In Longarone developed a camera system. An anchor for via ferratas has also been patented
Longarone. Faster and safer searches for those missing under avalanches. Dolomiticert, together with the Alpine Rescue of the Alpenverein Südtirol and the Micado company from Oberlienz, has developed a device that will improve mountain rescue operations. It is a probe, center of the “Resyst” research project co-financed by the Interreg VA Italy-Austria Program.
The project – whose name is a reference to REscue SYSTem, “rescue system” – was born in support of rescuers: to design a probe to quickly drill a hole in the event of an avalanche and to test a safer anchoring system for interventions on snow and ice.
A jet of steam comes out of the tube capable of melting the snow and ice and thus creating a hole. At the end of the tube there is a video camera, which allows you to understand if there are people submerged by the snow mass, and now the designers are concentrating on making the housings for the antennas to receive the signals of the Artva that hikers should always have. with them when they move on snowy ground.
THE PROJECT
“This project was born from the collaboration between us, the Alpine Rescue and a specialized company”, explains the head of the Dolomiticert design area, Leano Viel. «After developing mountain rescue devices in the summer season, we focused on avalanches».
A group of rescue volunteers had developed a prototype probe, which they used in the rescue in Rigopiano.
“We said to ourselves: why not try to improve this product?” Continues Viel. Thus was born the probe which, with an endoscopic camera and antennas for receiving the ARTVA signals, will facilitate the work of rescuers on large avalanches.
The project team discussed the progress made at Micado’s table in Oberlienz on Wednesday. Both the video camera and the Artva have been positioned in the new device conceived by the researchers: once this innovative system has been implemented and tested, the intervention time will be halved. Which increases the chance of saving lives.
NEXT STEPS
“The device was already tested last winter,” continues Viel, “and has proven to be effective. Now we are mainly checking how the camera lens behaves once it is inserted into the hole created by the steam and we are studying the housings for the antennas ».
The time schedule foresees that the project will be completed by January 2022, a glacier test is scheduled for November to test its effectiveness. The project team will meet weekly to monitor the progress of the study.
HELMETS, BOOTS AND ANCHORAGES
The probe for finding people missing under an avalanche is just the latest in a series of projects developed by Dolomiticert with various partners. “We started by taking care of skiers’ safety on the slopes,” Viel recalls, “by developing helmets and boots that improve safety. Then we moved on to mountain rescue, developing a device that reduces the fall factor on the via ferrata ». In this case, the partners were the Alta Pusteria Alpine Rescue and a company from East Tyrol.
The goal was to create a device for rescuers committed to recovering people in difficulty on the via ferratas, due to fatigue or other problems. “We have developed a prototype of a device that can be installed on the cable of a via ferrata, to reduce the distance between one nail and the other and to generate an additional anchor for rescuers”, adds Leano Viel. It is a kind of lever that is installed by screwing two bolts. Easy, fast, safe. The device has been patented, but a company that produces it has not yet been identified.
Dolomiticert also took care of the safety of the downhill tracks, with another project that saw the tests also take place on the Nevegal.