patrick halloran: Hey, welcome to the special edition of the Rescue Lab Podcast, Grimp Day edition. We have Kel Daniel from Type 2 Access, Maple Leaf Ropes and Chisholm Trail Rescue. Just fresh back off of the Grimp Day event. We're talking all things Grimp Day. We're hopefully answering a lot of questions. And this is a cool episode that we're excited to get out here. Stay tuned. All right, hey, PJ Halloran with the Rescue Lab Podcast. This is the Grimp Day edition. We have Kel Daniels from Maple Leaf Robes from Type 2 Access. Rope rescue, the Chisholm Tail rescue team. So he I you know, me and Kel had briefly spoken before he went to Grimp Day. He had actually just gotten back from Rescue Great Day and I was like, we need to talk. Obviously, it was such a cool event. And I just wanted to pick your brain about it and learn a little bit more about it because it is, you know, this thing that us in the the rope tech industry see it is sort of like the holy grail of rope rescue training. And it it is an absolute honor to be able to talk to you about it because I you know, I'm never gonna be there. ⁓ that then that's fine by me, but I will live vicariously through you. ⁓ so thank you for coming on the show here and you know, giving us your insight about what it's like. But Kel Daniels, the man, the myth, the legend, just give us your quick background and how you ended up, you know, with Chisholm Trail, Maple Leaf Ropes and and how you ended up here. Yeah, yeah. So like I said, I'm I'm just a I'm just a guy. I'm not entirely certain ⁓ how the stars had to align to get me to this point. But I'm grateful to be here. I started in recreational climbing down in Austin on Lake Travis, which is super weird. It's all deep water solo, if you know what that is. Nice. Someone told me I could get paid to climb, so I started working at a camp. And there's a bunch of camps down there. And I worked on challenge courses and zip lines for lots of places. Ended up getting kind of a residency at a camp out there and worked the challenge course and maintained it, which is a pretty a pretty weird but pretty gnarly job to be sure. ran with that for a long time. I got a job at a place called Camp Eagle down in South Texas. And there was this old boy out there who just showed me how to do stuff. And he was a Sprat technician. And it turns out that was required to work on the things out there 'cause everything's built on a two hundred foot limestone cliff over a river. So it's top down to get to everything. ⁓ so I went to rope access course, got my Sprat one and Like I said, ran with that pretty hard. Did a bunch of rescue while we were out there 'cause we're an hour from definitive care. So we're kinda on our own. We're all wilderness medics and all that stuff. It was a pretty wicked place. Got it bunch of trips. ⁓ ended up leaving that camp due to COVID. My wife and I and I have two kids. We volunteered to leave to make it easier on the on the property. ⁓ 'cause they were bleeding money like everyone else was at that time. So I left Yeah. I left there and went to work for high point access up here in Dallas doing building maintenance. ⁓ which is a fancy way of saying window washing and other stuff. I like that though, building maintenance. Yeah, that's what I put on the resume. It makes me sound cool. It is cool. Yeah, yeah. So washed a bunch of windows. ⁓ ended up leaving that company, mostly again due to COVID type stuff. But I learned a ton there doing and more much more industrial access. The camp setting was a bit more ⁓ I don't know, austere, I guess. We're drill we were drilling our own holes out there for anchors and stuff. ⁓ and then I started into arbiculture. I went to work for Bartlett Tree Service and learned how to climb trees, which is a vastly different world from rope access. And it is those two things almost have nothing to do with each other other than the fact that there is a rope involved. Yeah. And did tree work for like five years on and off, contracting that kind of thing. got tangled up with Chisholm Trail Rescue on Instagram. Robert Brown found me through some video that no one else liked and ⁓ He called me ⁓ and I was working with another boy over at at this adventure park in Grand Prairie at the time where we were we were building the course out there. Yeah. And he just came and was like, I just wanna hang out. They had just gotten back from Grimp, got their asses kicked at Grimp 'cause they didn't know anything about rope access 'cause that's how the Europeans do it. Yeah. So I'm dumb. Taught them a bunch of tricks and you know what rope access was and how to work on two ropes with ASAPs and all that stuff, and a bunch of little tricks. And they're all smart dudes, so they picked it up really quickly. Rick Flint, who is the owner of this building that I'm in currently, ⁓ that's Rackham Safety and Rescue, ⁓ was on the team at the time. He recommended me to Jason Belechny, who's ⁓ the Maple Leaf ⁓ guy, MLR, and he gave me a job. So yeah. So that's where I am now. This is my office with MLR. And so what do you do with MLR? I am ⁓ technically the head of US sales. MLR is an equipment distribution company. Yep. It sounds really important. It is. I did. MLR is a massive deal in Canada. It's not quite that big a deal here in the States. Stop it. You're ⁓ you're underselling yourself. Stop that. Hopefully we can change that. Yeah. That's the goal. Yeah. No, I understand that. So you know, w through your work with MLR, you know, link it up with Chisholm Trail. How did your How did your rope training schedule or regimen, you know, sort of take another step up? You know, you're already a a Sprat three, I assume. So, you know, you link up with these guys and ⁓ did you feel that your skill level just jumped by that much more after working with them? Or how was that integration between Chisholm Trail and you know and you? Yeah, no, that's a that's a great question. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. Props for sure. Yeah. So I'm rope access, right? I'm not a firefighter and then all the Chisholm Trail boys are firefighters. So they all took NFPA tech and ops and all that stuff. And they're actually all task force dudes too. So they're pretty gnarly guys for for what you know, what they were doing. They just weren't at the competition level that was necessarily ready for Europe. So they know a ton. So me interacting with them, you know, grew by leaps and bounds in all of the the math that they can do kinda on the fly in the physics, like I mean when I was in when I was in yeah, when I was in rope access, it was just like, Hey, do this, don't do that, follow the rules basically, check the boxes. Right. And I didn't truly understand, you know, the physics of the math or anything. So they definitely inspired me to do that. And then I learned how they operate, like kind of command and control structure and roles and responsibilities, that kind of stuff. It it you know. Yeah. And how to communicate on a radio, for instance. Like that that was all different for me. It was all very informal. ⁓ in my my work history and past and then I'm pretty sure they benefited from From hanging out with ⁓ with me and just that's good. Yeah. I want to on so many levels. Try not to gloat too much. Yeah, that's understandable. I it I think it's cool the integration of a non-fire person into you know a rope access or rope rescue team. And I think that you mentioned it before about how Europeans are so far ahead in Sprat, and we're kind of lagging behind here, but how have you seen these skills play into the rescue side of things from what you the Chisholm Trow guys deal with on a on the work side. Yeah. I mean and and I mean, they could certainly tell you that it's it's changed their jobs for the better. It's made their decision making easier. And the biggest benefit and a lot of people will tell you this, I think, and the easiest example is patient contact time. So if if I were a firefighter and I were riding a truck, we get a call, car over a bridge or whatever, and I'm a medic, we've got all our gear right here, I'll just slap two ropes on the wheels of that truck and get to the patient. Right. And I can do that Two minutes, no problem. Yeah. Before they had been introduced to access, it was, well, we need to, you know, build a we need a plate, right? And we need a whole rope system. We got to plug the guy in and lower him over through a frame. So we have to build a whole frame, you know, and that was a 15-minute operation. So and that's part of the competition too, is is you are judged on. Your verbal patient contact time and your physical