Features
Success storeys

Trapped for hours, hanging 10 storeys off the side of a tower amongst the bustle of a busy downtown intersection – what might sound like a climax from the latest blockbuster thriller was, for the Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services (VFRS) team, an opportunity to successfully put their skills to the test.

On March 9, Chief Alberto Burrero and his team of battalion chiefs responded to an incident from engine nine around 1:45 pm. Upon their arrival to the scene at the Deloitte Summit building in downtown Vancouver, they received a rundown of the literal high-stakes situation from the on-site contractor. 

Hours before, a swing stage being used for a glass replacement operation on the side of the building experienced a double malfunction, leaving the platform stuck and stranding the workers dozens of feet above the street below.

A visit to the top of the building helped the team determine the best method of deployment for their high-angle rescue, but unique factors such as the design of both the building and the swing stage required the team to come up with new solutions in the moment. 

Rescue by design
What would have been a standard lowering operation for the technical rescue team was complicated by the distinct shape of the building, with difficulties in determining the proper vantage point providing an obstacle to proceeding with business as usual.

“I think the biggest challenge that we had was that the building was shaped like an octagon – in a normal building, you can just look down and essentially work backward from the patients to your anchor points. It’s usually a very straightforward operation, but in this sense, it was quite challenging,” said Burrero. 

The malfunctioned platform’s contemporary design was also new enough that Burrero and his responders had not encountered one of its type, and thus had to determine, in the moment, the appropriate solution for handling this issue, especially alongside the difficulties presented by the building’s shape.

“They had a very modern swing stage, so it took us awhile to figure out the logical procedures needed, as it was the first time I’ve seen something of this type,” said Burrero. “Once we figured that out, the process of determining exactly where to rig from took a little bit of time, because our edge person had to get into position, as due to the shape of the building, visibility wasn’t as easy as it would normally be.”

The team executed the standard procedure for lowering operations using a multipurpose device (MPD) as the main lowering line on a half-inch rope, backed with a tandem prusik belay alongside engineered anchor points rigged up top. Even with the necessary tools in place, the responders remained mindful of the difficulties presented by the shape of the building.

“To actually get the edge person to that edge to get a good look was a bit tricky – there was a bit of a parapet wall, where you had to go down to another landing, and he had to figure out from there, working back to our anchor points, exactly where the best straight line to get at the workers was,” said Burrero. 

From there, the team used the MPD as a makeshift pulley system, raising responders up to the trapped workers and executing the lowering system to get them on the ground one by one, with some help from a three-to-one mechanical advantage system. 

“We deployed a single rescuer on a main and a belay line, and just lowered him down to the swing stage. We did what’s called a pickoff, where we just transfer them onto our system, raise them up from their swing stage, and then retransfer them back down through a lowering operation, all the way to the ground,” said Burrero. “We did that multiple times, and that was pretty much it.”

This operation’s success left Burrero with a pride for his team, along with a few lessons on the importance of investigation and information gathering in technical rescue operations.

For Burrero, the risk of unexpected circumstances that can appear in these incidents, such as the building shape and platform design, demand a team that can not only move quickly, but learn faster.

“I will say, the members of the team did a did a great job in terms of rigging things fairly quickly,” Burrero said. “But I think the biggest takeaway from this whole thing is that you’ve got to make sure you gather lots of information and investigate exactly what it is you’re dealing with prior to committing to something, as you may have to change from Plan A to Plan B.”

Getting rescue-ready
Burrero believes this incident highlights the importance of knowing exactly what the problem at hand is before beginning to address it, a lesson that he believes both him and his team applied in the moment to drive the positive outcome of this rescue. 

Identifying unique challenges as they come up, and gathering the information needed to react to these obstacles in real time is something that Burrero sees as integral to technical rescue success, especially in jurisdictions experiencing increases in urbanization and infrastructure construction.

“Gathering information and investigating exactly what your problems are, is, first and foremost, probably most important,” said Burrero. 

