Personal Harness

[JBCat]

Hello,

I am looking for members that wear a personal harness with thier gear. weather it is for rescue or self rescue. How is it attached to your gear or worn. I saw a training tape produced by FDNY on FF rescue and they seem to use thier gemtor personal harness for FF rescue. Anyone have any experience with these harnesses????

FTM/PTB/ECH

[resqb]

One option that I have seen many people try is a personal escape belt. After reading an article about personal escape ropes in the May 2001 Fire Engineering (in their archives) and practicing with my own at work I believe these are useless. There is just no way I could remove the velcro tab with gloves on after trying to fight with my SCBA strap and TOG. I'd probably end up cooking myself.
I would think that any class II harness would work very well. One drawback to these is comfort and manuverability. If I remember my Morning Pride catalog, the FDNY I believe ( and correct me if I'm wrong) has a harness sewn into the Turnout pants.

[Guest]

The harness used by the FDNY is the Gemtor 541 Fire Rescue harness. The members of Truck, Squad and Rescue Companies have these. The harness is worn outside the turnout gear and has a locking caribeaner incorporated with it. The harness is used both for Firefighter rescue, self rescue and for civilian rescue.

It is attached on the outside of the gear with Velcro loops around the waist and two snapped loops on the inner thighs. The heavy caribeaner is hung on the right side with a strap snapped to the harness to keep it out of the way. The harness fastens on the left side so Morning Pride made our gear to accommedate this by having the buckle for the turnout pants on the same side as the harness buckle. It has become a one step operation as far as donning the gear. When you clip the pants together, the harness is right there to be buckled as well.

Morning Pride does has their own type of harness incorporated right into the turnout pants. Personally I like how we have it outside of the turnout gear simply because you can remove the harness and/or can easily inspect it.

Check out www.gemtor.com

G

[ 08-27-2001: Message edited by: GBordas ]

[PAVolunteer]

I've been using my Gemtor harness for about four years now and it's great. It's a little heavy, but you get used to it. I've never had to bail out using it, thank goodness, but have all the confidence in the world in it if I have to. I've used it to hook off and work off of ladders or the tower. As GBordas said, FDNY uses them, and they're made for firefighting. I have it on the outside of my gear, around my waist w/ two snap button straps on the back of my gear, and two more in the crotch just to hold it in place. For calls, I just pull up my bunker pants, and then clip the harness together on my left side. (snap button straps stay snapped). Very simple and quick to put on.

Stay Safe

[ 08-27-2001: Message edited by: PA Volunteer ]