patient contact time. And they have certain parameters in the score sheet that if you hit those, then you get all your points. If it's a ten minute patient contact time through whatever complicated access method you have to make and you don't make it, then you're missing a bunch of points. So that practice and those repetitions and doing that has really helped those guys, I think, improve their like actual rescue jobs and they do it off pretty often. I mean, we don't have a ton of rescues because we don't have the topography over here, but they They do it quite a bit more than any other department who's not equipped to do it. Right. No, it it's it's really interesting. You know, I got, I took Sprat one, I thought it was important. I'm in charge of our rescue program on my department. And I saw it as, well, not only obviously I think anything that's over in Europe is eventually gonna find its way over here, but I I a hundred percent agree with you in the fact that it takes that individual skill set and just amplifies it to the point where victim contact should be the first thing you are training for. And, you know, that was something that we kind of exactly, we lost that. that skill or that technique too an hour you can just boom get down there and we'll build the system afterwards and figure that all out. Let's let's assess and see what we have. So we're we're on the same page with that. As far as your training regimen, how do you guys train for Rescue Great Day for Grimp? What what does that look like, that schedule? Yeah. I mean, we're a pretty fast and loose team. We don't I mean a lot of the bad boys of Rope Rescue? I mean, you could call it that. It sounds sexy, I guess. But we we're here to have fun. I mean, like we're just a group of dudes and doing the competitions are fun and we love it. We're all rope nerds for sure. We love doing it. Yeah. But it's it's not like we don't take it just that seriously. We take it seriously enough so that we don't get hurt and we take it we're competitive. We want to be competitive. Right. I mean, not not to flex, but we got fifth at Grimp, which is not bad at all. Not bad at all. Not bad at all. And we beat we beat some heavy hitters, so we're trying to be competitive. But again, like I said, we like to have a good time and we we hang out and everybody works. Everybody's on different shifts. I work full time. They're all on shift work, so our schedules never line up. So we just we have a lot of people who help us kind of logistically. Like I said, Rick Flint and then there's Frank Molinets, who's actually kind of the brain behind the entire team. He it was his idea to even do anything at all back in the day when I wasn't even a part of it. They'll come up with like a couple scenarios on some kind of structure. I got a training center out back right here. ⁓ and they'll do something. You know, we've all been around long enough we can come up with just some weird thing just to get the reps in. And it usually involves some sort of wicked access problem to make patient contact. And then obviously there's some kind of extrication. ⁓ and then maybe we get a curveball of some kind that we've seen something fun at another comp. But yeah, we usually we start, we get warmed up. Like we just go and do access skills to get warmed up for, you know, thirty minutes to an hour and just do something silly, like, you know, up, down, past knots, rope to rope, whatever. Yep. ⁓ and then we'll we'll come up with a scenario or someone has prepared a scenario, patient stuck there, get them here, figure it out. And, you know, team lead comes up with a game plan and we kill it. Nice. And I mean, that's year round. Are you not like, do you amp that up as Grimp comes up, or is that just something you just stay consistent at? Yeah, we decided this year we wanted to be really competitive. Like I said, normally we we go, we have a good time, we learn, we meet people, we hang out. Everybody loves everything about all of that when we travel. Yeah. And and and we're I don't wanna say the life of the party, but we're a central attraction 'cause we wear the cowboy hats everywhere. I was gonna mention the cowboy hats. And Europeans love that shit, dude. They it's pretty funny. I I think I saw the ⁓ the post of on the airplane. They were asking for someone, you know, is is there a doctor on board or something like that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's perfect. Yeah. We have a whole stack of cowboy hats and they take up a whole carry on space in the over ends. Yeah. Yeah. You guys are I mean, you're from Texas. You guys gotta be the life of the party, right? We try to be, man. We try to be, yeah. It's a good time. Sure. So, you know, for people that haven't heard of Grimp Day, but even, you know, the firefighters, first responders that know of it, how would you describe it? Yeah, I mean It is a rope rescue competition with a heavy, heavy rope access element. I mean it and it depends on the venue. Like we did a tree rescue last week too, which you know, the rules change for that just as an example. We could go to single rope when we were doing a tree because that's the regulation allows for that. I don't it's kinda weird. It's hard to rope two rooks in a tree, but Yeah. Anyways, yeah, it's it's it is a massively beneficial Anyways, Grim Day started like twenty years ago in Namura and then it's kind of branched out from there. It's a it's just a big Play day, basically. ⁓ and they were li at some point they said, Let's make it a competition and, you know, learn from each other that way because competition breeds, I don't know, learning. And you you get together and the judges will tell you this too. They told us this in several of the scenarios and kind of the hot wash is ⁓ look, we're we're learning things from you guys 'cause they don't see a lot of North American teams over there. Yeah. What would you say what would you say the sp the split is as far as American teams versus European teams? So there were three North American teams at Gramp this year. Out of the twenty five teams that were there. It's okay. Relatively rare. 'Cause it's hard to get there. It's super hard to get there. We've been putting pretty blessed, like we've campaigned hard enough and we got some sponsors to help us out. So we're very, very grateful. ⁓ but yeah, it's it's it's pretty rare. There was one Canadian team, the eight team, they got third place, and then there were two ⁓ two American teams. There was us and the Yardbirds, and then I think there was one South American team. Okay. So everyone else is from another hemisphere. So Yeah. Yeah. And sorry, so you're saying the the judges the judges don't see a lot of American teams too. They don't. They don't. And and even like access methods are different. Like s the difference between Sprat and Irata, if you're familiar with that, are there are some differences. They're very, very similar, but there are some differences in the and and there's some regional bias and all of that. But yeah, the judges they love learning from from everybody else, and that's part of the reason why they come because they're they're volunteering their time for the most part and they come to learn and they get to watch the same team. or different teams, sorry, run the same scenario, you know, a dozen times, they're gonna figure out which one is the optimal way and steal ideas from each different one. So it's, you know, pretty useful for them independently. But it's also great for obviously the competitors to look, you know, at the lane next to them and be like, man, they ran this this way. We should have did that. That's brilliant. We didn't do that. Now we have to work harder. