nickwilliams
Well-known member
The last six minutes of part 1 brings back some memories!
"Responsibility" for self help / rescue
- Thread starter Ian P
- Start date
Kenilworth
New member
pwhole said:
That's perhaps an overstatement, but it has some moments.
The Collins story isn't really about caving or cave rescue, it was another thing entirely. But there are traces of the same luridity to be found in some modern rescue situations. American Caving Accidents, for example, was started with the stated intention of publishing accounts of incidents in the hope that they would be instructive and protective. Before long, as cave recue became a sort of club of its own, ACA became a place for rescuers to tally their exploits. The premise of the publication was never really sound to begin with; there isn't usually a lot to be learned from caving accidents. Anyway submissions dealt primarily with the gory details of the accident and rescue/recovery efforts, with a line or two dedicated to some obvious "lesson". It became entertainment, with a heavy dose of glory-hounding.
It is now popular to boast of your latest cave rescue online. It is common for cavers to travel great distances to be on hand for a rescue which they are in no way needed for, not asked to attend, and in fact incapable of assisting in. But they were There. Something like the Collins circus anyway.
American cavers have a nauseating motto "Cavers rescue spelunkers" by which they pretend superiority over those who are their equal by any worthy measure. They take great glee in sneering at idiotic non-affiliated cave explorers who manage to get hurt, or lost. When a Real Caver needs help, they switch to tones of sacrifice and fraternity and noble bravery, assemble to help the Caver out of his usually self-inflicted jam, then rush to Facebook to tell the world.
Well, that's the worst of it. There are also talented and truly kind and technically brilliant people who have been instrumental in saving lives, or trying to. There have been many lives saved by the worst sort of cave rescuers too, so that atones for the cultural problems.
But cavers should be doing their part to try and make formal rescue unneeded. Chris' assertion that led to the half-assed technical discussion earlier in this thread was completely legitimate and accurate. The existence of a rescue organization does not mean we can learn the bare basics of underground travel and be satisfied. Especially where srt is involved. Difficulty on rope is one of the most common and persistent causes of rescue incidents. People learn to go down and go up by a formulaic process involving a fixed array of particular gear. Then they quit learning. I say we have the responsibility to keep learning. If we lead trips with those who are content with absolute basics, we have an even greater responsibility. And if we can't persuade them to take their right share of it we then have the responsibility to leave them off our trips.
Hasbeen caver
Member
nickwilliams said:
Which dig / breakthrough is it, Nick?
Kenilworth:
This does not seem to be the case in Britain, where there are relatively few 'SRT rescues'.
This is, of course, pure speculation, but I wonder if the reason for this might lie in the following. I get the impression that in the States there are any number of disparate groups whose members use equally disparate techniques for getting down and up pitches, whereas in Britain the 'caving community' (for want of a better phrase) is somewhat more homogeneous, and most people (I think) stick to the tried and tested Frog system?
Can of worms, huh? New thread needed?
in the USA.
This does not seem to be the case in Britain, where there are relatively few 'SRT rescues'.
This is, of course, pure speculation, but I wonder if the reason for this might lie in the following. I get the impression that in the States there are any number of disparate groups whose members use equally disparate techniques for getting down and up pitches, whereas in Britain the 'caving community' (for want of a better phrase) is somewhat more homogeneous, and most people (I think) stick to the tried and tested Frog system?
Can of worms, huh? New thread needed?
nickwilliams
Well-known member
Hasbeen caver said:
The film was shot during the Illusion Pot dig. The sequence shows Toby going off in the opposite direction to the way to Dale Barn. So far as I know, that's the only time it's been pushed, but Bob's final comment 'no fixes or fiddles' is true. This was done about the time that high definition video cameras small enough to hold in one hand became available and one of the Cutting Edge producers came with us one Thursday with one, knowing that we had a lead to push that evening.
Hasbeen caver
Member
Thanks Nick
I think you could tell from the way Bob and Toby spoke that this was for real.
Great stuff...!
I think you could tell from the way Bob and Toby spoke that this was for real.
Great stuff...!
Kenilworth
New member
Fulk said:
There is some truth to this. Of course, slips and falls are the number one cause of rescue, but they are a little less predicatable and preventable than srt problems, so that will probably always be the case.
US cavers use a huge variety of vertical techniques. Since that is the case, no one system is exhaustively taught on a wide scale. Frog is the most common, but the existence of many large free hangs makes other methods attractive too. I do not believe that difficulty on rope is more common here because other methods are worse than frogging, but because cavers have failed to adequately learn how to overcome problems ot use their chosen technique in a difficult situation. The complexity of some systems adds to the responsibility of the user to learn them well. So while I, for example, use the Frog, and Texas, prusiks and jugging, I have avoided ropewalking since I do not want to devote the time and gear to learning it and implementing it properly.
Simon Wilson
New member
Kenilworth said:
***** are you certain about it this time?
Kenilworth
New member
Pardon?Simon Wilson said:
