Pike & Pivot V-Strap: Hauling a Litter Up Over an Edge When You Don't Have a High Directional

Video # 2 of 2 (We had to rush this one due to imminent lightning strikes). A common alternate rigging technique is to hard-tie the belay line directly to the head of the litter, then hard-tie the main line separately to both sides of the litter near its center of gravity & route the two strands through carabiners on each side near the head of the litter. This eases the rigging burden by eliminating the extra steps needed to rig a V-strap as well as promoting constant tension in the main line during the Pike & Pivot transition. However, the down-side is that you lose the adjustable orientation features of the 4-pt litter bridle.
Corrections:
1. The edge protection should have been secured better, and the head of the litter should have been closer to the edge prior to connecting the V-Strap.

[@perryfire3006]

Been watching more of your videos. You guys are squared away. I hate being that guy but when you popped over the edge you should have been connected to a secondary point of attachment other than one prusik for the sake of continuity if nothing else. I realize your hands and feet can be considered that secondary but not quite. Not really. Also, for efficiency I like how you dead legged the haul system for the pivot. But it introduced slack when you made the move in the main line. Have you thought of just using an independent 4:1 while taking up slack in the main haul? I think you guys are the only FD I've seen using the Maestros. Maybe it's a west coast thing. Is there a reason you chose Petzl over the CMC Clutch? I'm more curious than anything so please don't take my questions as criticism. I love seeing how other departments do their job.

[@Propeller_Head]

- I think that there is a constant & ongoing internal dialog of self-assessing where you stand in the "hazard/risk/probability/severity/consequense" game. For me, it's a calculated decision to determine how many connections I should have into any system or systems at any given time. While performing the balancing act of safety vs redundancy, for my own personal security I feel reasonably comfortable that a single attachment via Prusik onto the Belay line while climbing up over the edge is an acceptable practice. Granted you are in the fall zone and even though your hands & feet aren't considered an attachment into the system, I feel comfortable in relying on that as my primary support & only having one connection into the system as my backup. Basically the same as a rock climber who is top-roping. - Either way you cut it, the main line is going to have to "dead-leg" in order for the Pike & Pivot technique to work properly, regardless of if you have an independent haul system or whether you attach the V-strap to the travelling pulley of the main working line's original haul system. In this video, the 5:1 AZTEK is in fact an independent haul system. During the Pike & Pivot sequence, the main line should definitely not be under any tension. As long as there's still a dedicated & intact belay system & is being tended during the sequence, the whole system is reasonably safe & secure, meaning that it doesn't matter if slack is introduced into the original working line. I view the sequence in a similar way that I view typical line transfers (tension off one system & onto another). - Our compliment of hardware includes Maestros, MPDs, I'Ds, & ASAPs. We went with Maestros pretty early on before the Clutch had come to market, and I don't think that even if we had Clutches as well, that we would want to use them as a device at the anchor... mainly due to the undesired anti-panic feature. We found that devices that have this feature tend to cause more problems for us when we operate them as fixed brakes. They are better suited as descenders/travelling brakes... and we already carry plenty of I'Ds for that. So from a cost-benefit perspective, Clutches just don't make a whole lot of sense for us.... until the time comes where we need to start replacing I'Ds. I have my own personal Clutch that I love as a personal device & would choose this over an I'D any day, but not if I need to operate it as a DCD off the anchor. Maestros are my go-to in that application.

[@stevetupper3776]

All that rigging across the face would be very painfull

[@Propeller_Head]

You brought up a valid point... An easy fix to direct the strands of the set-of-fours so that they aren't pressing into the patient's face is to simply clip a large HMS carabiner to the side of the litter then route the AZTEK strands into it. This is a common practice when rigging for vertical orientation. I just didn't show it in this video... But I will post it to my "community" tab on this channel here shortly... But in the video if you look at which ropes are under tension, the only one that is in front of the patient's face is the rescuers AZTEK and it is at least a couple of feet away, so there's no facial contact there. All the other ropes (both long tails from the Bowline and the foot bridle) are completely slack & therefore, even if they contact the patient's face, should not be painful.

[@stevetupper3776]

There was no reason in you being there anyways ,I there is nothing you can do while being there and 2 the patient would already be where they need to be by the time you rig all that up

[@Propeller_Head]

I'm not sure I follow what you're saying.