Deep Cave Rope Rescue

The geo-political back-story to this training course goes far beyond the scope of this simple tale. It does perhaps warrant a mention of some sorts though, in that this course, although superficially similar many before it, held it’s head high as the Inaugural DCRR as conceived and delivered by CaveSAR itself. I gather Oz may have had something to do with this somewhere along the line. I mention this partly because it jolly well should have been good and useful etc., and partly because I’m chuffed to have been on it as the first of it’s kind. I had not been eligible for previous incarnations of the course as at that stage I had not completed the course pre-requisites.

          I have made mention of those pre-requisite courses in other blog posts and you can read therein some of the criticisms and concerns I had about them at those times. Suffice to say, that although I remained optimistic and enthusiastically positive about attending this course, in the deeper recesses of my mind lingered a small band of nagging doubts born of long experience.

DCRR Headquarters on Takaka Hill

          Initially all of the course attendees were from Nelson northwards, but a last minute cancellation allowed for another CCG member to slot it. Approaching from the South as we both were we teamed up to do a little planet-saving car-pooling. As is customary in these circumstances we agreed to meet at the house a certain well-known caver based in Murchison. To that end I’d phoned a mutual friend to ask that he make the necessary arrangements for me. On arrival at our meeting point there appeared to be no-one home despite there many being a smattering of cars, un-locked doors and boots lying skew-whiff on the mat. So we merged into one vehicle, parked as considerately as was conceivable and departed. On our return we heard how our unwitting host as been slightly bemused to find a spare vehicle on the property and had correctly guessed all would become clear eventually. Which indeed it had been when our mutual friend phoned to check that the message had gotten though ok to which our host replied ‘what message, I don’t even have an answer service’. Technology huh?

A patient patient

          Meanwhile up at DCRR headquarters high on Takaka hill the proposed 7pm start-time slid drunkenly and inexorably toward 9pm, as people were delayed for the usual variety of reasons - family, flights and forgetfulness. By and by, having gained some and lost others, a large proportion of us were present and a shortened pre-course introduction was pitched with a parting shot of ‘don’t be late in the morning!’.

Perfect weather to test my new EE Enigma quilt

          Breakfast was set down for 7-8am, thinking I knew better I angled for the latter half of that slot not wishing to over-early again, only to find that by that time I’d already missed out on toast and even the second round of coffee was down to the dregs. Crikey, what was this new thing?! Scrounging a few crumbs of muesli to tide me over, the instructors had set up their whiteboard of ‘advanced learning and artistic expression’ and were making actual starting noises by quarter to… I know right, what is the world coming to??

 

Appraising the meatiness of that rigging

          Was there long dribbly waffling to be contended with? No, there wasn’t. Was there incoherent uncertain course direction outlined for us? No, not here. Were we yawning contagiously in the pews shortly after take-off? Not today. No, today was a day of new starts, of clarity and purpose. Today was a day to be knowing what was ahead, feeling engaged in a meaningful process whilst simultaneously being included in it. Today was, as you may have suspected by now, a day of professionalism and high-calibre instructing dynamite. We covered off our underlying guiding principles, built on them, acknowledged some of the challenges in arriving at this ‘new’ material/content and were offered a code of practice for us to digest and for us to steep our very cave suits in.    

Group conflab prior to launch

          So far so good, but how would we start to shift this classroom learning into the world outdoors indeed to the world underground? Would it get lost in translation, or waylaid by multifarious and nefarious distractions and cluttering house-keeping. Not even. We were on a roll and it seemed that nothing would stop us now. The instructors had set anchors at each of the four practice cave locations and gave us a rough indication of how they saw the anchors would be utilised within the system. At first I thought this was a little over-the-top and that we were being babied a bit. But once we got into the nitty gritty details of rigging the belay, counter-balance and commuter lines and then actually hoisting a patient out from down there, I quickly saw that we had our hands full to overflowing with coping with just that. If we’d had to set the anchors as well, we’d have had precious little time left to actually practice the techniques we were there to assimilate.

Hanging round

          Well, you get the picture. We had two and half days thereafter of equally good going. Breakfast was to be gotten to early if you wanted a decent helping, class time was focussed and timely, and our field time was spent extremely profitably. If I had to find anything to be unkind about it would only be the scope of the menu-planning. Bohemian I have called it previously and Bohemian it was this time also. Partly the problem is that my wife is a great cook and feeds me too well. So I find ‘filled-roll’ type lunches / BBQ tea formats a tad tedious. Am I offering to cook for the next course? Not on your Nelly. Am I ungrateful to the good-hearted folk who gave up their weekend to lay these spreads before us? Absolutely not, I thank them each and every one. There was always enough for every meal and whoever did the home baking, it was moreish and delectable – thank you Oz, or was that Jenny? ;-)  

"Yes. Boss!"

            On a closing note. Go caving by all means, have fun, push the limits and run whatever risks you feel you want to. But for heaven's sake don’t ever end up being a patient, that’s all I can say. I managed to avoid taking that role for most of the weekend, however eventually the short straw found me and pointed its bony finger at me. For the cave we were in at the time this meant being loaded into the stretcher in a head down position, which of course you would never usually do and if you want to know why we did this time message me and I’ll tell you the whole long complicated story. However this is how it was and I went to the gallows, I mean stretcher, willingly and knowingly. As my attendant strapped me in I felt quite uncomfortable. I reasoned that this was because I was part way upside down and was sure that as soon as the main line took up and my head was pointing skyward things would sort themselves out. To say that they didn’t would not only be an understatement but also a travesty. 

'left over right and ...

On achieving a vertical orientation it became apparent that we’d forgotten to adjust the footplate sufficiently (again I had thought I’d load on to it in due course). Even with my feet doing their best ballerina pose I couldn’t so much as touch the plate let alone apply any downward force. On achieving a vertical orientation it became apparent that while I had elected to have my arms outside of the stretcher’s embrace (thinking that this would be preferable) it was in fact awful as much of my body weight was being transferred through to the stretcher via my underarms. My attendant offered to shift my arms inside the up-haul straps, but after poking one across and finding that I was now at risk of a dislocated shoulder I suggested we should just leave it at that. Happily once my arms had gone numb it was one less thing to be concerned with.

2.2 kn and holding...

The worst part was that I felt as if I were about to cut in half. To use words like ‘painful’ and ‘excruciating’ may sound excessive but not to me they aren’t. I felt sorry for the young attendant, who was doing and did a marvellous job in his role, but many was the minute that I had to ‘zone out’ and find a happy place in my mind just to cope with the moment, and I’m sure he must have wondered why I was being so unappreciative of his efforts. Quite what was doing the cutting I’m not entirely certain, it could have been the stretcher harness, or it may have just been my cave suit which doesn’t have a lot of wiggle room to spare in those regions. Once at the top I made it quite clear that I didn’t care if “All Stop” had been called or not as I needed to be released from my torturous cocoon with a high degree of urgency and promptness. 

The SRT tower from which I launched my phone toward the one small patch of concrete beneath me.

At least if I am ever a patient (for real or practice) again I’ll know to be much, much, much more demanding about my own comfort levels before setting sail up a pitch.