ABOUT THREE YEARS AGO, MY buddy Dan and I were sitting at the firehouse dinner table discussing our commitment to one another to make sure we would get each other out of a bad situation, no matter what. We analyzed all of the scenarios we could for firefighter rescue, and we realized that even with all of our training and expertise, we were full of hot air. When push came to shove, we were often coming up short in how to physically move our fellow firefighters from fiery death to fresh air and blue skies. There were several rescue scenarios for which we had no functional plan or technique that we really believed would work, and we came to the realization that our efforts would most likely result in a recovery, not a rescue.
So we began forging ahead to find solutions to these rescue problems. As instructors, we continually train and evaluate various rescue techniques, and one thought kept reoccurring: These techniques are either too slow or too complex, and they almost always require a team to accomplish the rescue. When and if we find victims, we don’t get them out fast enough or we expend so much energy and air doing so that we become part of the problem. If we’re in a situation where we don’t have the immediate resources of a rapid intervention team (RIT) or additional staffing, we’re extremely limited in our ability to effect a rapid rescue.
My goal was to come up with a tool or technique that was really fast; able to be performed by the most basically trained, physically average firefighter; and versatile enough to be deployed as an individual resource as well as a team resource.
Our mantra has always been “Do it.” Don’t just talk about it or read about it; go do it. Drill on a technique until you master it, then introduce a realistic environment and drill on it again until you master it further. Evaluate its effectiveness and tweak it, share it, or dump it. We’re sharing this one. We’ve spent the past three years running these rescue techniques through the ringer all over the Midwest; we now feel 100 percent confident that they’ll save lives.
TWENTY FEET OF WEBBING IS ALL YOU NEED
These techniques involve one implement and one implement only: a 20-foot-long piece of two-inch webbing with the ends tied together with a water knot. We use the two-inch webbing because it meets NFPA standards for minimum break strength if you use it as a hasty rescue harness, it’s easier to find with a gloved hand in a zero-visibility environment than one-inch webbing, and it does less damage to the victim. We use 20 feet of it because it allows much more versatility. In too many rescue situations, we use short pulling straps to drag a victim, and we don’t maximize our body mechanics. If we get out and away from the victim, we can maintain our momentum and use our full range of motion to move victims much faster.
All of these techniques are variants of one primary application. They all begin with a simple girth hitch around the victim’s torso. Before you say, “This is nothing new,” let me tell you that the way we apply it is. I’ve watched lots of firefighters struggle when girthing a victim because they’re trying to reach their arms around the victim. Following is the most effective method:
1 Straddle the victim, and pull him up into a seated position by his shoulder straps. Evaluate his air situation and physical condition, and fix whatever problems you can (photo 1).
 1. Photos by author. |
2 Hook the back of the victim’s neck with your arm opposite the side on which you store your webbing. Pull the webbing out, and place the water knot into the hook hand. Make sure your hand goes all the way around the knot with the two sides of the webbing feeding out both sides of the hand-this speeds up the pull-through later. Slide your other hand down to the victim’s shoulder blade, keeping both sections of webbing in the hand (photo 2).
 2. |
3 With the hook hand, quickly pull the webbing around the back of the bottle, and plant that hand on the opposite shoulder blade. It is important to keep the segment of webbing between the two hands taut. If slack is introduced, it can get hung up under the victim’s bottle (photo 3).
 3. |
4 With the hand opposite the water-knot hand, quickly guide that hand under the victim’s arm, allowing the webbing to slide through the hand and the victim to fall to that side (photo 4).
 4. |
5 Push the hand holding the water knot all the way through the webbing and grab the other segment, pulling it all back through, forming the girth. Cinch it down, and ensure that it stays anchored on the lateral portion of the victim. This will enable you to perform the next steps with greater ease (photo 5).
 5. |
PULLING POSITIONS USING THE GIRTH STRAP
There are a variety of pulling positions you can use with the girth strap, depending on individual strength and conditions. Listed below are the various one-person pulling positions. If working as a team of rescuers, two firefighters can get side-by-side. Each firefighter should grab a section of the webbing with the inside hand and pull (photos 6, 7, and 8).
 6. |
 7. |
 8. |
Stair movement, ground debris, and flooring surfaces are additional obstacles that present significant challenges. If stair movement is a must and you are functioning as a one-person rescue entity or do not have time to wait on the RIT or additional support, the following is a one-person stair technique. This technique is very challenging physically, but in testing more than 500 firefighters, we found that only about six percent were unable to perform this procedure:
1 Pull the girth strap straight up, straddle the victim, and sit on him. Tie an overhand into the webbing at the height of your face piece (photo 9).
 9. |
2 Open up the lower section of webbing and lie down on the victim as you place your head through the opening. Once your head is through, swim one arm through the webbing and work it down off your neck (photo 10).
 10. |
3 Place both feet under you, get your rear end down and your back straight, and stand up (photo 11). By having the girth anchored on the lateral portion of the victim, you keep the body oriented in a much narrower profile than if it were flat. This enables you to march up all but the smallest of stairwells. (The average time to perform rigging and make your way to the top of the stairs using this method is less than one minute. This technique can also be used to clear a ground-debris area if needed. If two rescuers are available, stick to the traditional bulldozer techniques.)
 11. |
If you are part of a rescue team and conditions permit you to get upright, then the following technique is extremely fast:
1Take the pulling end of the girth strap, open it up, and lay it across the victim (photo 12).
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2 Flip the victim over into the prone position. This should leave a loop of webbing sticking out of both sides of the victim (photo 13).
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3 Each rescuer should then face the exit direction, grab a loop, and drive it up to his shoulder while pushing the inside arm through (photo 14). The rescuers are now free to start moving. If the victim is too heavy to get the straps up to the shoulders, the loops can be used as handles instead of shoulder-carry straps.
 14. |
Special thanks to Dan Mercer, Rick Lasky, and John Salka for their assistance in the preparation of this article.
DALAN ZARTMAN is a firefighter with the Washington Township (OH) Fire Department. He is a certified firefighter II, an EMT-P, a rescue technician, and a fire instructor II. Zartman is a member of the Central Ohio Urban Search and Rescue Team. He is a Fire Service Medal of Honor winner and a fire and rescue instructor at the Ohio Fire Academy and Bowling Green State University.
