
inside that car and put aharness on Dave and then hook
(20:31):
Dave up, get him out into theman basket and then we're going
to come out and get the manbasket.
So that was, you know, a littledifferent than what the crane
people are used to, kind ofthing.
Right, but I don't, I don'tthink there was any real
pushback, it was just like we'llexplain it to you and we'll
work on it together.
Then we'll go do it kind ofthing.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Yeah, great, I think one of the things just to circle
back around on and that wholecrane thing is, uh, um, you know
, in that world sometimes wedon't know how we feel about
that, right, depending on whowho is it as somebody on site?
Do they know the people?
And in this case the guy wasn'thurt, but it still was an
unstable position.
I mean, even the company saidyou know what?
(21:12):
Yeah, this, this car is notgoing to move, but they're not
there.
They're telling you it's notgoing to move and hoping that it
doesn't, right, but uh, that'sa big difference.
I think when you're talkingabout you're going to be moving
somebody out of something thatis broken 150 feet in the air in
a basket that's hanging Right.
So you know that whole processof you know what does that
(21:36):
really look like?
And you know you guys obviouslyhad you know plan B set up of
just doing the rope system, hadyou know plan b set up of just
of doing the rope system, um,but that's one of those things.
I think that what's the riskinvolved here?
And then, what are ourresources?
Like?
Who is this really so?
Like you said, you know havingguys that are part of that team
(21:57):
in northern kentucky, butthey're also, you know, on the
federal team as rescuespecialists or or heavy riggers
or whatever.
You know that's a big deal.
So, you know, knowing thosepeople, and then, uh, just want,
I want to talk about a littlebit of like we've kind of
breezed over it and, you know,we, we kind of talked about the.
It was controlled a little bitmore because there was no
(22:17):
outside influence, becauseyou're inside of a, you know,
secured facility basically.
But you know, how know, how,how does that, how does that
really work in this instance andlike in other instances that
you've been exposed to orexperienced with, with, uh, an
outside team coming in andcollaborating and working with
(22:39):
you know, the local jurisdiction, and then the people who are
there on site, who are thesubject matter experts, who we
really need to lean on them,kind of like at a hazmat
incident, like, oh, absolutely,what is what is really going on
here?
So can you just elaborate onthat a bit?
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Well, the we've, we've been involved, or I've
been involved in incidents.
We, the team, the teams I'mwith, where kind of what you say
?
They've gone the whole gamutwhere you, we've walked up and
they go, it's yours, you knowlike you do, you do your thing
and we'll just kind of step backand then, when we've done other
(23:15):
incidents, we, we, we're, we'renot comfortable with that.
So we, we want their peopleinvolved to know what we're
doing.
We don't want them just to gohey, whatever you say goes like.
We want to be questioned, wewant to be asked, you know what
we're doing.
We don't want them just to go,hey, whatever you say goes like.
We want to be questioned, wewant to be asked, you know, like
so, so they fully understandwhat we're going to do.
Um, that takes a little bitlonger in some instances, um,
but everybody's on the same page, as opposed to somebody walking
(23:37):
away go, I got no clue whatthey're talking about.
Well, we'll explain it to you,we'll.
We'll put it in plain English.
And we want your buy-in, wewant everybody's buy-in.
Especially, you know, like yousaid, the fire chief of that
local jurisdiction is ultimatelyin charge and the Duke people
are ultimately in charge.
So we want them to understand,like exactly, you know, what
(23:58):
we're doing here, like how we'regoing to do.
I think they, I think theyunderstand the man basket side a
whole, because that's somethingthat they do a lot there.
Right, that's a big, giantplant and they have to get to
places and that's that's notforeign to them what we were
going to do with it climbingonto that thing, and then and
I'll get to a conversation aboutthe doors on the, on the, on
(24:19):
the car, that kind of stuff,that's a little different.
So there was a conversationabout that, so I'll just go
there that elevator, when itgets to its normal point, has a
side door that opens, all right,and then it has an escape hatch
on the top.
So there was talk about well,we can just put the man basket
(24:41):
next to the side of it and justopen that door.
And and our people were like no, no, no, no, that's a open, he
doesn't have a anywhere to clipon inside there.
