[Public-list] Safety gear for body retreval

[edward schroeder]

Don; I am the Safety Director for our club, Sail Chicago, and very interested in stories like yours. It was excellent. With your permission, may I forward it to some members of our club? Ed. Schroeder #303 Emotional Rescue

Don Campbell <dk.campbell at sympatico.ca> wrote:  Getting bodies - fit or unconscious - on board is not easy. I have
had experience with both and the second is much more difficult. Chances
are there will be some impairment with the person to be rescued. Both
situations below ended with successful rescues but they both could have
been better.
The first case involved my daughter who forgot she was wearing a
life jacket sailing a Y-Flyer and attempted to extricate herself from
the sails after tipping, by swimming under the jib. It was cool
weather and she was wearing a heavy woollen sweater. Rescue was
attempted by two men in a 15 foot Boston Whaler and the waves in the
man-made reservoir were less than 1 foot. Lesley was unconscious when
her brother managed to get her out from under the sail, before the
whaler arrived, but it turned out that it was impossible to have both
men in the boat on the same side, otherwise the Whaler would tip. Then,
with all the water in her clothes, Lesley was too heavy and slippery for
one person to get her aboard. The only way she made it in was for her
brother, in the water, to get his arms under her torso and grab the
gunwhales and lift his shoulders out of the water so that the body
rolled downhill into the boat. It helped that he was a wrestler at the
time, and was both fit and strong. I think there was a touch of
adrenalin in the system at that point, too. Even a routine rescue is
never routine. It helps to know ahead what might go wrong, - and that
was with gunwhales about 12" off the water.
The other serious case I was involved with was a person swimming in
an area she should not have been, - about 100 feet from the south gate
of Lock 8 in the Welland Canal, under the rail as it is known. The rail
is a buffer of oak that starts out at about 12" thick and four feet
from top to bottom that is hung on the concrete walls of the approaches
to the locks of the canal at or slighly above normal water levels. This
is a rub rail for ships to manoeuver into the lock, (so it wears and is
very full of splinters as it wears) and with the bow on the rail and 5
degrees of rudder, any ship will end up in the center of the lock.
Locks are 80 feet wide and about 750 feet long. The current lakers are
built to a width and length of 78 x 730 so there is no extra, and these
guys are good; they don't run the walls in the lock even with a breeze.
Fortunately, Lock 8 is only a water level control lock and the most I
have ever moved vertically in that lock is 5 feet, but it is also the
biggest at 80 x 1100 feet long. I had just exited lock 8 and there was
a stiff breeze with eddies from Lake Erie hitting the canal, and a small
voice calling "help", - all unexpected! At any rate the ladder on the
stern never crossed my mind at the time because and it was difficult to
control the boat, never mind get close and possibly run over a swimmer.
I radioed for help from the lockmaster, (who also had control on the
gate), I asked for no influx of water or extra current for the
swimmer, moored against the rail, and dropped a ring buoy. In the end,
it was the fire department who managed to get this person out, after
they hung a ladder down 10 feet over the side of the canal and made her
climb out herself. It was not easy as she appeared hypothermic. Then she
was off in an ambulance.
There are two different real life examples and not what one normally
expects.
I also teach the knot section for the local Power and Sail Squadron.
Two of my students one year were linemen for the provincial electricity
company, Hydro One. (They needed no extra on knots). Their knowledge
was very helpful for rescue because they have the situation where they
may be electrocuted while in the bucket on the hydraulic arm that gets
them up to the area on the poles where they need to work. Once down in
the bucket, which is about 5 feet deep, there is no way out. They all
have a harness that consists of a web strap around under their arms
sewn to a ring that sits on their chest. There is a hand operated crane
that fits onto the edge of the bucket with enough height to lift on the
ring and get the man over the edge of the bucket.
There are a number of knots and various line arrangements for
lifting bodies that are often modifications of a bowline on a bight. Try
it and see how severely the rope cuts into your body. The ideal is a
wide strap under the arms and short enough to be snug under load. This
offers a wider surface than a line, and once under tension, there is no
way that a body, conscoius or otherwise, can slip out of this system.
I carry a 48" commercial sling, similar to the one often used attached
to the cable on a crane when lifting your mast, which has two sewn in
loops and a legal lifiting capacity printed on the label that I am able
to quickly attach to a snap shackle and have the vang system to the
boom, so I have a 4 part lifting system independant of the mainsheet.
Thus, I have control of the boom with the mainsheet and control of the
body with my vang system. There is also access to the winches on the
boat, necessary because a man can pull very little more than 75 lbs on
a straight pull. It is also a good idea to attach a second support
(halyard) to the outboard end of the boom to reinforce the topping
lift or act as a lifting device in its own right.
The main thing is to have thought out the situation beforehand so
you have an idea of where to start and not panic. Having a life jacket
with a harness incorporated sure helps for a start. Getting someone
injured into a bosun's chair takes too long and is not easy, getting an
unconscious person into one is next to impossible. The strap is quick
and easy for any situation. The sling cost less than $12.00 last time I
bought one at Bunning Rigging in Toronto.
As for swimming back to a boat, one of the members of the GLAA has a
friend who was on the German Olympic swim team and they had a bit of a
bet on how easy it would be to get back to the boat. The swimmer said he
would have no trouble doing so under almost any conditions, not that he
was still in olympic condition but he was still a really good swimmer.
So he chose 3 knots and 25 meters of distance. Well that was not
possible, so he then said that he could pull himself on a line and get
back the 25 meters. That failed also becasue as soon as he tried to move
forward by pulling on the line the bow wave from his forehead covered
things so well that breathing was impaired. So then he tried on his back
and the bow wave again inundated him after only one hand over hand. The
swimmer lost all bets. The net upshot of this is that if you are in the
water,and tethered to the boat, chances are it will only help locate
the body. If you do to drag a line or use a line as a safety feature
while swimming, my son's precaution is to attach a fender to the distant
end. This will be an additional lump at the end of the line to hang on
to, with flotation, and will mark the end of the line with or without
forward motion of the boat.
Again, having a plan is a great help in avoiding bad events and panic
in the situation.
Don
#528

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