shibumi wrote:I know my capabilities because I practice all of the time. I teach these skills all of the time. I know what the average person's skills and abilities are for the same reason, and those skills and abilities simply are not there. If you teach a person a pick-off, you cannot ensure that they will be able to do it under duress six months later when they have not practiced. This isn't theoretical for me. I see, all of the time, highly competent cavers who cannot perform a pick off in training settings when they were taught the previous year at NCRC. Been seeing this for years.
Heck, there are instructors who cannot do it without a few practice attempts first.
I definitely agree, practice is essential, I know myself if I haven't been to SRT practice lately I get slower and less efficient. We run practice SRT sessions every week. It really annoys me when people expect their skills learnt 6 months or a year or so ago to be as fresh as when they learnt them and want to go on a trip. You are going to be hanging your life off a rope it only seems sensible to me that you practice and do it properly /rant
shibumi wrote:A few years ago there was a death in a waterfall of a caver. His friend tried to do a pick off, twice, and almost died in the attempt. 8 months later he came to NCRC and we watched him do a textbook perfect pick off. He hadn't been on rope since his friend died.
I can't say what I'd do under pressure as that situation arisen, but frequent training and practice would help. (Similar to first aid training I imagine). I'd also say there are two types of people on rope (in my experience) those who will learn SRT by rote and those who learn the rules that can't be broken and then are able to think their way out of a problem etc. The first group if they encounter which is unorthodox or outside their experience are often stuck and need prompting what to do. The other group are able to adapt their learnt techniques to each situation. I would much rather go vertical caving with the 2nd group (I'd also consider myself in this group). These are the group where if a pick off goes wrong they should be able to at least rescue themselves.
shibumi wrote:It's great the you are confident enough in your skills that you'll always be able to handle the situation. Most people are overconfident in their skills and this is one reason that NCRC teaches that a pick off is the last resort. Once you give someone a neat tool, they want to apply it to
all situations. Unfortunately, a pick off is one of the more dangerous tools with which most people don't practice enough to be as skilled as you are.
Personally, I'm pretty confident in all of my skills, both in SRT and rebelay technique. I still view a pick off as a last resort. I think that the only time I am likely to perform a pick off for real is if someone is actually unconscious while on rope, as this is the main time when seconds actually count due to HHS. I have never not been able to assist or talk someone else through a problem, even a lot of folks who are exhausted.
The subjects of trials into HHS were fully conscious, but not moving and lost consciousness due to HHS in as little as 6 minutes (if I recall correctly) these people were fresh before the trial. An exhausted caver should be assumed to have even less time from when they stop moving.
The point I was trying to make that having tried to talk them through their difficulties and failed (for whatever reason) a pickoff would be my next option unless there had been made special provision for a rescue being necessary (lower system set up or a spare rope).
In most (pretty much all) cases the option of a lower is just not available here, once it has reached the stage where a physical(rather than verbal) rescue is necessary then a pickoff to my mind is the only option (given that rebelays and our pitch head rigging ie double anchors would seem to rule out a lower)
The only lower option I might see is to remove some off the less necessary rebelays above the patient but this will only 'buy' you a metre or so of rope each rebelay so they would want to be close to the ground.