You open that door and the wind, and it's windy, the man
basket's blowing around, I meanlike you're 150 feet in the air,
big wind, with, you know, beingpulled around a curved tower,
(25:02):
um, so we did not want to dothat.
That would.
They were like, well, yeah,can't you just go up and open
that thing and have them climbover?
And it's like no, no, no, no.
So there was a big conversationabout that.
We would rather get it up tothe point where we can go down
through the hatch.
Get him in a good harness.
Get him, you know, knowing whatit is.
I mean, he wears a harnessevery day, not our harness,
(25:33):
right, he wears a worker'sharness, um, so, you know, make
him comfortable in a enclosedspace with that.
Then get him up on top withwith ropes on him and then, uh,
actually we had like a littlefour to one so he could, we
could tighten it up as he movedforward.
We could keep him, you know,tight and then step into the
basket and then the next our guythen could go up and do the
same thing.
So there were.
There were like their versionof yeah, just go up and open
that door and he climbs out.
It's going to be good.
And our version of he's 150feet up with no railing, no,
(25:57):
nothing that that don't workright, it's going to be a little
harder to go out the top, butit's going to be way safer
because at the top of the littleelevator was a railing, so we
can get him up there and get himcomfortable and then he can,
you know, we can hook up somestuff on him to make it safe and
then he can step into therailing, so kind of just letting
them understand the the processwe were envisioning.
(26:19):
So they were like, oh okay, weget it.
Now you're so.
Yeah, you're right, you'reright, we could open that door,
but there's nothing stoppingsomething bad from happening
that car jiggles or drops ordoes something weird.
It ain't worth it.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
If this had been a rescue situation where you'd
come in and say, hey, this guy'shaving an immediate medical
emergency or he was injured andyou're going to have to expedite
that, would you have doneanything different?
He was injured and you're goingto have to expedite that, would
you have done anythingdifferent.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Well, I mean, I mean, well, I don't know, I don't, I
don't think setting up a wholerope system and doing all that I
don't think in the end wouldhave been faster.
The crane got there pretty fast, you know, within an hour when
they called it the setup for theman basket, you know, to hook
that up and then test it and doall the things and hook our
ropes on it.
(27:08):
The things we needed to donon-standard work out of it, um,
really didn't take that longCause, like I said, we were
really lucky.
The guys who were assigned thatjob knew about rigging, so they
kind of they were able to totalk, to talk to their, to the
crane people, explain how wewere going to do this, what we
wanted to do.
They weren't speaking in twodifferent languages, so that
(27:29):
really helped out.
And then, and then they, theymoved off on it.
You know it was.
It was really, I think theright people were there to make
it work out pretty well.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
When you're working with outside agencies and this
sounds like it went well, agreat cooperation, and you guys
work together on a regular basis.
But back in the brief periodthat I was involved in technical
rescue, we'd go 70 miles awayand oftentimes you know it'd be
a farm where the farmer didn'teven want to call 911 to begin
(28:00):
with, they were trying to takecare of it themselves or the
local jurisdiction tried to takecare of it, not having any
technical rescue training.
So you know, as a sidebar tothis and again, this incident
went well.
But how do you kind of mentallyprepare yourself as you're
responding in to try to get asituation like that under
(28:20):
control and start to actuallymanage the risk with the
critical factors, having adecent incident action plan?
When you're not, it's not inyour favor with the local
jurisdiction or the personshaving the emergency.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
I think a lot of that comes down to people skills
probably.
You know, when you show uplike're like a, we're like a
third party there, right, youhad the fire departments there,
whoever's there, and then thistechnical rescue team was kind
of the third party.
We we in this instance, we kneweverybody, so it was not an
issue.
But we've been called way faraway, um, and shown up more in
(28:59):
trends.
I think, josh, I think you wereat a trench rescue we made
years ago.
You showed up and there was abunch of people in the trench
and and so you can't just go hey, you know, you got it.
You kind of do some just in timetraining to the chief, kind of
like, hey, here's the risk,here's what's going on.
Yes, I, you know they're downin there, but you know, you know
(29:26):
you're going to get pushed backand that just starts a downhill
slide, kind of being more ofthe hey, let me, without you
knowing it, let me quickly teachyou, like, what the dangers are
here.
You know the dangers are this,this, this and this.
You're putting your people atextreme risk.
We can't even see this guy.
