Rock Rescue in the Avon Gorge
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X6203500604 |
| Date | 01 November 1962 |
| Published date | 01 November 1962 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
POLICE
JOURNAL
CORRESPONDENT
Rock
Rescue
in
the
Avon
Gorge
The Bristol Constabulary faces an unusual problem provided by
the Avon gorge. While best known as a beauty
spot-and
at high
tide its beauty can indeed be
breath-taking-it
also exercises an
attraction-sometimes fatal in that word's literal
meaning-for
other reasons. The gorge's cliffs,in places rising sheer to 400
ft.,
as
well as the Clifton suspension bridge which spans it, have become a
Mecca for the would-be
suicide-the
occasion is still remembered in
the force when a man journeyed from the far side of Europe for
the purpose of jumping from this bridge. The gorge also provides
an attractive practice ground for
mountaineering-the
presence of
a university in the city ensures its regular
use-and
aplayground
for the more adventurous youth. To the latter, the view of the
less sheer parts of the cliff from the bottom gives a deceptive appear-
ance of comparatively easy ascent. As might be expected, all these
activities result in emergency calls upon the police. In the case of
suicides all that usually can be done is to recover the body; in that
of the other two categories, it is normally a matter of injury or fear.
In all cases however, somebody, inevitably a policeman, must go
down the cliff.
The problem has been particularly the concern of Supt. D. Sims of
the force's traffic division. Originally the raising and lowering of
rescuer and rescued was done manually. This required a team of
at least 12, and on one occasion the team were called upon to rescue
seven people at one time, an operation which took four and a half
hours. Later, manually operated winches were brought into use, but
it was found that this method, while quicker, required as many men
to operate because of the necessity of frequent relief for those
engaged in the exhausting task of turning the winches.
Now the city force has converted a five-ton forward control Morris
commercial vehicle with a short wheel base chassis for this purpose.
The first task in the conversion was to locate a Thompson (Special)
winch as low in the chassis as possible, in order to reduce to reason-
able proportions the angle of the propeller shaft. The drive from the
gearbox of the vehicle is controlled by a separate gear lever on the
truck by which
"axle"
or
"winch"
may be selected. Another
gear lever, also on the platform of the truck, is a duplicate
of
the
normal gear change lever and performs precisely the same functions.
By this means, ropes may be lowered through the winch in first,
November-December 1962 380
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