Captain Shawn Royall from Charlotte Ladder Co. 23 sent in this idea to make sharing air in a RIT situation a bit easier. When training with their new packs they noticed that the pouches that contained the EBSS hose were a bit difficult to open with a gloved hand. They tried out a few ideas to solve the problem; two pictured here are a simple prussic loop, and a golf ball on a prussic.
The nice thing about these designs is that they not only allow for the holster snaps to be opened quickly, but it also provides for positive contact with the working end of the hose from the beginning of the operation. It prevents the potential of opening the holster, the hose falling out and having to search for the working end.
Certainly one potential draw back to this design could be the potential snag or entanglement with the additional handle. As with anything, training with the new setup would be the key. What works for one doesn’t necessarily work for others, but you must train on what you have. Sometimes an out of the box idea may solve the problem at hand. This idea could certainly be adapted to the hoses on the RIT bag as well. The prussic set up and pictures courtesy of FF Deany Phillips of Rescue Co. 10-B and the golf ball design from Ladder Co. 23-A.
Question for you guys we experimented with the golf ball style and had no luck with getting the snaps to open. We pulled in every direction you could think of but still had no luck with getting both snaps to open. Any recommendations you guys have to making this work?
Too bad there’s not room for another ball inside the pouch. That would be enough to break open the snaps when you pull on it. That is the problem with that set up. It takes 3 men and a small boy to open that.
Another option could be to replace the pouch with a trusty ol’ latex glove, which would eliminate having to worry about snaps…
On a serious note, you prob just have to commit to putting in some reps of snapping/unsnapping the snaps to get them to loosen up. You could also try rubbing some wax (parrafin) on the male/female snap parts.
Many of us at the Asheville Fire Department keep one of the snaps released at all times. The holster has two snaps. We will leave the rear snap connected and the front snap released. This creates a large “tab” that one can easily pull with a gloved hand to access our EBSS hose. Hose still snuggly remains in its pouch and no snag hazards to contend with.
As with anything, train on it. Get used to what it feels like and do it in the dark. Know where the “tab” is and how to properly pull and open in the unfortunate need of its use.
Perhaps the problem is that they appear to be pull-the-dot and not standard snaps. Find a guy on the job who is a skydiver, ask him who his rigger is, and have the rigger replace them with MS27980 snaps.