Rescue techniques

6.1 What to do in a climbing accident

6.2 Why learn rescue techniques?

6.3 Stabilizing the victim

Goal: Make sure the victim is no longer hanging backward.

6.4 Abseil with a victim

Goal: Get the victim down from a belay station.

6.5 Abseil met contragewicht

Goal: Descend to the victim and continue down together.

6.6 Hauling

Goal: Get the victim to come up.

Practice questions and assignments for Chapter 6

Scenarios for Chapter 6

6.1 What to do in a climbing accident

Hopefully you'll never need to use the techniques in this chapter. In fact, for any serious accident or incident, this is what you do:

Make sure you yourself are safe.
Communicate with others nearby and check whether they're safe.
Call emergency services immediately and follow their instructions.
In Europe, you can always call 112. In addition, you can call the local mountain rescue service directly (the numbers vary by country or region, so look these up in advance and save them in your phone).
Do you have medical training yourself, or have you completed a first aid course? Then you can apply what you learned there (in consultation with emergency services).

When contacting emergency services, it's important to communicate clearly:

Where is the situation? Give the nearest town, the name of the climbing area, the name of the massif, the name of the route, and the victim's position.
So always make sure you know where you are while climbing!
What happened (to the victim)?
What is the current status?
Who are you? And what can you offer in this situation? Provide your phone number.

These days, someone who also speaks English is often available, but keep in mind there may be a (significant) language barrier.

6.2 Why learn rescue techniques?

Learning rescue techniques helps you grow as an (outdoor) climber. It gives you insight into what's possible and can boost your confidence. You get to know your gear better, as well as your climbing partner. Applying rescue techniques safely, thoughtfully, and efficiently is a good indicator of your OVM skill level, and is therefore also assessed during the course. What's more, many (non-rescue) situations can also be solved using the techniques you'll learn here.

In addition, rescue situations can arise where no emergency services are available, or where you have no phone signal. Or emergency services may take longer to arrive and prefer that you go to the victim right away. Sometimes it's better (in consultation with them) for you to bring the victim down yourself.

Although situations like these don't come up often, it's still better to be prepared.

6.3 Stabilizing the victim

Situation: The victim is hanging unconscious, tipped backward in the harness.

Goal: Make sure the victim is no longer hanging backward.

When someone hangs unconscious in a climbing harness, the leg loops cut off circulation to the legs. Hanging like this for longer than about fifteen minutes, as shown in the photo, can already have very serious effects on the body. That's why it's important to get the person sitting upright again. To do this, use a sling around the shoulders (crossed over the back) and attach it to the climbing rope with a carabiner or quickdraw. It's sometimes also possible to attach the sling to the victim's belay loop instead. Depending on the size of the sling (and the victim), it may be necessary to shorten the sling with a knot or something similar.

N.B. If the victim is wearing a backpack, you can use a setup through the shoulder straps to help stabilize them.

6.4 Abseil with a victim

Situation: The victim was leading and is now hanging unconscious above (or beside) you.

Goal: Get the victim down from a belay station.

Learning to rappel with a victim is too complex to properly learn from text or a video. Sign up for the ASAC's OVM course, or email the OC to ask whether you can join sessions 3 & 4 of the course.

The step-by-step plan for rappelling with a victim below can serve as a refresher.

A rappel with a victim works as follows.

Brief overview: Like a normal rappel, but with an extra person on the belay device.

If the victim is hanging above you, carefully lower them down to the belay station. Make sure their belay loop ends up just below the belay station, not too low. You can always lower someone a bit further, but you can't simply lift them back up.
Tie off the belay device so you have your hands free.
Stabilize the victim.
Attach a prusik with a rethreaded figure-eight knot to the victim's belay loop. Attach the long strands of the prusik to a carabiner in the belay station with a Munter hitch. Lock the carabiner. Make sure the strands are under tension, and tie off the Munter hitch (see Chapter 5).
You've now attached the victim to the belay station in a way that can later be released under load. That's why you can't do this using the victim's lifeline.
Do a check to make sure everything is set up correctly. Then use your belay device to lower the victim "into" the prusik.
Build a normal rappel through the two bolts of the belay station. Since the victim is now hanging from the prusik at the belay station, you can safely untie them and use that end of the climbing rope for the rappel. Make sure you're hanging in the rappel yourself, and check the rappel thoroughly.
Also clip the victim into the rappel, onto the carabiner on the belay/rappel device that you yourself are hanging from. The most convenient way to do this is to use the victim's lifeline + carabiner, since that's already securely attached to their harness. A sling, or another prusik, also works fine.
Make sure this connection is short. You don't want the victim dangling below you during the rappel.
Release the prusik with the tied-off Munter hitch, and let the victim gently lower "into" the rappel. Let the rappel take the weight. You can leave the prusik attached to the victim. At this point, you can clean up the belay station if needed. In life-threatening situations: feel free to leave gear behind, but take a moment to think about whether you'll need it later during the rescue.
Now you can rappel as usual, except with a victim hanging on your lap (or between your legs).
During the rappel, use your legs to keep good distance from the rock face, so the victim doesn't scrape against it.

