The way he handled a small metal tubular bar he held between his fingers ultimately determined whether Jim Niesel plummeted 165 feet to the ground or if he descended at a preferably slower pace.
Alighting at the bottom of one of the massive twin water tanks in Naperville, Niesel was the first of a special team from the Lisle-Woodridge Fire District to practice rappeling down the tank’s side Tuesday as part of the district’s rescue training program.
“It’s always scary, but we train so much in situations where we need to that it builds your confidence,” said Niesel, a firefighter/paramedic for 4 1/2 years and one of the 17 members of the fire district’s Technical Rescue Team.
Wearing a padded nylon chest and seat harness, Niesel was linked between the harness and his lifeline cord by a rappeling “rack”-his ultimate control system. The rack is a 10-inch steel oblong hoop with several aluminum tubular bars stacked horizontally down its center.
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The cord that was anchored to an inspection hatch at the top and dangled down the water tank’s side can carry up to 9,000 pounds and was interwoven between the rack’s tubular bars. The width of the space between the bars-fractions of an inch-control the speed of the descent, Nievel said.
The lowest bar was carefully moved up and down the rack between the thumb and the index finger, acting as a brake as it controlled the friction of the rope, said Nievel.
Metal links are attached to a harness on a victim and the rescuer’s rack and cord carry them down, he said.
No rescue has been needed since the tanks were built, but the potential is always there.
“Workers go to the top of the dome to change light bulbs, fix the radio antennas, take water samples, and check the inspection hatches,” said Robert Martin, manager of operations for the DuPage Water Commission.
And they get there the same way the firefighters did, climbing an enclosed ladder on the tank’s side all the way to the walkway that encircles its domed top.
`It’s a tough climb, so the most likely rescue we can see is of a worker who’s had a heart attack after reaching the top, ” said Steve Jansen, firefighter/paramedic and team coordinator.