He's totally buried, like thechances of survival are very
slim.
But but there's nothing shorthere.
(29:48):
You're putting your people atan undue risk, and so usually,
if you kind of just kind of layit out nicely, not telling but
teaching in a way, they kind ofcome around and go, okay, yeah,
you're probably right, like hey,we should get them out of there
.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Yeah, maybe we should get them out of there.
Yeah, maybe we should.
So, looking, uh, that youmentioned the harness, and the
uh industrial harness isdifferent than the rescue
harness.
How different is that?
And is one more cumbersome thanthe other?
Speaker 2 (30:15):
oh, for lack.
Uh, well, they're, they're.
They don't have as manyattachment points generally.
They're generally just designedto be off their back.
The the connection point is aharness, does a strap they're
all one piece, so one big to beoff their back.
The connection point is aharness does a strap.
They're all one piece, so onebig long strap off their back,
not on their waist where it'seasier to move around, and stuff
like that.
They're, really.
They wear those things all dayand they may, if they're lucky.
(30:38):
They'll never hang in thatthing, ever, because it's really
just designed for oops, I fell,I didn't grab onto this or I
leaned out too far, or whateverreason.
It's just a design to catchtheir, capture them if they fall
.
And then it's not going to becomfortable at that point
because it's not designed to behung in where ours are designed
to be sat in, hung in, hold youin the right place, not cut off
(31:01):
circulation here or there, thatkind of stuff.
So they're, they're, they'redesigned to be I don't want to
say more comfortable, but yeah,kind of more comfortable and and
ergonomically better forsomeone to be in than the worker
style so you guys get to them,you're going to get them in the
basket, you get them down, andwhat happened after that you
know once, once you startedremoving them so the man's
(31:25):
basket got there.
They had a like a pike poleceiling hook with them so they
could pull themselves in andclose and hold on.
We can talk about the rope sidehere in a little bit, but so
the wind is blowing, movingaround, so they got there.
There are, you know, two peoplein there so one's able to hold
on.
The other guy climbed over onan extended rope, you know.
So he's, he can't be, he can'tbe hurt.
(31:46):
So he climbs over, talks todave, they get that, they open
the hatch and then he climbsdown in there with dave.
He, he lured the horse down tohim and and dave was like I
don't know, I don't know how toput this on.
I mean it's a harness, I get it, but I don't know it's, it is a
little more complicated thanthe ones they wear, many more
adjustments, and all thatbecause you're designed to be
(32:07):
hanging in it, not wearing it,eight hour day and never using
it.
So that guy climbed down inthere with him and that was a
big conversation we had beforewe did any of that Way.
Back down on the ground waslike how are they sure that
thing can't move?
Because our fear is our guyclimbs down in there and that
(32:29):
thing drops, it's going to.
He's tied to that man basket,it's going to rip him through
that opening at the top.
So like we hit, I mean we hadto really believe the crane, the
elevator people when they said,yeah, it's not going to move.
Okay, at some point you justgot to go.
Hey, yeah, it's not gonna move.
Okay, at some point you justgotta go.
Hey, that it's your.
You know, it's your thing.
(32:49):
You know we at this point wetrust you.
We've asked you 10 differentways and you keep saying the
same thing.
I guess we're gonna have to gowith it.
So go ahead, yeah, keep going.
So he.
So he climbed down in there withdave the rescuer, helped him
get it all, get it all set up,and then you know they have.
I wasn't there, so I wasn downin there with Dave the rescuer,
helped him get it all, get itall set up, and then you know
they have.
I wasn't there, so I wasn't inthere.
But you know the conversationlike, here's how this is going
(33:10):
to work, we're going to be fineand from my conversation with
Dave by the radio calm as acucumber, no big deal, just
normal guy like no big deal.
So they he climbed out and thenclimbed into the man basket, as
he, you know, came out and goton the roof with a little
railing around it.
Then they tightened up thestrap between them so there was
(33:30):
no fall factor and then he justclimbed into the basket.
Dave's good, they have himclipped onto the railing, just
like you're supposed to, andthen they stretch the piece out,
give it to our, our rescuer,and then he climbs out on the
roof and then moves into the,into the man basket kind of
thing.
So it was all.
Once Dave was set, the harnessis on him.
