I consider it an honor to be on the rescue team. For me I feel like I've got these skills accrued over a number of years [of climbing] and its an opportunity to give back.
The Chattanooga-Hamilton County Rescue Service Cave/Cliff/Technical Unit specializes in extracting injured victims who are literally between a rock and a hard place. The team's work is unpredictable, often dangerous and always an adventure.
And the team is recruiting climbers.
Veteran climber for the past 30 years Todd Wells has been a member of the team since 2010, and he says climbers are well suited for this type of rescue work.
"They are fit, they have good basic rope skills, and hopefully there's a willingness to suffer," says Wells. "Those three qualities of a climber can make for a good cave rescuer."
Unit Captain Brad Tipton explains that the all-volunteer rescue squad was established 79 years ago, with the cave team forming in the 1960s as caving became a popular sport in the area. As the popularity of caving, and thus the number of strong cavers, began to dwindle and the popularity of climbing began to grow, the team began recruiting climbers, he says.
"It's a little more difficult for a caver to become a climber, but the strong climbers can easily transition to single-rope technique [involved in cave rescues]," Tipton says, adding, "You never know what kind of time commitment you'll have to give for the rescue. There's a level of danger that you have to accept. There's a level of suffering and miserableness that you'll have to accept. That's where the mentality of climbers and cavers fit that mold.
"If you're doing a multi-pitch in Yosemite, you won't be there for eight hours, you'll be there for eight days."
If you think you have what it takes, find out more about the joining the rescue team at www.chcrs.org.