The Social Network & Community JUST for Firefighters
Reeves Sleeve
At a recent rope rescue training, a Reeves Sleeve was brought out to use. Nobody had any experience with it at this point. Fairly straightforward piece of equipment. No load rating to be found anywhere. We use a stainless steel basket and SKEDs regulary. Before we did any lifting with the Sleeve, I contacted the manufacturer. They told me that the horizontal straps were tested to 1000 lbs and then the test was stopped. The vertical lift strap to 2200lbs and that FDNY had started to fail them vertically at 3000lbs. We decided at this point not to use it at all. The dafety factors are way too low based on the data that is available. They also told me that they are changing how they stitch them for strength, this did not increase my confidence at all. Any other teams using this or have experience with it. I am tempted to take it to our local guru and have it drop tested with a load in it to see what happens. The tests that Reeves did were all static loads.
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on
-
Two points here - I used the older terminology that used the simple pounds ratings because it's easier to understand than the dynamic test ratings in the newer edition of 1983. In the older terminology, light use was defined as 5,000 lbs-rated and general use was defined as 9,000 lbs-rated. That's based on a 15:1 safety factor with a 600-lb rescue load on the system for General Use-rated ropes and gear.
NFPA 1983 doesn't specifically address litters, but the ratings for the gear are useful tools for evaluating safety ratings for any piece of gear hooked to the system. If I'm the patient, I'd prefer to know that the litter met the same standards as any other piece of gear in the system.
All systems can fail. During a failure, systems fail at the weakest point. The litter is often the weak point.
The older Reeves Sleeves are designed as carry devices and patient restraint devices. There are plenty of litters on the market designed for a variety of low-angle, high-angle, and confined space patient movement problems. None of them are great in every possible application, but some of them are better than others.
My personal experience on heavy rescue units was that we got rid of 100% of the Reeves Sleeves we had (total of 6 different heavy rescues in 3 different states) and used wire stokes litters for high angle, plastic stokes baskets for low angle, and rescue SKEDs and LSP Half Backs for confined space.
-
-
The SKED requires a spineboard for high-angle raises and lowers with the litter rigged horizontally. For low-angle, or for high-angle raises and lowers with the litter rigged vertically, the spineboard isn't necessary unless the patient needs spinal immobilization/precautions.
The reason for the spineboard is to have a stiffener when the SKED is rigged horizontally. It tends to bend in the middle, even when rigged correctly, in that configuration.
In the low angle configuration, the SKED is just a sled. The SKED's center bend point is supported (by the ground) so the stiffener isn't needed.
In the vertical rig, the strain is taken by the SKED's foot and by the circumferential rope harness, so there is minimal pressure on the center bend point.
-
Permalink Reply by Shawn on
-
no its not sturdy enough to use in a lowering situation. you are going to need to something with more rigid
- ‹ Previous
- 1
- 2
- Next ›
© 2024 Created by Firefighter Nation WebChief.
Powered by