“Kudos to the team that was up there with me: they worked extremely hard to rig it very quickly once our edge person was in position, and from there, it was a very straightforward operation.” 

A variety of skills are addressed in the VFRS’ technical rescue training program, including low, steep, and high angle rope rescue, confined space rescue, trench and excavation extraction, structural collapse and water rescues. 

Despite this robust repertoire, as cities and their populations continue to grow, it is up to their fire department’s technical rescue teams to adapt to the directions that this growth may take.

“As the world changes, and as our city changes, we’re going to face a lot more challenges, especially with the amount of construction that’s going on,” he said. “The types of rescues we’re going to now, there’s your typical calls, but there’s also ones that are a lot more complex just because of the amount of construction that we’re seeing and the larger population, especially in the Vancouver area.”

These changes require a level of preparedness that demand responders to be equipped with a range of skills across a wide array of procedures and scenarios, guaranteeing their flexibility to deal with whatever direction a situation may take. Reaching the level of dynamism required, however, means proper training, and lots of it.

“There’s a multitude of skills that take a long time to develop, which requires a lot more training. It’s a daily, weekly, monthly process, following a very regimented program in all of the disciplines,” said Burrero. “We have a team that follows an accredited program in order to certify all the individuals go through a lot of proficiency skills training throughout the year, in addition to regulations by WorkSafeBC.”

The team currently follows a hard-scheduled program. Across their eight 24-hour shifts a month, members of the team aim to cover several training sessions per shift, addressing skillsets for specific rescue scenarios such as confined spaces, trenches and structural collapse. 

Reaching this high level of preparedness can be difficult, not just in learning the high volume of operations and protocols, but also balancing the time to build out this necessary skillset with the unpredictability of on-duty calls.

“We try to run a fairly regimented, robust program to capture everyone as much as possible throughout the year, because you just never know when the call is going to come in,” said Burrero. “We’re not just focused on special operations, but a multitude of other things as well. It definitely poses a lot of challenges, because you have to get a lot done in a 24-hour period.”

Equipped for change
The changes set to come from Canada’s growing cities and populations impact the necessary skill range for technical rescue, but will also shape the overall role and importance of technical rescue itself, said Shawn Howery, technical teams coordinator for the Calgary Fire Department.

“As populations grow and technology advances, the importance of technical rescue is likely to increase,” said Howery. “Natural disasters, urbanization and complex infrastructures necessitate specialized skills to handle diverse rescue scenarios.”

The diverse rescue scenarios that teams are facing in the wake of these changes makes reliance on standardized, boilerplate solutions difficult. Rather, Howery recommends looking to the safety needs specific to one’s city, jurisdiction or environment, and the appropriate tools to address the factors contributing to these gaps. 

Howery highlighted Calgary’s Bow River as a distinct feature of the city that pushes technical rescue’s role beyond one-size-fits-all approaches: when the Rocky Mountain heat hits during the summer months, he said it is not unusual for up to thousands of Calgarians to float down the river in search of a much-needed cooldown, sometimes in inflatable watercraft of questionable safety.

“To mitigate this risk, the CFD’s Aquatic Rescue team employs four riverboats designed for shallow, rocky mountain river conditions, that patrol the waterway with from dawn to dusk. Many departments have one or two boats, but we have four specifically built to manage the size and type of risk in our jurisdiction.”

All departments share the goal of saving lives, but an equipment arsenal tailored to area hazards allows this goal to be achieved in a manner both relevant and efficient to one’s specific needs.

“Equipment, I think, is what varies the most from department to department,” said Howery. “This is based off of what your department risks are: the size of jurisdiction, types of industries, location, types of recreational activities, and most importantly, budget, all play a part in what type of equipment or apparatus is required to combat your risks.”

A curated collection of equipment and technology can go a long way in addressing the risks in a technical rescue team’s jurisdiction, but the impact of these tools is no excuse to forgo training, Howery believes. 

“The rescuers of today and tomorrow have to continually adapt to new risks and the equipment designed to address them, so being open to new technology and non-traditional solutions for an ever-changing environment are a must,” he said.