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Special Team Handles Cave Rescues
USA -- Rescue technicians from the Nashville Fire Department
helped a cave climber Monday night and a man at a
Nashville treatment center Tuesday.
The High
Angle Rescue team is a division of the fire
department. Members are trained to rappel or descend
from high structures.
The team
was surprised to get two urgent calls within a day.
On Monday,
a man was hospital after falling in a cave near
Bellevue. The man and two other people were
exploring a cave off Highway 70 Monday night. The
fire department's specialized team pulled the
injured climber to safety.
Crews used
a back-brace and basket to lift him and transport
him down the hill. He was last listed in critical
condition at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
On
Tuesday, the High Angle Rescue Team and the
Nashville Fire Department were called to a rescue
at Cumberland Heights Alcohol and Drug Treatment
Center on River Road. The center offers in-patient
and out-patient services for individuals and
programs for their families.
Jaime
Garza was stranded in the air in a harness for
nearly two hours.
"I wasn't
worried, but I was just wondering when I was going
to get down," said Garza, who works at the treatment
center.
While
setting up a rope course for patients, he got stuck
25 feet off the ground. He was upside down on a
pole.
"There was
a lot of struggle. I just lost all my upper body
strength and I just had to hang there," he said.
"And my harness slipped underneath me and I was just
hanging
with the back of my legs."
"It was
pretty stressful. I was up there with him. He stayed
very calm. He did amazingly well the entire time,"
said a witness.
The High
Angle Rescue team used ladders and ropes to rescue
Garza hours after helping the caver.
"We
have a whole special operations unit that trains
every day or weekly for these once-in-a-year events,
but it looks like we had two back to back," said
Assistant Fire Chief Lee Bergeron.
"The only
thing that saved me was constant prayer," Garza
said, adding that he also thought about his wife and
daughter and family.
Firefighters said one of the difficult things about
technical rescues is balancing speed with precision.
That can be more difficult when the temperatures are
in the mid-90s.
But
officials said rescue crews were cautious in both
cases.
Officials
said the three climbers did not appear to have the
necessary safety equipment to climb into the cave.
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