One Lane Parallel Uprighting
‘GIFT WRAP’ TECHNIQUE
This technique uses two recovery units to stand the casualty up-right. One truck will be placed at the front of the casualty, the other at the rear. A control vehicle will be used to set the casualty onto it’s wheels.
The wreckers will raise the casualty up and a control vehicle to set the casualty down.
THREE STEPS AN OPERATOR SHOULD CONSIDER UPON ARRIVING AT THE SCENE OF ANY INCIDENT ARE:
1. STAGING
Parking your trucks and equipment in a designated area.
2. PREPARING
Preparing your trucks, equipment and rigging for the recovery.
3. POSITIONING
Position your trucks for the actual recovery.
POSITIONING
WRECKER RECOVERY BOOM HEIGHT / ELEVATION:
Minimum of 12″ to 18″ of height difference between front and rear recovery units. This will prevent the hooks from grabbing a hold of the opposing truck’s line or strap.
TRUCK PLACEMENT
The trucks are linear to the casualty so that the casualty can be up-righted in one lane. 3 feet is a good distance from the back of the truck to the casualty. The further away you get from the casualty, the more your truck has to work and the more load you are imposing on the back-end of your truck. Also, the further away your truck is from the casualty, the more line you will have out. The more line you have out, the higher the risk.
NOTE
The ‘kill-zone’ in any winching scenario is the circumference of line length around the boom head.
CONTROL VEHICLE
As the casualty is being up-righted and passes through the arc, the control vehicle will then move with the casualty to set the casualty down gentally.
The driver of the control vehicle will feather their accelerator and brake as necessary to roll forward with the casualty at the same rate or speed that the trucks are raising the casualty.
This will help the casualty to come up, over, and set down in one fluid motion. Be sure not to ‘catch’ the casualty. This infers ‘shock-load’, which should be avoided. This could cause damage to less stable casualties.
NOTE
The control strap should be the first strap rigged (it goes underneath the other straps). You do not want the lifting strap to lift up on the control strap.
RIGGING
LOW LINE RIGGING – The line that comes off the boom-head of the lead truck that goes down to a snatch block attached to the out-rigger, and then comes back up and grabs a hold of the frame and the axle shaft.
In this case, the axle is acting like the stiff leg. When the low line is engaged it is going to drive the axle down to the ground and ‘arm wrestle’ it over.
8′ axle chain with a coupler ring at one end has been used to go around the axle and make a lasso that chokes the axle. The tail of the chain is brought up over the frame rail which is run up over the steering link.
A sister chain (the short 18″ – 24″ long chain), with a grab hook on each end is used to grab the tail of the chain, (as close to the steering knuckle as possible) with one grab-hook. Wrap it around the axle and grab the back side of the tail of that chain. This will give us a loop to attach our hook from our line to.
You want take the low line to the far leg with your snatch block. As the high side of the axle is coming down to the passenger side of the lead truck.
CHECK THE NO’S
Do one final walk-around, validating that all of the connections and anchor points. Make sure that the straps are well protected with wear-pads. Check for twists in chains, hooks are locked, and everything is ready to be executed.
ONE LANE PARALLEL UP-RIGHTING DEMO