Without it was, it was overpretty fast, a little lower into
(33:53):
the ground yeah and any.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Uh.
So, and once he was on theground, maybe a little medical
surveillance, or were you guysjust like I'm gonna be totally
honest here.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
I was 300 feet, but I asked they took him in the
medic unit, talked to him,checked him out.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
He was fine all right , he had no like cold anything,
he was fine so you guys hot washthis afterwards or any lessons
learned after or anything thatyou guys talked about, that you
would do different next time.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Uh yeah.
So, um, on the rope side, ourplan, um, we, we learned some
things.
So we didn't carry everythingwith us.
We had just a little teeny,weeny rope that we lowered, a
Caribbean with a heavy Caribbeanlowered it to the ground and
what we realized was, as we werelowering that down, it was
going way far away, like it wasgetting blown by the wind a lot.
(34:43):
So it's like we can't, really wecan't, just lower a guy over
the edge here because he's goingto get blown away.
We have no way to get him backto the elevator, like so, um,
the elevator came up, it's, it'snormal operation.
It comes up through the ring wewere on and then it unlatches a
door that opens, and then youjust walk in that ring, go
inside, do your thing, um, so wewalked around the ring, we were
(35:06):
able to look at the other sideof that cage and figure out how
that door was released.
So, for, you know, basically wewere going to, with you know,
lobster, claws on, all tied off,lift him up so he, a guy could
reach over and push this littlelever, and then we were going to
be able to open the doors.
So then our plan was to usewhen we were going to, if you
(35:29):
know, if we ended up having todo it, we were going to lower a
guy down because right on thetrack, that, that, that the that
the elevator rides on, so thatthey can hold on to that track
as we lower them down so theydon't get blown away, because if
they got, you know they're notgoing to fall, but if they get
blown 30 feet away I don't knowhow we get them back.
It's like wait for the wind tostop, I guess Hopefully he
(35:52):
swings back in.
So we were going to do that,have him be able to grab onto
something as we lowered him sothat he would be right on top of
that elevator when he got downthere.
And then the process would havebeen harness on Dave, all that
stuff.
And then because of that, we'vehad a couple you know
conversations of either a trackline that would move Dave away
(36:15):
from the elevator so that ropewould not rub on it, and then
down to the ground, or have therescuer just sit on the top and
just kind of keep the rope awayfrom the elevator, lower Dave
down, bring the rope back up,haul our guy back up, and then
we climbed down the ladder.
But none of that.
None of that happened becausethe crane worked so well but it
(36:37):
was safe, it was better, it wasfaster, it was safer for
everybody.
I mean, none of that happenedbecause the crane worked so well
but it was safer, it was better, it was faster, it was safer
for everybody.
I mean it's the way to go.
So the hot wash yeah, we all metafterwards, you know, the rope.
People explained, like what ourplan was, because we really
didn't have a plan until we gotup there to see you know what
was there, how it would all workout.
And then the crane peopleexplained all the stuff they did
(36:59):
.
Any issues?
There really weren't any issues.
It worked out, you know, prettyas they had envisioned it would
.
It worked out pretty well.
And then our thing you know wewere secretly hoping that the
crane wouldn't make it there butso we could do a road rescue.
But it made it there.
It worked out fine.
We climbed.
I really I climbed up 300 feet.
(37:20):
So instead of staying on theground watching it like that, I
could lean on a railing andwatch it like that.
So the big rescue happened.
But I mean it worked out, itwas.
I mean it was kind of likereally nice, no big to do.
All the ideas worked out asplanning on minor adjustments,
and then um, and then they did.
(37:40):
It worked out right and dave'sfine, we're fine, everybody's
fine, and 300 feet back down,ain't that big a deal no, I mean
that we were.
Speaker 3 (37:50):
The reason that we're blue card, you know all hazards
management.
The reason that we're doingthis you know eight functions of
command for technical rescue is, you know, really, these
incidents and that, uh, thelocal jurisdiction if they, when
they don't have that capability, you know what, what can they
do and what you know can't theydo.
And, john, you kind ofmentioned it, if this was a big
(38:13):
rescue, like guy was hurt orsomething, what could you or
would you have done different?
You know, sometimes thattriggers the local jurisdiction
if they don't have thecapability to, you know, do some
things that maybe theyshouldn't.
