FDNY's Own FFs Design Winning Rope Escape System

[Guest]

Truly amazing dedication and perseverance by Lt.Tim Kelly, Lt. Chris Delisio, FF George Grammas, FF Bill Duffy and all others on their team who designed and tested their "own in-house" rope escape system !!!! =D> =D> =D> =D> =D> =D>

June 6, 2005

A Stronger Rope, and More, for Firefighters to Hold On To

By MICHELLE O'DONNELL

Less than five months after a Bronx fire forced two firefighters to jump to their deaths, the New York Fire Department is preparing to give each firefighter a costly rope escape system that was largely designed by a team of city firefighters using their off-duty skills in rock climbing and metalworking.

Department officials say the escape systems, which they hope firefighters will be using by September, will make New York the nation's only large city to provide all firefighters with a rope and anchor to use if they must jump out a window to avoid advancing flames.

The escape system is a revolutionary change from the simple one New York has used in the past, a bulky but weaker rope that was phased out after 1996 in a decision that unions said was made to save money and officials said was made to reduce the bulk firefighters carry.

The new system, which will cost $11 million to purchase and deploy, features a reinforced metal hook that can be quickly affixed to a pipe, piece of furniture or even a wall using a steel tip narrower than a sharpened pencil. The 50-foot ropes are made of bulletproof Kevlar, and the lowering device involves leverage tricks used in rappelling.

Officials say the systems would help firefighters reach the street from the fifth floor, or, in taller buildings, allow them to escape by climbing into a lower floor.  

Members of the design team were dissatisfied with the escape systems available on the market, so they immersed themselves in the mission of finding a better one. They became fluent in the terminology of biomechanics.  

They tested the equipment by dunking it in buckets of water to simulate getting drenched with a hose line, and they coated it with plaster to mimic the damage done to buildings at fires. And some paid their own way to a fire industry convention to query vendors.  

"We were going at it as if we were sending an astronaut into space," said Lt. Tim Kelly of Rescue 4 in Queens, a leader of the design team.

Officials say the final system was selected from more than 40 designs, some of them submitted by manufacturers, others produced by the department's research and development unit, and some by the firefighters themselves.  

More than 5,000 tests were conducted on the designs by firefighters who dropped out of windows at the department's training center on Randalls Island.

The search for a new system began days after two firefighters leapt to their deaths from a fourth-floor fire in a Bronx apartment on Jan. 23. Four other firefighters who jumped were seriously hurt, including two who tried to use a rope that one of them carried. Those two could not make quick or effective use of it, and they, too, fell to the ground.

Questions immediately arose about the 1996 decision to remove the ropes.

Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta said he moved quickly reinstitute the ropes out of concern for firefighters' safety. His action comes at a time when fire union leaders say that smaller truck staffs and fewer firehouses indicates the department's lack of concern for their safety.

Officials said the new ropes are stronger and easier to use, and will allow firefighters to clamber out of windows in 10 seconds. But firefighters must be trained in the new system, including a significant change in how they swing out windows.

The department will also issue everyone a new harness, which will hold the pouch containing the escape kit and the hook for attaching the rope. Previously, there were a limited number of harnesses that firefighters shared. All that adds six pounds to the gear firefighters carry, which already can exceed 100 pounds, and the department may have to issue them stronger suspenders to hold up their pants.  

These changes and the overtime needed for training increase the cost of adding the devices, which are budgeted at about $1,000 a kit. The department plans to order about 11,000 of the units.

The $11 million is roughly what it would cost to annually operate the six fire companies closed two years ago. Mr. Scoppetta said the escape system was a more critical need. "If they had had a system such as we're developing, this choice to go out the window would not have had to been made," he said.

New York's plan is a natural evolution for a city forested with high-rise buildings, fire experts said.  

"There probably isn't any other fire department that does as much aboveground work as New York City," said Alan Brunacini, the fire chief in Phoenix and a member of a national board that sets fire safety standards. He said that New York's firefighting tactics often establish standards for other cities.

Lieutenant Kelly, a ropes expert, said Chicago fire officials had expressed an interest in seeing the finished escape kit.

Mr. Scoppetta said time was the great enemy at the Bronx fire. Flames rushed toward the windows searching for more oxygen, trapping firefighters at the sills in seconds. "Mayday! Mayday ! Ladder 27," one firefighter called over his radio at 8:28 a.m., two minutes before the first of the firefighters began jumping.

