Spent a cold day yesterday on our practice bluff working on small team single rope rescue techniques: Diminishing loop, counterbalance hauls, single person rescue hauls, spanish pendulum.
God bless the rescue folks. This happened right up the road from me in Ellijay over the past week. SO and DNR got involved but the dog was in a very difficult situation. Lots of people complained about the "waste" of resources and expense from this. Even though the dog died it was an opportunity for multiple agencies to coordinate together under less than ideal situations. The training is priceless. It could have just as easily been a small child. http://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/dnr-to-rescue-dog-trapped-in-hole-for-days/675652427
That sucks. When people start hollering "waste of resources" what they don't realize is most SAR folks are volunteer and mostly funded through donations. They continually train on their own time because they have a passion for it. Even the paid rescuers would most likely do it without pay because that's where their passion is. My wife does a lot with Team Rubicon Region IV and she is constantly going out and training or deployed on a mission somewhere to help folks. They do all of this free of charge to help the victims. When the naysayers start up about the work rescue and recovery folks are doing, it just tells me they don't understand what the whole system is about. Just wait until it's their child or loved one lost, or wandered off due to suffering from Alzheimers, or their house flooded and destroyed because of a hurricane. Naysayers sit on the couch and bitch. If they don't want to get involved, then they should at least send a few bucks to their volunteer fire and rescue department to support those who will save their butt...and do it without complaining.
I hate cold weather so layering up and wearing heavy boots made for a comfortable day. While we were on the bluff our training friends with NC Mountain SAR were doing rescue training for folks who had fallen through ponds that were frozen. Now, that seems like it would be cold rescue training.
It is tooooooo many years ago that I completed my training.....I did however look at the pics recently and realised we did it in the Blue Mountains (West of Sydney) in winter in the rain....we generally looked miserable but had a good time of it. Most of the last stage of training was less about ropes and more about managing people around long falls.....