So that's what's behind.
You know the eight functions ofcommand for technical rescue
that the group's been working onof what that really looks like.
(38:34):
Working on of what that reallylooks like and it's really
application of the system.
But how do you apply the systemto various technical rescue
incidents?
And you know, I think, what welearned today from you know,
some of the stuff Grant talkedabout.
You know, working with thelocal jurisdiction, working with
the subject matter experts thatare there on site talking to
(38:54):
people who are familiar with thecrane, uh, resource.
You know, command function onedeployment like what?
Who's here, what can we do withthem?
And I always make the extreme.
You know if, if you're anengine, you can't flow elevated
water.
So if you need a ladder, if youneed to do that, you need a
(39:14):
ladder.
If you need to do that, youneed a ladder truck.
Well, different people havedifferent skill sets, right?
So you know understanding, youknow all of that and knowing
when you're at your capacity orwhen you need, when you need
support.
So really all of that linesback up to the.
You know the whole system.
And then you know really thestrategic decision making model,
(39:36):
talking about the criticalfactors which clearly they
evaluated all of that.
You know kind of inside and out, made some decisions about risk
management, like, yeah, we dogot some time because we've
gathered information that thecompany said this thing's not
going to fall, the guy seems tobe stable.
You were able to talk to him.
You know all of those parts andpieces, developed an incident
action plan, not one, not not a.
This is what we do every time.
(39:57):
But you know, had, you knowthey already called the crane
we're gonna hopefully that worksor, in your case, maybe
hopefully it doesn't work, butuh, and then having the backup
for the, you know the ropesystem in place.
So it it's, it's all the modelwe talk about, right?
So you know it was a slow,rolling offensive strategy with,
(40:19):
you know, two incident actionplans a primary and a backup
plan of what we're going to do.
You know differently, and I'msure there were people there
thinking about like, well, ifthis doesn't work, what, like
what?
What's the next step?
And then you know, having thosepeople thinking about what is
what's standing between ussolving the problem.
So some of the stuff Granttalked about, like the wind and
(40:40):
the person getting blown, youknow, further away from where
the basket is and the basketblowing around, and you know the
not opening the door on theside and all of those things,
right, that's, that's all,really.
I mean it's decision making,right, really, uh, I mean it's
decision making right based offthe critical, based off those
critical factors that you alland, uh, you all identified,
along with the people on site.
(41:01):
And you know local, the localfire department.
So I mean nice success storywith a technical rescue event.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
So yeah, it was, um, it it was really, and I I can't
it's.
I've been at a lot of eventslike this where they're out in
the open and there's a lot moreinfluences played, and this was
to me it seemed like it was justtotally different because it
was just a closed site.
These people were here.
(41:30):
We're going to fix this, we'regoing to take care of it.
There wasn't just a lot ofoutside influences trying to
pressure.
You know, the media, this andI'm not against the media, just
you know.
Just, they want thisinformation, they want this.
I mean just all those thingsweren't there and it was.
It was really nice to just havethe people you needed to talk to
there, be able to just walk upand talk to them, have a
(41:50):
conversation, make a plan, makea backup plan.
Everybody, you good with this.
You shoot holes in our plan.
We'll shoot holes in your plan.
We're good.
I think we're good at that.
Okay, what do you guys need toclimb?
Start climbing, you guys.
The truck should be here in alittle bit.
Get the stuff you need to makethat man basket work with a step
off and go down in a holeoperation different than what
(42:12):
they normally do from a manbasket Get that ready to go, and
once that showed up it clickedright into place.
It worked really well.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
All right, you guys got time for a timeless tactical
truth.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
All right, let's do it.
Timeless tactical truth fromAlan Bernasini.
You can get the deck of cardsat bshiftercom, and today we're
looking at the 10 of clubs.
And this one says commandofficers generally establish and
(42:45):
continue command inside theirregular response vehicle as a
standard practice.
Now things get real drawn out.
You have more players involved.
You know, is it possible tostay inside an SUV for this long
?
Should we?
Because we don't have an IDLH?
Is it okay to get out?
What do you guys think aboutthat?
(43:06):
And really, you know, josh,maybe from you, what's the blue
card answer?
