Firefighter Carries and Drags – Part 2 The Hasty Chest

The second firefighter drag and probably the most popular is the hasty chest.  This drag is completed by simply wrapping a girth hitch across the firefighter’s chest and under his arms with your webbing, then wrapping the extra webbing a couple of times around your gloved hand to allow for a good strong hold on the drag.

girth hitch under the arms

Rodeo wrap around hand to secure position

The next tool that uses the same method, but is commercially made, the ‘Sav-a-Jake.’  It consists of two pieces.  First a piece of webbing with two biners on it and a ‘y’ piece of webbing with two pull handles and a connection pointon the other end.  It can be integrated into the DRD or locked under the armpits and then snapped on to the pull handles.  It can even be run through the shoulder straps as shown on their website.

If you’re interested in sav-a-jake, you can click here to find out more about their product with additional uses for this simple but effective tool.

Firefighter Carries and Drags – Part 1 The ‘L’ Carry

The next few posts will be devoted to showing and listing different carries and drags of firefighters and victims.  The first is the ‘L’  carry or drag and all you need is your webbing.  15′ of webbing may work, but we’ve found that 20′ is the optimal length and will guarantee that you’ll be able to perform the wrap on the largest firefighter.  As you approach your victim and you find the legs, take one leg and wrap a girth hitch (also known as a larks foot or cow hitch) around either one of the thighs.

single girth hitch around one thigh

After you’ve girthed the thigh, you should move to the back of the firefighter and take one part of the loop under each of the victims armpits creating two pull loops.

Completed 'L' carry with two pull loops

The completed harness leaves two pull loops for either one or two firefighters to use to pull the victim.  Additionally, you can girth the two pull loops to make one pull handle creating two constricting points on your victim.  This would be called an ‘L’ carry with a girth or larks foot.

The benefits of this harness is that it is easy to complete blacked out and with gloves on and it doesn’t constrict the chest like a hasty chest harness does.   I will cover the hasty chest in a later post.  The only potential negative that I can think of with this harness is that if you let go of your pull handles, or slip and fall it might take a moment or two to reset the harness before you resume your drag again.

Additionally, we thought that if you girthed  both legs at the knee and completed the rest of the harness in the same way that you might have a great handle for a second firefighter to grab if you were removing the victim up a set of stairs.  We haven’t drilled the idea yet so I’ll let you guys know what the outcome is when we figure it out.

Rope Bags – Part 2

The next rope bag we’re going to cover is the cadillac of tag lines.  Aerial 2 has been carrying this bag on their truck for over a year and it has received generally very positive reviews.

The bag carries 200′ feet of fire-resistive kernmantle rope.  The rope feed through a velcro flap located on the top of the bag.  There are 3 things that make this bag the cadillac of rope bags.  First, the slider which is a metal cylinder that the rope feeds through.  It has a rocker handle that will be explained in greater depth later.

The slider is made of aluminum and is held by the rope or control man.  What makes this piece so unique is when you reach the machined distance markers.  As you are moving forward and the rope plays out first you will reach the directional cone which, like the previous bag is on the side of the exit and will lead you out of the fire.

25' w/ exit to right

The indent located on the middle of the directional cone is a positive stop for the slider.  The rope man must squeeze the handle on the slider to keep advancing.  This is simply a distance reminder.  The rope man can feel a few inches ahead and know how deep into the structure they are.  1 ball = 25′,  2 balls = 50′, 1 rectangle = 100′, 1 rectangle and 1 ball = 125′.

125' w/ exit to right

The end of the rope attaches to a metal ring that is sewn on the bottom of the bag which prevents the rope from accidentally sliding out of the bag without the control man noticing. 

The other advantage of this bag is the 2 12′ sections of winger rope that are stored on the side of the bag and allows for simultaneous half moon searches on each side of the tag line in large area spaces.

side pocket for winger rope

The end of the winger rope has a loop for the searcher to feed their hand through while they are completing their half-moon search.  The winger rope can be attached to the bag or the dog ears on the blue slider.  The rope man can also use the dog ears to put a hitch in the rope if he hits a spot he needs to stop at for a bit and not move forward or back.

