Crisis at 10 stories up? They're prepared for it

RALEIGH -- Most people look at the giant tower cranes sprouting on the Triangle's skyline and think about the boom in tall buildings.

Lt. Lonnie Glover of the Raleigh Fire Department saw a tricky new type of rescue.

With at least 14 tower cranes at work in the Triangle and more on the way, the chances of an operator having a stroke or heart attack 10 stories in the sky are increasing. So Glover arranged for his team to perform what is thought to be the first practice rescue in the city from a tower crane, lowering two firefighters 140 feet in a metal rescue basket Wednesday afternoon.

It is smart to simulate such rescues, said Doyle Peeks, who runs the Florida Web site Craneaccidents.com.

"It's not often that a crane operator will have a heart attack, but it does happen," Peeks said. "Everyone is at risk when they're up there [for a rescue], and they're all excited, so it's a difficult situation."

The firefighters, working at a construction site for a retirement community in North Raleigh called The Cypress, almost made it seem routine.

"It's pretty basic stuff," said Capt. Wayne Motley of Fire Station 14, who led the team. "We can take the same technique and make it work on this tower, or that building over there or that tree. We just have to make little adjustments."

The firefighters sent six men aloft to treat and lower a volunteer "victim." On the ground was a team that included a safety officer and firefighters manning a "tag line" used to steer and steady the basket.

The first time, they had trouble lifting the victim and basket over the railing that lines a narrow catwalk atop the crane.

Lashed to the outside of the basket in a harness was firefighter Andrew Coley. Inside was Capt. Greg Wall.

Several firefighters had volunteered for Coley's role. But Wall was the only one to step forward to play the role of the victim.

'You've got no control, and you're really at everyone's mercy," he said, joking that he had checked all the rigging "REAL good" before climbing into the basket.

After the pair reached the ground, the team talked about small adjustments. Then they tried it again. This time, they attached the ropes higher on the crane and lifted the basket smoothly over the railing.

Given the lessons learned, Motley said, the team should be able to do a real rescue in half the time, about 15 minutes.

"After you've done it before, you come into it with ideas, and it just goes a lot smoother," he said. "That's why we wanted to do this."