And Grant, what's the practicalanswer with you as a technical
rescue team member command as atechnical rescue team member.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
Well, I'll kick it off as a as a you know the blue
card answer is um, you know we,we stay in the vehicle.
And we know why we stay in thevehicle because we want to be
protected from you know theoutside elements.
Good place to think you canwrite stuff down.
You got a lot of referencepoint stuff there.
Uh, everybody else, they'rekeeping everybody else away from
you, like they.
They're not going to come therewhen I'm on the fire.
Well, they do a couple of timesand then they just don't come
(43:41):
back right after after a while.
But it's different.
And I'm listening to the radio.
I'm I'm an active listener,right, a primary piece of being
an incident commanders, I'm anactive listener.
I don't want to miss any radiotraffic.
I should never miss any radiotraffic.
And then you know, in this typeof an incident there's going to
be a command team and it'sgoing to also have, you know, a
(44:07):
lot of people from anytimeyou're on a commercial site,
you're going to have thatsubject matter expert influence,
right.
So at a hazmat incident, Imight have the plan operator and
some chemists and I want themright there with me.
Well, they're not all going topile in the car.
So ideally, you know, in time,if I could have a command van
there, if you could have acommand van there, that's really
(44:27):
good.
But I've been to plenty ofincidents where the at a fixed
location, where is the commandteam?
If you will, fire departmentresponse team, subject matter
experts, uh, maybe police, youknow, end up in a corporate
(44:48):
office space that is actuallydesigned to be a command
location, on, like a chemicalsite, or sometimes in these
other industrial, like verylarge industrial facilities like
this, you know that are, youknow, three, four, five, 600
acres.
You know, oftentimes they havea place there.
So it's almost like its ownlittle.
It's almost like its own littleemergency operations center and
(45:09):
command can, you know, operatefrom that point.
But really the key to it is iswhoever that team makes up.
That team, you know, just hasto stay together.
Right, we just have to put aleash on everybody.
It's hooked to the center poleand nobody, nobody leaves this
site.
Um, but the listening is stillimportant, but the thinking and
(45:32):
networking and running stuff upagainst each other is, you know,
oftentimes even more important.
And this isn't, these aren'tfast paced events, these are,
you know oftentimes long.
You know drawn out, drawn outpieces, so you know Grant can
talk to like what did it looklike there?
Speaker 2 (45:52):
Well, the I think the other thing is you just like
that we talked about the cranelike the fire department or
techno rescue team, somebodysays, yeah, I think we could do
this with a man basking with acrane.
Well, the fire department isnot going to call the crane
company because the cranecompany is going to want to know
who's paying for this.
No-transcript, we'll send itout there.
(46:27):
We'll figure it all out later.
Most likely they're going towant to know who's paying for
this, right?
So just, everybody's kind ofgot to be where you can have
that conversation.
The fire department or rescueteam has their conversation.
Then the managers of that go tothe next group and say, ok,
here's our plan, you need to bea part of this, right?
So the Duke guy may not need tobe in the conversation we have
(46:52):
with the fire guys, right?
The tech rescue has the fireside saying here's what we think
will work, here's what we thinkwill be best, not best, that
kind of thing.
And then, okay, they parse itout and they go, okay, and then
he moves down to all, right, nowhe's going to go to that group.
So they all need to be able tobe together and kind of be able
to converse back and fortheasily Because I mean, there's,
(47:13):
that's their guy right, in theend it's their guy up in there.
And you know, we don't wantthem to again.
We want them to know everythingwe're doing and then when we
need stuff, we go to them andsay, here's what we need, you
know, and like they go, okay,we'll get it.
Okay, good enough, thanks.
Speaker 1 (47:28):
Grant, thank you very much for being here today and
sharing this incident with uswith us, I mean, you are a great
storyteller and your experienceis so valuable to share with
all the listeners here onB-Shifter, so thank you very
much for sharing that incident.
I'm glad the outcome was good,everyone was safe, no one got
hurt and certainly you guys didit in a safe way and managed it
(47:49):
very well.
So thank you for sharing thatwith us today.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
Absolutely.
It was great being here.
I got my steps in that day.
Speaker 1 (47:55):
All right.
All right, josh and Grant.
Thank you very much.
Thanks for being on the episodetoday and we'll talk to you
soon.
Thanks, john.
Thanks for listening to BShifter.
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