FRIDAY FORUM: Origin Stories - The Breakout Rope Bag

This story begins with Confined Space Rescue. Due to OSHA "Immediate means of retrieval" regulations and common sense, each rescuer entering a confined space needs a rope attached to them.  You can use one rope and put entrants in series, but that will complicate the removal process.  Bottom line, you can end up needing a lot of ropes for a small space.  

Having tried fighting with deploying the other end of the rope out of the large grommet on some rope bags, or the slit on the bottom of others, it was clear that using both ends of the rope greatly simplified things, but there wasn't a bag that facilitated this efficiently.  

I set to work, firing up the home sewing machine designing a rope bag with mirrored ends that allowed full and easy access to both ends of the rope, to deploy and restore.  Knowing things can go wrong, we wanted to be able to "escape the bag," so we added a top to bottom zipper.

The net result provides endless options for rope deployment and rigging.  Ropes have two ends.  Using them simultaneously when the scenario allows can drastically reduce the amount of equipment necessary for the job.  This can be rigging with one end working with the other, two rope system out of one bag, multiple fixed lines, multiple safety lines for confined space, rappelling with the bag on your bag while feeding rope, the list goes on and on. 

Not so fun fact, the first production prototype of the Breakout Rope Bag was stolen when my rental car was broken into while teaching a Confined Space Rescue class in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, and we had to start from scratch again.