1800 South Second Street

Gallup, New Mexico 87301

STANDARD OPERATING GUIDELINE – OPERATIONS (SOG-Ops)

11/12/2015
ROPE RESCUE
SOG-Ops 114
In accordance with NFPA 1670, NFPA 1983
and
Manufacturer’s recommendations
Purpose:
The purpose of this procedure is to establish guidelines for conducting high angle and low angle
rope rescue operations. Because of the infinite number of potential sites and situations that could
be encountered, this procedure will not define a specific technique to use, but will give
guidelines to follow for conducting safe and effective operations.
Safety considerations:
Safety is of the utmost importance on all rope rescue incidents due to the technical aspect and the
high risks involved. A Safety Officer shall be assigned to all rope rescue incidents as per the
safety section of this chapter. See the Safety section for further requirements.
Primary Assessment:
A. Incident Command will be established and a Safety Officer will be identified.
B. An immediate assessment of the hazards presented to rescuers should be done.
C. Command should determine the amount of victims that have been affected.
D. Command should communicate with the victim(s) and make a verbal assessment of their
injuries/needs.
E. Command should determine how long the victims have been down, the mechanism of
injury, and the survivability profile of the victims.
F. Command will determine if it will be a low angle operation or a high angle operation.
Low angle will be identified as operations ranging from 20 degrees to 45 degrees; high
angle will be identified as 46 degrees to 90 degrees.
G. An early decision must be made as to whether the operation will be in the rescue or
recovery mode.
1800 South Second Street
Gallup, New Mexico 87301

On-scene personnel:
A. The Gallup Fire Department will recognize 3 levels of training for rope rescue operations.
B. The first level will be no training or non-certified training. These personnel can assist as
haul team members or persons on tag lines.
C. The second level will be Rope Rescue: Awareness and Operations, certified through
NMFTA, Roco, IFSAC or other A&O level certifications determined by the Fire Chief.
Personnel at this level can set up all raise and lower operations, rappelling, pick-offs, and
patient packaging. Personnel at A & O level cannot tend the patient during raise/lowering
operations and cannot setup high line operations.
D. The third level will be Rope Rescue: Technician, certified through NMFTA, Roco,
IFSAC or other technician level certifications determined by the Fire Chief. Personnel at
this level can conduct all lower level operations. They can also tend patients in litters and
setup high line operations.
E. If Command determines that it is a low angle operation there will be a minimum of three
A&O or Technician level personnel and one officer at the scene.
F. If Command determines that it is a high angle operation there will be a minimum of four
A&O or Technician level personnel and one officer at the scene.
Safety:

A. All rope rescue operations shall have a designated Safety Officer. The Safety Officer
should be the highest trained or equal to the highest trained person on scene.

B. NFPA 1983 will be followed as a safety guideline, and a 15:1 safety factor shall be
maintained for software at all times. All hardware shall be designated and stamped either
Light use, Technical use or General use through NFPA 1983. Light use and Technical use
shall be from 0 lbs to 300 lbs. General use shall be 301 lbs to 600 lbs. Any equipment
that does not have a NFPA 1983 stamp, will have to be pre-approved by the Operations
Officer for the department.

C. All rescuers and victims shall be on at least two separate lines of at least ½” diameter
rope. Both lines shall be attached to separate anchors, with the strongest anchor attached
to the belay line. A belay line will be used on all high angle rescues.

D. All software shall be protected from abrasion and wear. At no point shall moving rope
run across stationary rope.
1800 South Second Street
Gallup, New Mexico 87301

E. All knots, anchors, anchor systems and rescue systems will be checked by sight and
touch. Two personnel, one of who will be the Safety Officer, will also check them.

F. Every person on the scene within 10’ of an edge will be tied in with an edge kit or safety
line.

G. Rope rescue helmets will be worn at all times when on an emergency scene, and gloves
will be worn whenever actually on rope or working with the rope. Fire helmets can only
be used at the ground level.
Rescue Operations:
A. Rappelling will be allowed for quick access to the subject, but shall not be used for
rescuer and victim lowering.
B. The Figure 8 descent device will be considered light duty use, and shall not have a load
greater than 300 lbs applied to it, due to the difficulty in controlling the descent speed.
C. For all loads 0 lbs to 600 lbs, a ladder rack, MPD or Petzel ID shall be used as the
primary descent device.
D. The 540 belay, MPD and tandem prusiks belay are the only acceptable methods for
belaying.
E. Lowering systems shall be established as the primary means of lowering victims.
F. Upon reaching the victim, rescue personnel should do an immediate primary assessment
of the victim. All life threats should be assessed and treated before the patient is moved,
per EMS protocol. If there are C-Spine precautions, the patient will be placed in the
Stokes litter or SKED and LSB for extrication.
Termination:
A. After all victims and rescue personnel have been extricated from the scene, command can
be closed.
B. Any hardware that has been dropped from a height greater than 3 feet shall be taken out
of service and tagged.
C. All equipment shall be cleaned and inspected for damage. All equipment shall be
inventoried and placed in proper bags. Equipment inventory sheets are located in the
OIC’s office in the bookcase.
1800 South Second Street
Gallup, New Mexico 87301

D. Rope shall be inspected by sight and touch. Any rope with heavy damage shall be taken
out of service. Dirty rope shall be daisy chained and washed in the washing machine at
station 1. Rope shall be hung to dry, and then placed back into the rope bags.
E. If at any time a piece of equipment is missing or damaged it will be reported immediately
to the Shift Officer; an email shall also be sent to the OIC and forwarded to the Rope
Rescue Coordinator.

Responsibility:
A. The rope rescue trailer shall be secured with tamperproof tags. It is the responsibility of
the morning shift/station officer to assure that the tags are in place and have not been
tampered with.

B. A three ring binder is located on the front shelf, in the rope trailer with the current
inventory and blank inventory sheets inside. Anytime that the security tags are removed,
a new inventory sheet shall be filled out, signed and placed in the binder.