Crane used in Pavilion high angle rescue

A construction crane was used by emergency medical personnel to rescue a critically injured man after he fell approximately three metres from scaffolding onto a concrete slab about 50 metres above the ground at a construction site at the Pavilion in Durban, says emergency services provider Netcare 911.

According to Gary Paul, Netcare 911’s regional operations manager, KwaZulu-Natal, and clinical head, Coastal, a tricky one-hour operation involving a high-angle rescue with the aid of a construction crane, was used to bring the man to safety.

“Netcare 911 paramedics responded to a call for assistance on Saturday afternoon,” says Paul. “When our team arrived the patient was lying the equivalent of some 16 storeys above ground level and there were no stairs or easy means of getting him safely down from the building.

“The paramedics also had to take into account the fact that the patient’s spine may have been damaged during his fall and therefore did not want to move him unnecessarily.

“They went about immediately stabilising the accident victim. However, realising that a high angle rescue system would be necessary to bring the patient down to the ground level they decided to call for the urgent assistance of Netcare 911’s rescue team, Rescue 2, to assist in the medical evacuation,” relates Paul.

He says that the Rescue 2 rescue officer was on-scene within minutes, and was able to safely secure the injured, but by now stabilised, patient into a specialised rescue stretcher called a Stokes basket. The  Netcare 911 team elicited the assistance of on-site construction personnel and a construction crane in order to bring the patient safely down to the waiting ambulance.

“They attached the Stokes basket to the crane cable and carefully lowered the patient and accompanying rescue officer to the ground, where an ambulance was waiting. The injured man was immediately transported to hospital in a stable condition.