Blinded by smoke, a firefighter from Rescue Company 3 who carried a length of rope out of habit, tied it to child safety bars to lower himself and a second firefighter, Mr. Scoppetta said. Without a device on the rope to control their descent, both firefighters tumbled to the ground, a fire official said.

Among those injured was Brendan Cawley, a probationary firefighter with Ladder 27, who had jumped without any rope, and whose older brother, Michael, died on Sept. 11.  

"I just couldn't go see his mother and father and tell them that they lost another son," Lieutenant Kelly said.

He and other officers assigned to the department's training academy began searching for a new rope, one that would be strong but, more important, could be affixed to virtually any wall quickly without searching for furniture to tie it to.

They settled on a Kevlar rope, which resists melting in intense heat for 2 minutes and 20 seconds, Lieutenant Kelly said. It is so tough that during testing it dulled the edge of the glass in a broken window pane.

The anchoring device was harder to find. They needed one that could be used when there was no pipe or piece of furniture available to attach it to.

They called every institution they thought might be using one small enough to be carried on a tool belt, including Army Rangers in Georgia, without luck.

Then a fire officer from the Bronx, Lt. Chris Delisio, produced his own design for a hook, modeled after a fishhook, and he and George Grammas, a firefighter with a background in metalwork, cast a prototype in the department's shop.

Bill Duffy, a firefighter from East Harlem, offered the insights he has gained in six years of rock climbing and agreed to drop out of windows dozens of times a day to test the rope systems.

Dozens of firefighters joined in rappelling out of windows to test the equipment. One of them, Darien Carey, noticed how they crawled on the floor to a window as if under a bank of smoke, then stood and lifted a leg over the sill. He mentioned that when he was in the Marine Corps, he was taught a more efficient maneuver called "spidering."

Rather than rise to a standing position, a firefighter using that maneuver would secure the hook on the inside wall with his left hand, and would go out the window headfirst, with his right hand grasping the building exterior and his lower body shifting slowly over the sill like a spider. Once outside, he would swing his lower body back and complete the descent feet first.

"Some of the chiefs come here and rolled their eyes, but we say, 'Ask any of your firefighters what they say about it,' " Lieutenant Kelly said.

A key to going out headfirst is the descent device - a modified climbing device known as a Grigri - that locks in place once weight is applied. The firefighter controls the speed of his descent by releasing a lever. To carry all this equipment, Lieutenant Delisio graciously learned to sew and designed a pouch that hangs from the harness.

The team has given all its results to the research unit, and has worked with an engineering consultant to figure out, among other things, how much stress - a firefighter laden with equipment can weigh 300 pounds or more - a rope can bear, and how to land that load without fracturing a pelvis or ankle.

The result, officials say, is an invention born of necessity by a team of stubbly faced midwives.

"Nobody out there is doing this," Lieutenant Kelly said. "The guy who makes rope, he knows his rope. The guy who makes a Grigri, he knows that. But we're pulling it all together."

source: New York Times

[JM15 386]

this is a good idea it is ironic that firefighters actually made it and designed it for them selves since they will be the ones who will have to use it

[E64PCFD2044 1]

It's just like the Haligan tool.

[Cutty630 37]

I don't know if anyony caught it but it was on the news 7 tonight, I missed most of it but it will probablly be on again at 11pm

[ny10570 745]

uhh ohh...designed and using FDNY facilites and equipment...when this thing takes off in other cities where's the money going to go?

[Guest]

were all firefighter/emergency services people here...im one and it would be a nice tool for everyone to have...but by the way did anyone look at the price....$1,000 each kit...so now tell me what volly house has the cash after normal gear to spend another $1,000 per...when everyone is crying taxes to high..and cutting budgets...tell me where the lawmakers will fit this in....i think its a great idea...but your telling me they cant find something cheaper...and yes i know lives arent cheap...neither is mine but be real

[ny10570 745]

The $1000 per covers retrofitting existing gear, new harneses, and the costs of providing training for the firefighters.

[Firemn2742A 14]

The best things is the Fire Service are made by those who use them!

[msm232 69]

What they are describing in the article and what I saw two weeks ago are definately NOT the same. The system I saw installed on a set of bunker pants was simple off the shelf equipment with a slightly modified Gemtor harness. Basically a bail out system sewn to the side of the bunker pants fed through a simple decent device and attathed to the gemtor harness with a couple of steel biners. As usual, it will be interesting to see how this whole thing shakes out.(':-k')

[exmrvfc 0]

Has anyone seen a photo of the system? If so, please post.