A couple weeks back we headed out to the beach at Esquimalt Lagoon with Kari Challenger to work on a rescue that we all hope that we will never have to do for real. Kari is a paramedic in Vancouver and recently we have had many discussions about providing CPR while on the water and how to perform the Hand of God rescue.
For those of you who might not know what the Hand of God is, it simply is rescuing an upside down kayaker who might be unconscious or simply is trapped inside the cockpit which I have seen happen a few times. Thankfully in both cases another paddler was close by and righted the paddler with the Hand of God rescue. Could you perform a Hand of God rescue if that happend?
Kari and I spent some time watching videos on the internet prior to attempting it for the first time and we talked through the steps that needed to happen for it to be successful. For our scenario we had Robyn close by for me to use a T-Rescue as an option instead of wet exiting my kayak if the Hand of God didn't work out. She also was able to video how Kari managed both attempts allowing for review later. Robyn and I video all of our training sessions when working on new techniques and even when refining some of the basics.
A few comments about what happened. On the first attempt Kari did a really good job in getting me upright in a continuous motion. On the second attempt you'll notice that my kayak gets caught on hers which prevented her from continuously rolling me. The difference was that on the second attempt her lower hand didn't stay on the cockpit combing pushing my kayak down and away from hers. She then had to resort to using a lot of muscle power to finish off the rescue. In both cases then end result was the same but the little technical things make so much difference.
At lot of you are probably heading to pool sessions over the winter. Why not try and figure out the Hand of God rescue?
2015 Paddle #41 - Rescue Training
Distance: 0 nm (0 km)
YTD: 256.15 nm (474.39 km) Needs editing once Nuchatlitz blogs are complete.
Kari and I spent some time watching videos on the internet prior to attempting it for the first time and we talked through the steps that needed to happen for it to be successful. For our scenario we had Robyn close by for me to use a T-Rescue as an option instead of wet exiting my kayak if the Hand of God didn't work out. She also was able to video how Kari managed both attempts allowing for review later. Robyn and I video all of our training sessions when working on new techniques and even when refining some of the basics.
A few comments about what happened. On the first attempt Kari did a really good job in getting me upright in a continuous motion. On the second attempt you'll notice that my kayak gets caught on hers which prevented her from continuously rolling me. The difference was that on the second attempt her lower hand didn't stay on the cockpit combing pushing my kayak down and away from hers. She then had to resort to using a lot of muscle power to finish off the rescue. In both cases then end result was the same but the little technical things make so much difference.
At lot of you are probably heading to pool sessions over the winter. Why not try and figure out the Hand of God rescue?
2015 Paddle #41 - Rescue Training
Distance: 0 nm (0 km)
YTD: 256.15 nm (474.39 km) Needs editing once Nuchatlitz blogs are complete.
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