Other features of the bag include a shoulder strap w/ a buckle release and enough storage for 200′ of search line.  The anchor point of the search line also carries a unit id tag that allows anyone on scene to identify what unit is using the line and is inside the structure.

removeable buckle

12' of winger rope

As I stated before in previous posts, any distance longer than this should seriously consider a different ingress point.  This bag is heavier than the previous bag I reviewed, but upgrades, distance, the quality of the rope and the inclusion of the two sections of winger rope make it worth the extra weight.  The distance markers and the slider are very professional and durable and have zero failures in over 1 year on the truck.  All of the customization that  was done on the previous rope bag can be done to this one as well to make the bag even more secure and functional.

If your truck is only carrying personal rope bags for the troops you should seriously consider building a tag line for RIT or large area searches.  These bags, with training and familiarity can increase the effectiveness, safety and quality of your search.

Any questions about this bag can be forwarded through the site or directed here.  And many thanks to Lt. Jairo Rodriguez, our resident expert on this bag and the one responsible for introducing it to us.  If you are interested in this rope bag, you can read more about it here in pdf format.

Rope Bags – Part 1

Search and rescue, RIT, and incident command tactics.  Most of what we read and what we train on are big picture tactics and guides.  During the next few posts, I want to break the search down into components and discuss the positives and negatives of each of the components.  I’ll be reviewing different types of rope bags and some of the things you can do to make your bag more functional and hopefully safer.

Does your company carry a search bag?  If so, what type?  And is it as functional and efficient as it could be?  The first bag I’m going to review is the FDNY style, over the shoulder bag with a quick release strap.

The FDNY Search Bag

This bag is useful for many reasons.  First, the bag is a bit larger and can be worn over the shoulder and released quickly.  Additionally, the build allows for worry free deployment through overlapping holes on the top of the bag.  We decided to pack the bag with 150′ of search rope with the reason being if we have deployed more than 150′ of rope we probably chose the wrong ingress point, but the bag allows for you to add another bag to the first through an attachment ring or the snap hook on the bottom of the bag.

We did make some modifications and improvements to the bag.  It comes with one snap button and in blacked-out or difficult conditions could unbutton.  So we added two more snaps which can be purchased at your local hardware store and we also labeled the amount of rope on the outside of the bag.

The next modification we made to the bag was to change out the shoulder strap and have a stronger strap with a seatbelt buckle professionally sewn on.  This makes the strap more secure and allows for an easier release with gloved hands.  We also had the ends of the strap folded over and sewn so that it could not be pulled from the adjustable area of the strap.

We added two snap hooks to each end of the rope.  One snap hook snaps to the bottom of the bag, the other is used to wrap your object outside the structure and snap back onto the rope.  It is important that your search bag provide a loop at the bottom of the bag for security.  This way the rope doesn’t slide right out of the bag without you noticing leaving you searching with a bag and without a rope.  Some bags leave a hole on the bottom for you to put a stopper knot but I think that is less than adequate.

The anchor point of the rope has a snap hook and a unit identification tag.  We ordered a leather helmet front put a hole in the corner and fixed velcro to the back to put a spare set of passports onto.  The upside down tag indicates the driver who is not participating in the interior search.  If he were it would be put right side up.  This small piece of identification allows for anyone on the fireground to know who is on the end of the search line.

As I said before, we used 150′ of rope, but we also put distance knots in the rope every 25′, adding a knot for each section.  25′ = 1 knot, 50′=2 and so forth.  Additionally, there is a directional knot placed 12-18″ before the distance knot.  If you lose your direction you will only go a maximum of 25′ before you hit your distance knots.  Whatever side the directional knot is on will lead you out of the building and to safety.  The size of the rope is 5/16th, large enough to feel and find with a gloved hand.  If you’re going to use kernmantle try 7.5mm or larger.

50' w/ exit to the right

100' w/ exit to the left

While drilling with this bag, we found that it always plays out flawlessly even with the distance knots put into the line.  The shoulder harness is convieniant and allows for a possbile free hand, even though I always recommend that one hand stays on the bag and controls the deployment of the rope and allows the rope man to keep track of distance.  Additionally, it should be noted that if you have to maneuver through obstacles or obstructions, low profile or otherwise it is best to remove the bag from around your shoulder and keep it in your hand from that point on in the search. 

Much of the inspiration and direction for the rope bag we just put together comes from a John Salka article written in the April 2007 issue of Firehouse Magazine entitled, “The Search Rope = Survival“  Improvements and most of the work related into building the bag go to Ralph Carrillo and Billy McCann and all the other fellas on ‘A’ Shift.