Do you need to rappel multiple pitches? Then at the next belay station, attach the victim to the belay station the same way as in step 4. The same rule applies here: stop rappelling in time to make sure the victim doesn't end up hanging too low. You can always go further down, but going back up is difficult. See also rappelling in a multipitch in Chapter 5.

6.5 Abseil met contragewicht

Situation: The victim was following and is now hanging unconscious below you.

Goal: Descend to the victim and continue down together.

Learning the counterweight rappel is too complex to properly learn from text or a video. Sign up for the ASAC's OVM course, or email the OC to ask whether you can join sessions 3 & 4 of the course.

The step-by-step plan for the counterweight rappel with a victim below can serve as a refresher.

A counterweight rappel works as follows.

Brief overview: A rappel in which you and the victim both hang from one strand of the climbing rope, keeping each other in balance.

Tie off the belay device so you have your hands free.
Tie a prusik with a prusik knot around the climbing rope that runs to the victim. Make sure you have two long strands. Attach the long strands of the prusik to a carabiner in the belay station with a Munter hitch. Lock the carabiner. Make sure the strands are under tension, and tie off the Munter hitch (see Chapter 5). Make sure the prusik doesn't slip.
Do a check to make sure everything is set up correctly. Then use your belay device to lower the victim "into" the prusik.
Remove the belay device and run the climbing rope through a carabiner at the belay station. So you don't need to untie or pull through meters of rope. One strand runs directly, past the prusik knot, to the victim. Use the other strand to build an abseil. The key difference here is that you only run one strand through the belay/rappel device. Make sure you're hanging in the rappel yourself, and check the rappel thoroughly.
Release the prusik with the tied-off Munter hitch, and let the victim gently lower "into" the rappel. Make sure you yourself are hanging in the rappel at all times during this. That's the only way you'll keep each other in balance. Remove the prusik completely from the climbing rope. At this point, you can clean up the belay station if needed. In life-threatening situations: feel free to leave gear behind, but take a moment to think about whether you'll need it later during the rescue.
Now you can rappel as usual until you reach the victim. You'll notice that you descend while the victim doesn't.
Stabilize the victim.
Connect your belay loops to each other, for example with a quickdraw. From that point on, you'll rappel down together.
During the rappel, use your legs to keep good distance from the rock face, so the victim doesn't scrape against it.

Do you need to rappel multiple pitches? Then you can switch to a rappel with a victim for the next pitch. See above.

Note: A counterweight rappel cannot be used when there's a (very) large weight difference!

6.6 Hauling

Goal: Get the victim to come up.

Hauling (1:5) is a kind of extended version of giving rope assistance (1:3) (see Chapter 5). With this, it's possible to raise someone, even if they're unconscious.

Hauling is relatively strenuous (you're working against gravity) and slow (taking in 5 meters of rope to haul the climber up 1 meter). Hauling is only a practical option when the victim only needs to go up a short distance, or in a situation where going down isn't possible. In sport climbing, that's a rare situation, but it does occur in alpine mountaineering, for example, after a fall into a crevasse.

Hauling isn't part of the OVM course, but it can give you insight into how to use your gear.

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Practice questions and assignments for Chapter 6

Look up the emergency number for three countries where you might want to go climbing, and find out whether there's also a separate mountain rescue service.
What are the most important things to do in the event of an emergency, even before you start thinking about rescue techniques?

Scenarios for Chapter 6

For a scenario, the assignment is always: How should you and your partner act to stay safe? What steps do you take, and in what order? What do you need to pay (extra) attention to in this situation? What do you discuss with each other?

You've had a serious accident on a 300+ m wall. How will rescue services reach you, and what can you, as a climber, do to make things as easy as possible for the rescuers?
You're belaying your follower from the 2nd belay station. She slips and sprains her ankle; climbing any further is too painful. How do you make sure you both get back down safely?
You're leading from the belay station. You accidentally knock a rock loose, and it hits your belayer. He's unconscious and no longer belaying. You yourself haven't fallen.
What's the first thing you do? And how do you rescue yourself further? And your belayer?
From the belay station, you're belaying your follower on a difficult route. The follower falls, and their rope gets jammed in a crack 10 meters above them, and won't come loose. What do you do?
You're leading the third pitch of a route with sharp bolts, but after about fifteen meters you discover the route is too hard. Your partner can't climb it either. What do you do?
You're rappelling. Both climbers have just arrived at belay station 2 of 3. One of the climbers forgot to remove the knot at the end of the rope. While pulling the rope through, the knot jams in the rappel anchor. It won't come loose. What do you do?
You're leading at 35 meters from the belay station with a 70-meter single rope. You hear someone above you shout "Rock!" and press yourself against the wall. A large rock has fallen onto your rope, 5 meters below you. You can see that your rope is mostly cut through. What do you do?
Your climbing partner is rappelling and gets their hair caught in the rappel device, and can't get it loose no matter what. You're the only one with a knife, and you're already at the bottom. What do you do?