Team Skills Rescue – RTR

The Team Skills Rescue Workshop is ideal for industrial and wilderness rescue teams and is designed to begin where the  Personal Skills Rescue Workshop leaves off and carry on into more demanding rescue practices and team-building skills. This, and the PSRW, are the workshops which fulfill the “90% solution” on most rope rescues within industry and wilderness locations. Lectures on intermediate physics and how it relates to rope rigging are common throughout the duration of this workshop. Emphasis is places on “why” we do something, rather than “how”. Students, as a team unit, learn how to build seemingly complex arrangements for reaching, treating and extricating a patient from the vertical high or steep angle environment whether in industrial locations or in the wilderness. All the while, emphasis is placed on building everything from the basic materials most teams will have along: rope, carabiners, pulleys, accessory cord, webbing and know how.

The Team Skills Rescue Workshop focuses on these main areas:

1. Anchoring:
   This would include so called “bombproof”, substantial and marginal (contributory) anchors and anchor systems. It also covers anchor plates, rigging pods, bipods and tripods (AZ VORTEX if applicable). In some TSRW, rock protection is thoroughly practiced within the program (if applicable).
2. Physics:
   “Barn floor physics” (as opposed to “loft” physics) lessons on anchor loading and directional loading are done in the classroom on the whiteboard. A favorite part of the TSRW for many as it brings home the importance of understanding force (compression and tension). These lectures reinforce the upcoming lectures on artificial high directionals with relevant discussions on component force vectors and resultant force vectors
3. Pulley Systems:
   Pulley system understanding is key to understanding what is happening in our rope systems. We delve into class 1, 2 and 3 pulleys. working and non working systems, simple, compound and complex pulley systems. We also cover the Arizona Progression of 7, a series of learn-by-rote pulley systems for the general rescue practitioner. Also, these systems produce differing loading on our anchors so attention is paid to tension units as well
4. High Directionals: (AZ VORTEX or other)
   This includes, in most TSRW, the use of the Arizona Vortex (frame) as a tripod, bipod and monopod at the edge and for anchors back from the edge (see “Anchors” above). Extensive lectures on the basic setups for this appliance found in the User Manual. Extensive guying section for frames with the use of non-working pulley systems.
5. High Angle Offsets:
   The TSRW includes an extensive lecture and practical section on alternatives to highlines in the form of “offsets”. Ropes That Rescue has become known for its projection of these offsets as an alternative to training intensive highlines in the past 25 years. Offsets employ standard high angle techniques that most rescuers already know and so are more forgiving in the training curve than more elaborate systems. These offsets are: 1) Tag Line, 2) Guiding Line, 3) Tracking Line, 4) Skate Block, 5) Deflection Line, 6) Two Rope.

NOTE 1: Highlines are NOT covered in this program. If desired, please see Advanced Skills Rescue Workshop
NOTE 2: Limited steep angle litter evacuations in this program. If desired, please see Tactical Wilderness Rescue Workshop
NOTE 3: Limited personal skills other than the first 8 uses of the AZTEK. For personal skills see Personal Skills Rescue Workshop

The Team Skills Rescue Workshop is not by any means a beginning rope rescue program. It is a serious venture and complete immersion into rescue systems that can sometimes be overwhelming to some less experienced practitioners.