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And how does how does Grimp or even Rescue Great Day How do you think they differ from most American competitions that we see over here? Yeah, I mean, they're pure rope competitions, I think is probably the biggest difference. I'm like we have a comp here in Texas, ⁓ the Texas Rescue Competition. Yeah. And it is it's traditionally been a very wilderness competition. We did a garner steak park. ⁓ so there's no structures around necessarily, it's just trees and rocks and cliffs. So you're either drilling holes or slinging, you know, boulders or trees or something. So it's it's a different the environment kind of drives a lot of that. And then the competition here in Texas is heavily medical, for example. Like half of your score is what you're doing medically. So I'm not super qualified to be a rescuer for that competition. You know, like I was an EMT at one point, but I'm not anymore. And I've kind of lost all of that knowledge slash skills. ⁓ so my's all my stuff is wilderness medicine now, which is quick and dirty. I can give you two drugs, Tylenol and Ibuprofen and that's perfect. That's all you need. Yeah. Yeah. And then we're using sticks and stones to splint things and that kind of stuff. But so You're judged pretty heavily on the medical on that end. There's other there's another competition here, Reka, which is more of like a it's a more I guess well rounded from a fire service perspective competition and they use ropes in structure collapse or confined space specific type scenarios. And so you're using all of those elements that firefighters train with all the time in a more round ro well rounded way. Whereas Grimp and Rescue Great Day are rope competitions. you know, ropes and maybe there are tools involved, like we had to do an extrication at Grim, but I didn't handle any tools. I'm not a firefighter on how to do that. But it's it's relatively rare. It's just there's some basic, basic medical stuff. You know, make patient contact, do a good patient assessment, and then you'll be good. The judge will tell you all the signs and symptoms and vitals and all that. Other than that, it's how do you get to the patient and how do you execute the extrication? Like what what's the rope work look like? What systems are you building? How are you managing your safety factors? What, you know, equipment selection, all those types of things. It's pure rope for for both of those competitions. And is the what's the team makeup over there? Is it a lot of rope access people in Europe or is there a mix of firefighters too? Yeah, no, it it's it's there's a lot of like fire brigade, I guess to use the European term or fire service dudes, but it depends on the region they're from. I'm like there are several You know, the best teams like the Grimp team, I think the French team that w that won Grimp sixteen, that's their job is rescue. That's what they do. And they do, you know, extrication and have to have hazmat awareness and con space and all that. But they don't fight fire and they don't they do ⁓ they do medical obviously, but ⁓ but it kind of the whole European structure is different. And there's some Asian countries that that mirror that too. So that's probably the the biggest difference. I mean, there's several sp you know, spots here in the States that do it, like Austin Fire ⁓ and Austin EMS. are two separate kind of regimes within Austin, Texas and the EMS guys do rescue. The fire guys the fire guys do it, but the EMS team is like the rescue squad. So it's kind of a different structure which is just based on, you know, kind of your department, but the American model is firefighter has to be prepared for everything, right? Yeah, right. Whatever whatever it is, you gotta get ⁓ out. Yeah. No. And that's ⁓ you know so between Grimp and Rescue Great Day, you know, being just pure rope, was there any other Differences or or something that, you know, makes one different from the other besides location? Yeah. I mean, Grim's been doing it longer. Rescue Great Day is a relatively new competition. And I think the culture kind of drives like the regional culture in Namir, Belgium is different from the culture in Sevilla, Spain. So those kind of cultural organizational differences, you know, are are not difficult to notice if you go to both of them. So Rescue Great Day is a much larger competition traditionally, like We went there two years ago and there were forty two teams. Yeah, which is an enormous number of people running around a city hanging off of stuff. Yeah. So the logistics are probably the hardest thing to nail for those things and in the mirror, they've been doing Grimp Day in the Mirror for twenty years now. Yeah. So they've got pretty well dialed and they know like all the city managers and and get all the permits lined up and locations for everything to run really smoothly and it does run really smoothly. And that's no shade on on rescue great day in Spain, they just I don't know. And the the only real other difference other than that is in the last couple of years, rescue grade day has gotten more physically demanding. Like we we march harder. We carry you carry all your gear everywhere in either one of these c competitions, what regardless of what transportation you have available, you have to carry your gear. Yeah. So on Rescue Great Day they'll they'll make you hike two miles and then climb a hundred flights of stairs or something to get to get to a spot where you then have to then go find your patient and in ⁓ in the mirror Grimp day, it's it's more about you know, you're gonna have to climb some stairs and hike a little bit, but it's less physically demanding. They wanna see your rope skill. Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. So you know, when you're at these competitions, what's it like standing at the starting line and you know, looking, like you said, looking at your left and right, and know that you're competing in some of the most elite rescue teams in the world? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I I can only speak from my own perspective, I guess, there. I get super nervous. Yeah. Yeah, like I mean it kind of a funny story, but like our first scenario here, maybe not the best example, but it's still funny. Our first scenario here, we were inside of a very famous theater there in ⁓ Namir and we walk in the door and it's dark, pitch black, and they say you cannot use lamps or headlamps at all. They have little glow sticks where we so we don't run into stuff and then there's one judge with a headlamp just so you don't run into stuff. We're in the sub floor of this theater, like under the stage, and they tell us, Okay, you They took the patient off already, whatever. They tell one rescuer, Okay, you strip all your gear and you gotta go up this rope. So we assume we're gonna go do a pickoff. Like this is they're giving us an easy start here. They're throwing us a bone. It's gonna be great. So we send our big guy, Robert, who at worst case, if something goes wrong, he can just curl our patient up because he's he's really strong and our patient's really small. We're like, This is a great idea. So he rifts up the rope, takes no gear, it gets up there and he calls on the radio and he's like, Hey I'm the patient now. Yeah, they threw us a curveball. Yeah. So I thought I was gonna get to chill for a while and just watch Robert work or not watch him because it's dark and just hear it on the radio, whatever. Yeah. So then everyone looks at me because I'm the access guy and they're like, All right, Kel, you gotta go. So then I get really super nervous. My stomach starts churning. I sprint up the rope and have to do this wicked pick off through knots or whatever. ⁓ and then I come back down, rescue went fine. We got the you know, just like a couple minor dings for some silly stuff that happens in the dark. Anyways, we get all the way down and I finally like collect myself and then I run off in the corner and throw up everywhere 'cause just cause I was so nervous. I you know, I I appreciate that the candidness though. That's Yeah. Okay. You know what though? Maybe those other teams were looking at you guys and they were nervous. How about that? They might have been. I don't know. I don't know. I just I was just worried about my job and not screwing up. That's fair. I understand. So the atmosphere at At Grimp and but in both these competitions, is it more competitive? Is it more collaborative? What's the vibe? Yeah, I mean, kind of both end. Like it's it's very competitive. Like we all want to win. We all definitely want to win. And we try really, really hard. Like we'll sprint out a finish, you know, carrying a just a ball of gear so we can make it back to the, you know, the X or whatever. ⁓ but it is also really, really collaborative. Everyone's there to learn. Everyone has a super positive attitude. Everyone's asking everybody else questions about everything. Gear, equipment. What did you do here yesterday? Cause we did this and it it didn't work super well. So we were curious what you guys did because we saw y'all finish like 10 minutes before us or something. And we would do the same for other teams. ⁓ and then again, you look over and you're like, Man, they're doing that that way. We are idiots. So you go talk to them about it. And everyone's really receptive, really open. I mean, there's a language barrier in some regard, but There's translators everywhere, everyone's got phones out, translating everything. Everybody wants to help you all the time and it's it's really, really