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Frequently Asked Questions
What is suspension trauma and why does it set the time limit?
A person hanging motionless in a harness can lose consciousness in minutes rather than hours.
Blood pools in the legs and venous return falls.
The casualty may deteriorate while apparently uninjured and conscious.
A fall arrest system that catches someone has started a clock rather than solved the problem.
That is why rescue capability must be immediate and local.
Relief straps that let a casualty stand in the harness extend the window and are worth carrying.
Why pre-rigged rather than assembled from components?
Because assembling a system, or working out the mechanical advantage on the day, takes time the casualty does not have.
A kit fetched from a store adds travel time to the delay.
Pre-rigging removes both, which is the whole reason the product exists.
It also removes the chance of rigging it wrongly under pressure.
The kit is stored where the work is rather than centrally.
Deployment should be a matter of opening a bag and attaching.
What are the different kit types?
Pick-off, haul and lower systems - and many kits do more than one.
Pick-off systems let a rescuer reach a suspended casualty and take their weight.
Haul systems provide mechanical advantage for raising.
Lower systems are simpler and suit situations where descent is the escape route.
Which is appropriate depends on the working position and where the casualty ends up.
The rescue plan should identify the scenario before the kit is chosen.
Why does mechanical advantage matter?
Because lifting a person vertically by hand is beyond most people without it.
A raising system with insufficient advantage cannot be operated by the people available.
The ratio is a design decision rather than a preference.
Higher advantage means more rope to pull and a slower raise.
Lower advantage is faster but may be unusable by one person.
Who will actually be operating the system should inform the choice.
How should kits be stored?
Where the work is, protected from ultraviolet and contamination, and inspected despite being sealed.
Rope degrades with ultraviolet and chemical exposure.
Bags protect the contents but also conceal their condition.
A kit that has sat in a vehicle for three years needs inspection rather than assumption.
Temperature extremes in vehicles affect textiles over time.
Tamper-evident seals let a kit be confirmed unopened without unpacking it every time.
What inspection do they need?
Periodic thorough examination by a competent person, and a check that the kit is complete and correctly rigged.
Textile components have a service life from manufacture regardless of use.
Rope, slings and connectors are inspected individually.
The rigging itself is verified, since a kit can be repacked wrongly.
Any kit used in an incident is withdrawn until fully examined.
The examination schedule, and who is qualified to carry it out, follow the jurisdiction.
Does having a kit satisfy the rescue plan requirement?
No - a kit nobody has deployed is not a capability.
Most jurisdictions require a rescue plan with trained people, not just equipment.
Deployment practice is what turns the bag into a capability.
The plan should identify who rescues, from where, and how long it will take.
Emergency services response times generally exceed the suspension trauma window.
Rehearsing against the actual working positions reveals problems that planning on paper does not.