Good times with the slow pull machine

In November of last year, the Rescue Program Coordinator from Rocky Mountain Fire visited us in Ouray with an interesting question: can wildland firefighters use their fire hose as anchor material in an improvised rescue scenario?

The following videos show two pulls that we did on a .75" forestry hose (commonly referred to as a "garden hose") and a 1.5" single jacket forestry hose; both samples were heavily used prior to testing.

The .75" hose was configured as a wrap two pull two with a ring bend, and broke mid-strand at 6.83 kN.

The 1.5" hose was configured as a single strand anchored at each end with an overhand knot, and broke mid-strand at 18.93 kN.

Both of these are considered "quick look" tests and are far from comprehensive. Nonetheless, it's fun to see things break.

Updated Website

New content in the updated Rigging for Rescue website includes:

-2012 open enrollment calendar for both the Rigging for Rescue and Update and Beyond seminars.
-Information and photos for the 2012 Mountain Rescue Week
-Information about contract testing
-And selected testing videos

Included in the testing videos now available on the website is this favorite, which many may recall from past Rigging for Rescue seminars

About this video:
200kg test mass. Fall factor zero. 10.5mm climbing rope (aka dynamic rope). 30m of rope-in-service using a Tandem Prusik Belay. More than 5m of stop distance. High elongation ropes - like a climbing rope - are not appropriate as rescue belay lines. 

Rigging for Rescue is producing this video for promotional purposes. It is not comprehensive and is not intended to be instructional. Further, Rigging for Rescue reserves all intellectual property associated with this video.

Destruction in the name of Education

Rigging for Rescue’s slow pull machine, dubbed “The Rack”, has been brought out for two recent seminars. Seminar participants were invited to test knots, anchor systems, hardware, and any other item that they wanted to see pulled to failure. Clearly these tests can only be considered “quick-look” and non-comprehensive testing.


This Prusik bypass failed at 27.4 kN