great and a ton of fun for sure. Well that and that brought up to my next point was the networking side of it and sharing that. How important is the networking at events like this? Dude, it's it's massive. I would show you this like massive pile of swag that I had to check in bag to bring home. Just because everyone's new stuff, everyone's like taking your stuff, like there's business cards moving everywhere. Yeah. You get to deal you and all the like brands and manufacturers want to be at Grimp Day 'cause it's it's like, you know, yeah the Super Bowl of Rope Rescue. So everybody's there. And you get to see all these dudes that you see on the internet or on YouTube all the time. You know, like everyone's spend time on YouTube university, right? Yeah. Or you go watch like the Petzel videos. Well the the Petzel guy was there, like hanging out with us, teaching us how to do stuff and answering questions. It was really cool. Like, man, I've seen you your face for ten years on YouTube. It's cool to meet you, you know. Yeah. That's awesome. What are what was some your biggest wow moment that came out of that came out of the event? At either of the events. Biggest wow moment. Was there some new technique you saw you'd never seen before? Or like was there a moment you just looked over and you saw another team just killing it and I mean, there there's lots of that all the time. Like I mean nothing nothing really like blew my mind as far as like techniques or equipment or anything. I guess the the biggest thing was is and I'll I'll be sappy I guess for a minute, ⁓ the Romanian team ⁓ a couple months ago while we were at rescue great they actually lost their team lead to an avalanche. ⁓ yeah, his name was Dan. I can't pronounce his last name, but he's a Romanian dude. He was a really cool guy. And we've seen him at other comps before, super friendly guy. Anyways, he he he died. So the Romanian team kind of dedicated their their competition to him for for good reason. They had special moment for him. Everybody there was a little dip guest book you could sign. Wow. ⁓ photos of him and and it was really cool to see kinda how Again, I'm being sappy, but like the whole community came together and like paid their respects to Dan from the Romanian team. That's cool. And and just cheered for them and wished them well the entire time. And it was it was it was really cool to watch for sure. Yeah, no, I I imagine. I mean in that environment, you know, like you said, it's not it's not all about the competition. ⁓ you know, you're you're a team in that sense, right? Well yeah. Yeah, everybody was was a team in that regard for sure. Yeah. ⁓ did you see anything over at these comps that haven't made their way to North America yet on the rescue side? Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ there's lots of techniques for sure that are are very European that I guess the average, you know, rope rescue squad on a fire department truck or something would find super weird. ⁓ but it's really just using your equipment in a clever way, like knowing its limitations and what it can and can't do and kind of pushing those. Yeah. A little bit. I I guess a you know, a a decent example, which I I mention it all the time in in my videos, is a is a Tazlov three, which is a super weird device. The owner of that company used to work for Petzel. He left Petzel and started his own thing just making TASLEV threes, ⁓ which is a ⁓ multi cinder. It's a device that goes up and down the rope. So we can jet up a rope, not have to do a changeover from our U senders or anything, and then just come straight back down or onto another set of ropes or something. But it's also a rope grab. And it's also a backup device. So it's kind of a very it's a multi tool. Yeah. And we've done a lot of really weird stuff with it. But those European guys, 'cause it's been around there or for longer, have have also done some really, really weird stuff with it too. Just again, as an example, you can do some gnarly stuff with with some of the equipment 'cause it it's not approved for use in North America, if we're all honest. Yeah. It doesn't have an ANC stamp or an NFPA stamp on it or anything. It's just E N certified. So Yeah. Yeah. And are they allowed to use that equipment? Does everybody have to use the same type of equipment or you can you bring whatever you have in your your cash? You can bring whatever works. Although if you, you know, were to sit go to the mill shop or whatever and try to make a homemade position or lanyard or something, any judge can ask you about anything that's on you at any time. And if you can't talk about it well enough, then they c take it from you and ask questions later and You know, the worst case somebody will just look at a thing and be like, This doesn't have any certifications of any kind on it, or what is this certification? 'Cause I don't think you're doing this correctly. So you have to be prepared prepared to talk about it all. So you gotta know your stuff. Yeah. Yeah. That's ⁓ going into the team side, how are these teams formed? How many people are that f actually form a team and how is the select what's the selection process? From the organization as a whole to choose which teams come? Yes. And and from the actual team side. I got you. I got you. So Ever you can submit. You could, you know, get a group of dudes together and submit a team name to Grimp Day. I mean you just email the right people or hit ⁓ up on Instagram or whatever and be like, Hey, we'd we'd like to go. And they'll put out a open registration, you submit your stuff and and they choose you or they don't. It's it's not a necessarily a lottery, but it's also not not random. It's I don't know, it's kind of both. It's a little weird. If you get picked, then it feels good as a team. And then the the team structure is ⁓ you have a patient, you have a team leader, and then you have four team members. How you distribute roles and responsibilities up to you, but the team leader ⁓ and the patient are rigid positions, they cannot the whole time. You can't you can't swap out a rescuer for the patient on one scenario or another, or the team lead, depending. It's it's their job the entire time. Wow, it's interesting. Yeah. Okay. And how long does it how long do you think it takes to build a fully capable team that is ready to go and operate at this level. I mean, there are lots of really smart people that just call their buddies that they know are really smart people and they say, Hey, you want to go to Grimp Day? And they're like, sure, we're gonna call ourselves the rescue lab team. Yeah. I don't think it I don't think we'd get picked. Well y you don't know. You could like you certainly could. I'll be the victim. I'll play the victim. There I mean whatever, dude. Yeah. Everybody gotta go once. So they're fine with picking someone. 'Cause it's a learning environment and they're very clear about that. They're like, We want everyone to learn, we want everyone to get better, all of those things. So if you're honestly it's probably the most honorable position, I guess, or you should be the most grateful for it. If you're a team that's never done a competition at all and you get picked to go, you're gonna learn the most. So you're getting the most value out of it than anybody else, the guys that have done it twelve years in a row. Yeah. You know, like they're having a great time and they're kind of the instructors now. Like you're looking across the lane at them and being like, Man, that's that's a good idea. I'm learning from those guys. Yeah. Yeah. We'll do that next year. Yeah. I mean anybody can go, dude. I appreciate that. That that hope in me. That's nice. You talked about, you know, that churning feeling in your stomach. How do you replicate that in training? How do you replicate that pressure? I don't know, man. I don't know. That's that's just like the spirit of competition coming into it, I think. Yeah. And then and then that like that that was me personally. The other guys are fine. Nobody nobody felt that way. But in you know, for they're all lying, they're all lying, yeah. I mean, it doesn't seem that way, and we're all pretty honest with each other, but like I'm not I'm not a firefighter. I'm not a professional rescuer. Like I d I don't really know exactly what business I have being here other than I can climb a rope really well, you know what I'm saying? And that even that, like I'm not the best at anyways, like You can't say that. You just came from Grimday. You can no longer say it. Yeah, I mean, I could s I could say it after the fact for sure. And I feel really good about