The Great Barrington Fire Department’s technical rescue team spent Monday evening brushing up on their rope skills with a training session on Monument Mountain.
“We try to work in house to do as much as we possibly can to get people up to snuff on something that’s really specialized rescue,” said Captain Bobby Gaughran, the technical rescue team coordinator.
During the training, everyone takes turns manning the ropes, and, one by one, stepping into a harness and being lowered down a slope, all under Gaughran’s supervision.
“As you get committed to the rope and you start going down, I want you to sit back into the harness as much as you can,” Gaughran said to members of the team. “So you want to be fully committed to it, okay?”
The team typically gets about half a dozen calls a year.