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Doing a recovery without hurting anyone

This is not training. It is what the group has learned, and some of it was learned badly. If you have not done this before, go with somebody who has and watch first.

We are volunteers, not professionals.

Nobody here is a certified recovery operator, a mechanic or a medic unless they tell you they are, and we do not check. This is what the group has learned, offered freely. It is not training, not a standard, and not a substitute for hiring somebody who does this for a living.

Before anything goes under load

  • Agree who is in charge. One person calls it, everybody else does what they say.
  • Agree who can call a stop. Everybody can call a stop.
  • Walk the line the pull will take, and decide where people will stand — which is not in it and not beside it.
  • Send bystanders behind a vehicle, well back. Phones too. A recording of somebody being hurt is still somebody being hurt.

A line under tension is stored energy

  • A kinetic rope is designed to stretch. What it stores comes back along the line, fast, if anything lets go.
  • Put a damper over every line under load. A heavy wet blanket works. It drops the line instead of letting it fly.
  • Stay out of the arc, not just out of the line. Things that let go go sideways.
  • Check both ends before every attempt. Most failures are at the attachment, not in the middle.

Hook to something rated

  • Rated recovery points, bolted to the frame, on both vehicles.
  • If there is nowhere rated to hook, that is the end of the attempt. It is not a reason to use something else.
  • See the list of what never to pull from in the gear guide. The tow ball is the one that kills people.

Go slow, stop often

  • Short attempts with a look at everything in between beats one big one.
  • If the stuck vehicle has not moved in three tries, change something — dig, air down further, change the angle — rather than pulling harder.
  • Nothing good has ever come from a running start nobody was sure about.

Know when to stop

  • It is dark and nobody planned for dark.
  • The water is coming up.
  • Somebody is hurt, cold, overheating or frightened.
  • Nobody is sure what to do next and people are starting to guess.
  • The vehicle keeps until morning. Everything about this gets easier in daylight, and a stuck truck is worth less than the people standing around it.

If somebody is hurt

  • Stop the recovery. Everything stops.
  • Call 911. Give coordinates, not landmarks.
  • We are volunteers with trucks. We are not medics, and nobody here is trained to decide whether an injury is serious.

If somebody is hurt, call 911 first.

Injury, a vehicle in moving water, or anything in a traffic lane is an emergency call, not a recovery request. We are volunteers with trucks. Nobody is on shift and nobody is obliged to come.