Bruce Whitaker, managing director of Traverse Rescue, sent us this article from the well-respected Technical Rescue magazine which did a review of the basket stretcher and a very good one at that.
Here’s how the author summed it up:
In October 2013 I was running a Wilderness SAR course. During these courses we head out into
the mountains for 5 days of self-supported SAR activity. On the third day the students were finishing off the second of two 55m stretcher lower exercises for the day and the stretcher had been put down on the
ground at the base of the cliff.
The patient, also a student, was still tied in to the stretcher and the jockey was disconnecting the ropes from the bridle having called for 1m of slack on main and belay. Standing at the top of the cliff, the horrible sound of rock-fall below caused me to break out in an instant cold sweat as my blood turned to ice. A 500kg rock, probably loosened by the passage of the jockey over it, had parted from the face 1.5m above the stretcher and landed on the right side of the stretcher at hip level, injuring the patient.
Cutting a long story short, the patient walked out of hospital 2 days later with nothing but soft tissue injuries. Initially the only visible damage to the stretcher was that the locking collar fitting was cracked and loosened, which was not surprising given that 500kg+ had just landed on it!
These stretchers are bomber!
Once I took a closer look at it (on level ground) I discovered that the frame had also been deformed and the stretcher was damaged beyond being safe to use. If the same thing had happened with a plastic Stokes basket the outcome would have been significantly worse.
I’m looking forward to many years of rescuing with our stretcher’s successor – also a Traverse Titan.
Praise indeed!
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