having performed. But yeah, that whole like gut feeling, that's that was just me. I used to do that in sports in high school and college and all that anyway. That's just that's just how I've always been. You just work through it. Yeah, but I j I feel like, you know, we talked to other people about training and replicating training. That's one of the hardest things to replicate, though, is that actual physical stress of, you moments like that. It's how do you how do you harness that? I guess yeah. I mean So w we try to get like a great rush rescue gray day especially, they ⁓ they like really big scenarios, big climbs, big hauls. They're gonna like I said they're gonna make you work for it and you don't get, you know, powered winches and ascenders most of the time anyway. You you put a three or one or five to one on and you haul, you move. Or you've got to climb a hundred feet. Or, you know, a big like I did a lot of eighting this year, a lot of eight climbing, which is really physically demanding and you just get beat up. So you just do that. You just make the rescue hard. in the training center. And you know, like it's really easy to take shortcuts in the training center. Yeah, yeah. Hard to it's hard to gain elevation, but there are ways to kind of get the laps in. You could build a treadmill out back or whatever, ⁓ or just stay on the rope for a really long time. That's a hard thing. I think I train firefighters a lot now and that's one thing that they don't adjust well to. Most most fire squads in training are standing a lot. They're building a system with their feet on the ground, up rigging is is really, really hard. So being in suspension and doing stuff in free space without your feet on an object or or the ground or anything is is a hard concept. So I mean, I guess the only advice I would give is like spend time in the air. Yep. And, you know, do the stuff up there. Exactly. Yeah. You work those individual ascend, descend horizontal movement skills. I I think those are that is something that we on the fireside don't do at all. And it's when you do do it for the first time, it is it's kind of like, you know, mind blowing to see that I'm sure it's simple techniques, right? That we just take for granted. It's it's just get get the laps in, get the work in. Don't take the shortcuts. Get off get off the ground and stay off the ground and just keep moving. Like people ask me all the time, what's the easiest way to just get time in on a rope? ⁓ and I just tell them pass knots. Just go up and pass knots over and over again. If you can do that, it's just changing from us to descent. And you can do almost any maneuver in rope access that needs to be done. Yeah. And it's super simple. It is. In theory. Six feet of vertical height. That's all you need. Yeah. ⁓ when you're working at that level with these competitions, you know, and then you make a mistake, what are the kinds of mistakes that that happen at these comps that don't come up during normal training? Is there anything that that you notice? Yeah, it's usually an organizational error or, you know, like a s sequence of events type error. ⁓ and I I could give examples if you want ⁓ but if you don't take the time and get your system like you to think we're putting a rigging plate together, we still do that all the time. And we're gonna put we're gonna build a high line as a bad example. So we're gonna put a lot of things on this one place. What goes where and in what sequence is the first step that you can really mess up and you will know it. Whereas if you if you keep it straight, the first time and you make everything pretty. You get all your ropes stacked exactly where you want ⁓ to be. You turn all your clutches the same direction so you can shark fin ⁓ Like all that little stuff adds up to making a really smooth, you know, exercise, basically. And then how important is that knowing that you're on the clock, but it's saying, Hey, I have to take this time to get this just set the right way. It can be a tough call, man. It really can be. There's I've s I've s been frozen a few times in competition, like I see this issue that's about to happen if I don't fix it now. Do I take the time because everything takes time and fix it now? Or do I deal with the consequences if they come up? ⁓ and it's a judgment call every time. The the really, really good technicians and the really, really good teams just do it right the first time, if we're all honest. Like they anticipate those issues that are gonna come up just based on their experience and they they do it right the first time. We've gotten really good at that over the last, you know, few years. We still mess up plenty, don't get me wrong. But that's that's one of the things that you learn is how to anticipate those issues based on common scenarios you've seen in the past. Yeah. On a on a competition day or on comp day, you know, walk us through one of the scenarios and and what does that look like? So y I mean, at Grimp Day at least, everyone stays in this, you know, hotel. And so everyone's all together. We eat together all the time, like every team. So it's a big party every night and every morning, which is a ton of fun. Competition day begins. What does a scenario look like? Walk us through a scenario. Yeah. So ⁓ usually they tell you to, you know, be somewhere at any time and you you could pull up in your we had a parking lot this year at at Grim Day, so every team parked in this one parking lot. We got all our gear out and then we had to hike to whatever scenario we were assigned to at whatever location. So usually you get there and you kinda hang out for ten, fifteen minutes, you know, wait for the judges to make kind of final touches on the scenario or do some quick rigging or something. So that's kind of the nail biting part is you're just sitting there like kind of looking at the scenario like and you start game planning things. You start making assumptions based on what you see, which we've learned is not a good idea. ⁓ 'cause they're gonna throw some kind of curveball at you 'cause they you're gonna see it anyway. Like sending the big guy up the rope. Exactly. It's just like that. That's a great example. So we try not to make exump ⁓ you know, assumptions. We just make observations to each other while we're standing there looking. If they let us see stuff, sometimes they kind of cordon it all off or turn a corner and we can't see anything. But we hang out and we you know, we get our mind right. Everybody gets their personal gear on and gets it set, which is a lot of stuff. We carry a lot of gear on us so that each individual rescuer, if we were pulled apart at any time, could kind of do anything we need to do with what we have on us. So we check all our own gear and you gotta make sure like your chin straps buckled, your radio check works, everybody's on the same channel, leg straps are on, like you don't look sloppy, you show up and you're ready to work, shoes tied, everything's everything's sewn up, and then we kind of get our minds right a little bit, hype each other up, I guess, do some stretches. I'm a big stretcher before these. ⁓ some deep squats. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dude, just you just get warmed up and then just wait. Yeah. So are you given are you given a lot of information before the scenario begins or w what are they what do they give you? No. ⁓ So we get to whatever spot and we wait. The team waits. Our team leader ⁓ who is Michael this year, Michael goes to find whatever judge he needs to find. There's usually a tent and a booth that has all the information he needs. Yeah. And so he he's really good about going immediately there as soon as we arrive because your time through the whole day is important. So the quicker you get to the judge and get your spot in line matters because they will cut the whole day off at like seven PM, which would suck if you just kinda drag your feet. And so we've learned that over the years too. That's the competition mindset for sure. But they'll they'll give him a brief. I mean it's team leader only. Team leader gets the brief. Here's the scenario or the dispatch, whatever you want to call it. Here's what you got. ⁓ patient's here. You have to get to patient, get patient here. And then he'll come over to us or we will go to him, depending on what he says on the radio. Grab all of our gear, get it to the starting location, ⁓ and he gives us the rundown. I mean then whatever curve balls we have, you know, kind of the the rules of engagement, do's and don'ts, hazard zones, all that stuff. And Well, once you're actually committed and you're going, how