When I was deep into revising The Essential Technical Rescue Field Operations Guide, I realized I needed to go to the source to get help with AHD’s and other technical aspects of Rope Rescue. Reed Thorne of Ropes That Rescue invented the Arizona Vortex and he generously offered to share his expertise.

After publishing edition 4, it was clear that some of the new concepts needed more explanation. So again, I asked Reed to help with some testing in order to show how temporarily supporting the belay line in the AHD was practical and safer than the mainstream way of doing it.

In the following four presentations, you will see;

• An introduction video with Reed Thorne,
• The presentation he give at ITRS 2007 showing the reality of a worst case failure of the main when the rescue package is transitioning the edge
• The test we did in Jan, 2012 showing succesful drops of 280 Kg (600 lbs) onto a slack belay line supported in the AHD  by an AZTEK Elite Pro set of fours
• Finaly you will see video showing the tandem prusik belay failing to catch when the prusik minding pulley is used.

Check out these presentations here

There is a toatal of an hour of presentation. Thanks to the generosity of Reed Thorne for making his findings and presentation available. We hope you like it and would really like to hear what you think of this stuff.