often do the plans change that you've come up with for that scenario? Every time. Yeah, every time. Yeah. It's tr it's very, very rare that the first plan we come up with is the exact plan that we're gonna use. It's not it's not it's not like it doesn't not happen, but it's very rare. We like to think that we're pretty good at calling audibles and our team leader puts a lot of trust in us to, you know, 'cause There'll be two or three of us in completely separate location from the team lead that he cannot see or manage at all. So we have to first of all communicate on radios really well, give him constant patient updates, vitals and and all of that. And like what we are going to change and how it's going to affect the rigging from the whole perspective. That train's gonna come through now. I'm so sorry. Let it roll. This is a pretty quick one. I think it'll fix it'll fix in ⁓ probably probably take it out in editing. These things are crazy now. That's wild. That's your world, bro. I don't know anything about that. I mean, I'm just I'm just a stranger in a strange land and I like it is all AI and all this crazy stuff, but that's that's wild. I know believe me, I know. How ⁓ how important is improvisation during the the scenarios? You know, I I think it's very important for for our team. ⁓ like I said we're We're pretty fast and loose and we have a good time. And that's that's we've discussed it before intentionally. That's how we like to operate and we we like to think we're pretty good at that. ⁓ like I said, we have a lot of trust in each other as individuals to get to a place and make a call. And I think any one of us could slip into the team leader role and be pretty effective. Yep. Which means that we can all be pretty effective in our own individual roles as just rescuers on the team. ⁓ and there's a bunch of scenarios I could give examples of on at Grim Day that we did that. But it's it's just trust in each other. There are a lot of other teams that are not that way. ⁓ and I've worked with them or next to them. I've gotten training from from those guys. And it's also effective. ⁓ it's just, you know, these are the rules. They they kind of have a a playbook like a quarterback basically, their team leader does. And if then kind of scenarios, if this happens, we will move to plan C four or whatever, which I don't jive with. A lot of people don't. That's not our style. We just we figure it out when we get there and we like doing it that way. And it is an intentional intentional decision by the team. Yeah. And what what separates those those top teams? Or what do you see when you look at them? What are they doing? We we talk about this all the time because we keep getting beat by the same people. Which is fine. You know, we're off we're friends with all of them, you know, and we beat them every now and then, but these guys are they're they're good. And they're good for a reason. Those those reasons are primarily that they get the reps in. Yeah. And they spend time with each other. They either There's kind of there's kind of two separate squads. There are the squads that like are less a group of dudes that want to go have fun and do a thing. And yeah, we want to be competitive, but we're just we're kind of a club, right? We're a sports team. And then there are the squads that are professional rescue squads that live together, work together, train together, get paid to do all those things all the time together. That's a different level entirely. Those guys are dialed and intense in a way that is intimidating for sure. Intense. That's probably that probably explains it very well. As far as the lessons that that you guys take away from Grimp Day, how does it directly impact or improve your work as a rope access tech, but even also the chish and trail guys on the rescue side? What are the takeaways, the tangibles? Yeah, I mean the best example, at least in Texas, what Texas is going through right now is like all the departments are kind of stepping down from half inch to eleven mil or twelve and a half mil to eleven mil ropes. So they're making doing lighter, faster decisions. And the equipment that goes with all of that. They're getting more more into the access concept and patient access and individual personal mobility skills so that you can get into and out of trouble as you need to as a rescuer. And that you can get to a place and call those audibles and make those decisions because you have the knowledge and the experience as an individual to do that. Those those are easily the biggest takeaways for these guys. When I met all these guys, you know, five years ago, ⁓ they didn't have those capabilities. There was the rigid plan and These are the rules of engagement. If we can't build a frame and send the rescuer over the edge with the basket, then we need to call for backup, basically. Yeah. And now they're like their attitude is completely switched. They are now informing their I hope I don't get in trouble for saying this or making anyone feel stupid. They're informing their battalion chiefs how they're going to do a rescue. No, I think you're I think you're right on and I think in tech rescue, if the battalion chief's not a spec ops guy, you know He should be looking for that information from the team commander or the, you know, the the lieutenant or captain in charge because they're the operational expert. Yeah, and that's what they are now. Like it like we know if if Robert or Justin or Michael sh they show up on scene, everyone in their department knows we're good, no problems, easy day. Like they're gonna solve this problem and they're They're gonna run that. And then, you know, like the battalion chief may still be like the IC for the whole the whole scene or whatever, but there's a lot that goes into a whole scene that's not just the rope element. Yeah. But they know that Robert's there. Robert's in charge of the rope rescue, the extrication, and that's handled. The IC can worry about traffic control or media or whatever. Exactly. All this stuff. On so on your side, the building maintenance side, do you notice any applicable skills that come out of this? I mean, yeah, I can I can move on a rope a lot better than I used to could 'cause I have to now, which is crazy. Yeah. I just I go up and or down a lot easier than I used to. I don't do a whole lot of building maintenance anymore. I'm pretty spoiled these days. Yeah. If I go on a job site, it's as a level three. And so I'm super I'm a supervisor, which means I'm just building anchors and then rescue standby essentially, which rescue standby for access text is fairly silly, honestly. They're fine. Like it Unless someone has an allergic reaction or passes out, then yeah, they'll get themselves out of a situation for sure. That's understandable. And those those elite rescue teams you were talking about before, what is it they're doing different than anyone else? Is it just the I mean, obviously, you know, all these fire departments, everyone lives together, trains together, but what is it that they that is making them exceed that standard? Yeah. I I think it's because they have the freedom to do what they feel they need to do. To go get whatever training or certification that they need or go take whatever class or this whatever equipment or get whatever reps they need in and make those decisions operationally for the whole, I don't know, organization. They have that freedom to do that. That is their job. They're rope rescue technicians. They have rules, obviously. They're not just doing whatever they want, but they have they have the freedom to try whatever techniques or equipment out that they need to. And then they I mean, probably the biggest difference is they they get the funding to do those things 'cause again, that's their whole job. They don't have to fight with the hazmat budget or the water budget or anything like that or wait for grant necessarily. They have they get the equipment they need because they need it. Yeah. Or that team doesn't exist. So they have the freedom to try all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I think that is a huge sort of force multiplier. If you have that team, that high end team that really wants to operate and has the attitude and you you, you know, ply them with money, y you know. You're gonna have the the Grimp team that will take over the world. Yeah, I overlook it a lot, but everyone that goes to Grimp is a rope nerd. Right. And that's my whole world now is full of rope nerds. So I d I don't it's hard for me to go back to the times when I wasn't because I've been that way for so long. Like I at least I cared about it. I didn't mean I was that smart back then, but I cared a lot and I wanted to know. And and it takes that attitude. If you're just like kind of a truck guy or whatever from the fire department perspective. And you got your Tecker ops, but you don't care about rope. You care about water. That's cool, man. Do the water thing. And you're probably really great at water, but you're not gonna be good at rope. So you definitely have to put in the a kind of after hour study. You have to care enough to be nerdy about it, which all all dudes are nerds. They're just nerds about different things. Everywhere every guy has that one thing that they know so much about, right? And our thing is ropes. Yep. Mine might mine might be helicopters. I'm not sure yet. It might be a medical condition. Helic helicopters are pretty cool. I got to ride helicopters the first time last week and it was It's awesome. Helicopters now, yeah. Yeah. You're you're a helicopter guy. I like that. I'm helicopter. Have you seen any techniques or systems from these events that have changed how you know you guys operate as a as like Chisholm Trail? Yeah. So we went to Grant Japan ⁓ two years ago, twenty-five, January twenty-five. Yeah. And the Japanese guys are really, really fast. They have a lot. a lot less rules or they just don't care as much about the rules. You know, like two ropes two ropes is kinda optional. Like they're fine with like one sometimes. I don't really know where they draw the line, but they move so fast in everything that they do because their culture is so different. Yeah. And I'm trying anyways, their culture is so different that they just are so disciplined about how they do it that every movement that they make and every system that they build, it's almost like they've memorized this scenario and they've done it a dozen times. Yeah. Because it has been that dialed for them based on how they've trained. Yeah. They have some techniques that we'd certainly stole. So build a build a three to one with a capto and clutch or whatever. But your three to one is thirty yards upstairs, right? And we have to haul this patient up. So let's redirect it back through the plate or something so that the guys down low can pull down and use gravity. The guys up top don't have to do that. That's one of those tricks those guys use. And or we use remote resets. So those little shackles, those soft shackles on the capto. Yes. You put, you know, just a small length of cord on there and the team lead is standing at the edge watching the basket come up while the you know, the big guys in the back are hauling. Yep. The team lead will pull that tagline and pull their captoes up so they don't have to do their own resets and it makes everything run smoothly. Right. So they collapse they collapse their three to one team lead rips it up and it's almost like the litter never stopped. Yeah. That's interesting. Those are good. Yeah. I've seen some of the the Japanese videos of them doing like the the rescue train is It is mind blowing. It is. They're so fast, man. We we can't I I'll brag on myself one time. I beat one Japanese kid in a speed ascent through past the knots and I'm good. I'm good for my for the rest of the year. That's that's my one accomplishment I'll take. Yeah. That's fine. ⁓ I are you noticing, you know, you go to these events. Are you noticing any tech rescue trends that you're starting to see come together? Yeah, there's a lot of trends for sure. It it usually comes in the form of equipment, I think. ⁓ there's a new thing comes out and everyone starts using it 'cause it solves this problem that everyone's had. But we're all kind of doing the same stuff in the same ways most of the time. I mean a a decent example of a trend would be like edge protection is a big deal these days. Like at these competitions, like in rope access, every edge is protected always ever. Your rope doesn't touch things. Right. You know. Depending on where you're working and what company you work for. But that's kind of the rule. Your rope doesn't touch anything ever. So edge protection, like a sleeve or a mat or whatever, is a really quick and dirty way to solve that problem. And those have become very trendy, I guess. And they're useful, don't get me wrong, but that's just an example of some of the things that that have that have come out is just like really gnarly edge protection. When it used to just be like when I started in rope access, you know, like some flex hose, conduit or old fire hose, and it just is w it didn't matter or whatever. It didn't have any numbers on it. So Yeah, this is ⁓ this is Edge Pro's big moment. It really was. Yeah. It's it's kinda wild when you think about it. I'm not passionate about that topic at all. There are people that are. It's a to you know, it's each of them their own. They're definitely Where do you think Rope Rescue is headed over the next decade, you know, based off what you've seen? What do you think the future is? Everything's gonna be smaller and lighter and more efficient for sure. Yeah. ⁓ and in this in the States it will I person I'm one of those these people I'm again I'm not a firefighter, so I don't have a whole lot of business having an opinion about this other than just my exposure to the fire industry at this point. That's all it that's all it takes, man. Believe me. So I I think rope access has a definitive place as as a learning model, first of all. So like the Sprat andor Irata system of certification, I think is an incredibly effective system. Yeah. lets you know exactly what you need to do or work on and holds you accountable to that knowledge. I think that is valuable for the fire service. It's not required to do rescue by any stretch, but it's certainly those skills, the personal mobility, the physics and the different options in your rigging systems, like makes you a better rescuer. Like it's it's non negotiable. Like you you I don't I can't no one can argue with me about that. Right. And I the I guess not the example, but the situation I give or the narrative I give is like if you go to Grimp, there are teams full of rope access texts. There are teams full of kels, I guess, who are not ref first or first responders or firefighters in any regard. They're rope access text, they're on rope every day. Yeah. That's that's the big difference. Arborists are the same way. They are on rope every single day. They know more about rope than a fire. Absolutely. They they do. So you can give me a team full of rope access texts and we'll go to Grimp Day and we'll kick the American fire service team's ass every time. Like I would it just that's just how it is because they're on rope every day. They've got the numbers, they've got the hours, they've got the experience to do it. We're not gonna do any patient care is gonna be horrible. We don't have any experience with that. But we can go make access and we could go move the load and build big systems. Yeah, and that's how it goes. That's genuinely how it goes in the competition, yes. That's perfect. ⁓ and so did you mention that this is the last year it's being held in Nimura? That that is the rumor, and I hope I don't propagate that. But we this is we're gonna start this here. It's it's propagating here. That's fine. You'll yeah. Is that I've heard that. Yeah, I've heard it on the internet. All right, I'm gonna hit I'm gonna hit you with some ⁓ the lightning round questions here. The most the most difficult scenario you've ever competed in. ⁓ the most diffic the one hundred meter climb on the gantry crane in Japan. Three hundred and twenty eight feet to top of a gantry crane. Me and Justin Hanley both did that and and both immediately threw up when we got to the top of that crane. That's good. Is that are there any points deducted for throwing up or is that perfectly okay? I you know, if there were, I wouldn't know because it was in Japanese. Perfect. That's perfect. ⁓ what is the hardest rescue skill to master? Hardest rescue skill to master. I don't know. My s my rope access brain just automatically goes to like rescue in a in a loop, rescue mid replay. Ooh. I guess. Yeah. I will work in a basket's pretty tough, like as the rescue or walking up, you know, at like a ninety degree edge transition is pretty rough for most departments, I think. Yeah. Okay. What's the best rescue team that you've ever watched at one these events? That's a good question. That's a I would love to say it that it was the Grimp sixteen, the French team from this year at at Grim Day, but I didn't see them do anything. We were never next to them in a scenario. But I've seen Japan Nine West absolutely destroy everyone in every scenario that they that they did ⁓ when we were there. And then intervention rescue, we've competed with them several times and they're just polished, super dialed. Where are they out of again? England? Intervention are are ⁓ British. British, yes. Okay. I think I I saw their page recently. What is the most valuable piece of rescue equipment? Ooh. What's the right answer here? Yeah, you gotta be careful. Yeah, I guess you can. Do rescue without a harness. I don't know. No. That's very ⁓ very yeah. Very literal. Yeah. No, the the most useful piece of equipment is probably a a good positioner device, like a greyon or ⁓ a finch. And it's just you have a tiny rope system, hang it off your back, right? And you can build anchors with it, you can make pickoffs with it, you can build tiny haul systems systems with it. Yep. There's a whole lot you can do with a agree on or a position or tap device. That's cool. A closing question here. And then I there's a couple other questions that have been sent into me, but when people see, you know, photos and videos of Grimp Day, Rescue Great Day, they see cruel rope work. What they don't you know, what what is it they don't see? What does it really take to compete at this level? I mean there's a mentality aspect, obviously, and there's a physicality. Like you have to be in in good physical and mental condition in order to do it because that it's it's hard. It's very hard. And if your head's not in the game or your body's not, then you're you're gonna have a tough time. So there's a lot of preparation that goes into that. And then I I mean there's a lot of standing around too. I mean, you see all the sexy stuff on the internet, but no those are the action moments. Like we we I took my brother with us as our photographer. He's actually a very accomplished photographer when we went to rescue great day and he he he doesn't know much about this world at all, but he was like, Man, there's a There's a whole lot of nothing happening during this hour and a half scenario until there's not. And then the all the action happens at one time. Yeah. Yeah. Make sure you don't blink. Right. Yeah, for sure. I I did have a couple of questions. One was from Will Kip and he said, How do you how do you take a tech rescue team and turn it into a Grimp team? What's what's the how do you bridge that divide? I mean the the first step is get a group of people together and start training. Come up with a scenario or some scenarios and go through it and try to do it as quickly and as cleanly as you can. ⁓ but just just just get a group of people together and and start doing it. If you want to actually compete at these things, then we live in the age of information. There are plenty of people you can reach out to that can help. I'll I'll help anyone that that you know wants to know any wants to know more. ⁓ but just put in for the competitions. Like I said, they'll They'll take you. They're gonna ask you questions if they don't know who you are, but you know, based on your qualifications, they'll take you. And they're perfectly willing to let you look stupid at your first competition. Everybody's been there for sure. That's that's a rite of passage. It is. All right. My my buddy Tom Denhy here, he said he needs an explanation of how you guys did that ginormous Y hang. Get out of here. How many videos have I made about that? I I I think he has a learning difficulty, so I just you know I'll make I'll make another video. I'll tell I'll tell him. That was that was just for him. So Mark Godette actually, he wants to know what your actual real name is. ⁓ my he I know ⁓ he's an arborist. I know who he is. My real name is Adam, Kellogg Daniel. Kellogg is my middle name. Kell is short for Kellogg. There you go. And it he says, you know, which which course has given you the most insight into rescue techniques and scenarios? Which course? Or which training, I guess, or Okay, so I'll make the plug here, I guess. Voodoo Rescue, ⁓ the their ⁓ Halifax fireman. That's Will Wagner and his guys, and then Jills Rousseau, who is a Belgian rescuer, put on the downrange rescue class. And it is it is a high speed, low drag. We're gonna build these systems, we're gonna build them fast, you're gonna make the access and you're gonna run it clean and you get a ton of reps. And they are pushing you constantly. They'll you build, I don't know, build a high line. You got thirty minutes to build this high line and make it work. Go. So they give you a ton of reps and then the tools to kind of complete those reps and all the little and then when you get to a certain level and all this rope stuff, you don't know what you don't know. So when you get to someone who's been there that can give you the little tips and tricks, like all the like turn your carabiner this way instead of this way, so it's easier to do it when you get to the next step kind of stuff. Right. ⁓ the little stuff really adds up when you start getting in the upper end of these levels. Okay. And what is ⁓ what's something that you would like to become better at? ⁓ That's a great question. I'd like to become better at a lot of things. What do we all? Yeah. I guess I just communication is tough for me. ⁓ if we want to talk like competition scenario type stuff, I get in the zone and I start working and it's hard for me to remember I need to update people on the next steps or thinking of the next steps. I know my next steps, but it's kind of big picture on what's what's coming up and how can we all prepare for that. And I and we kinda, you know, in the hot wash for the whole competition with the team last week, we kinda all I think agreed. That it's not just necessarily up to the team leader to see everything. We're all smart enough. We know what the next move should be. ⁓ so I personally I I'm gonna work on like trying to predict the next moves and or issues that are that are going to arise on the big picture scale and not just my own small world making access or or riding the basket or doing the rescue. Yeah. ⁓ that's fair. This one isn't a question. This is from the A team. It said, Tell Kel and all the guys from Chisholm from the A team, it was an absolute honor to compete alongside you. Hard charging gentlemen. I look forward to next time you all share space together. It's nice to Yeah, hell yeah. Those are good boys up there, man. Those are my my Canadian brethren. That's right. Yeah. It was. They it was we got to be next to them on a lot of scenarios and it it was it was great to watch them work. You can tell they've put the work in up there at Valor for sure. And they it's it's showing. It's showing. Yeah, that's awesome. Well well, hey, I mean, I just wanna say thank you for coming on and You know, giving us an e an an education about the whole experience, and I I think there's something of value for every tech rescue firefighter who who sees this stuff and wants to know more about it. And ⁓ what's next? What's next for for Cal Daniel? Kel's gonna try to relax for a little while. Is that possible? I hope so. I genuinely do. Yeah. ⁓ what's the what's the next what's the next event? What do you got next? The next event ⁓ I got a busy fall coming up. So I'm competing at the True North rescue competition in British Columbia. I'm with with the the Ronin guys. I'm on the the SAF team and that's the Voodoo Boys. That's Will Wagner and Jill's. Jill's is gonna be our team lead. I mean I'm rescuer two, I think. So we have a training or two coming up in August and then that competition in September and then the Texas Rescue Comp is shortly after that. And then a bunch of A bunch of MLR events in October and November as well. Awesome. Well, hey, we we thank you very much for your time. And you know, everyone feel free check out Kel ⁓ Type Two Rescue, MLR, Chisholm Trail. Kel, this isn't the end my friend. As wrap up, if you found value in today's conversation and want to help us continue bringing these stories, lessons, and training opportunities to the rescue community, consider supporting our mission through the New England Rescue Collaborative Foundation. The NERC Foundation is a registered five ⁓ one C three nonprofit dedicated to advancing technical rescue training. education, and collaboration for firefighters and rescuers across New England and beyond. Every donation helps us create training opportunities, support scholarships, and invest directly back into the rescue community. You can make a tax deductible donation through the NRC Foundation Venmo. Every contribution, large or small, help keeps this mission moving forward. 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