The Knowledge To Keep You Alive!
During Building Collapse most people die unnecessarily! With this info. You Won't!
After you read the KNOWLEDGE check out this month's Survival lecture, in Lima, Peru...click
here!
A word from our Executive Director, Doug Copp
"This is sure to save a lot of lives. No one who reads this will ever get under a desk again"
Doug Copp is the Executive Director of "The American Rescue Team International - (ARTI)"; and Earthquake
Preparedness & Rescue of California (EPRC).
The American Rescue Team International provides extensive urban heavy rescue training, worldwide, including more than 60
conferences to date. Doug Copp is the inventor of the Copp Life Locator, an electronic device used exclusively by ARTI in disasters to reduce the time required to locate victims to minutes.
Surviving in a Collapsed Building.
By Doug Copp, The American Rescue Team International
According to the OSHA-USA published statistics, 2.2 rescuers die per victim in confined space rescues. Doug Copp has beaten that estimation time after time. He has worked more than 79 disaster events and tunneled inside of more than 700 collapsed buildings. Through earthquakes, tornadoes, landslides, hurricanes and many other emergency responses, Copp's
intense understanding of disaster mitigation and complex demolition has kept him alive. This knowledge and skill have taken him all over the world to teach methods to others.
Kaiser Permanente Hospital, Northridge, 1994.
The American Rescue Team International, E.P.R.C. has been at most of the world disasters of our generation. The Team's Rescue Chief has personally crawled through 700+ collapsed buildings searching for life and saving life. We know what happens when a building collapses and what areas are safe and what areas are not.
A parking garage in Mexico City, 1985.
A little knowledge about how buildings collapse can save your life. When buildings collapse during a disaster like an
Earthquake, voids are created, that is, areas that are not completely squashed but rather protected in some way to form a space where life can exist.
If you are in a void when a building collapses, you will survive. The big question is how to spot those areas that will most likely become voids. The American Rescue Team International can help you with that.
Voids are found around big objects.
A home in Kobe Japan, 1995. Notice the Piano to the right. The piano provided support such that a void was created nearly large enough for Doug to stand upright.
A void may be found in front of your sofa or next to your bed. A void may be found next to filing cabinets, next to a floor safe or next to a desk. A void will save your life!
This shot is from the Presidential Compound of El Salvador.
Look closely at the left side of the photo. You will see Doug Copp crawling between the concrete slabs.
Under the concrete slabs, all the people were crushed to death. Most were found underneath their crushed desks! Next to their desks, the aisles remained safe. The crushed desks supported the slab, and provided a safe area for access. That is how Doug was able to tunnel to the victims. The space high enough for Doug to crawl the 80 ft distance to the other side.
"This place convinced me that desks always cause you to be squashed. On prior occasions I have been in schools with lighter desks where all the children were squashed".
Duck and cover on the other hand will take lives if the building collapses. Duck and cover only makes sense if the building doesn't collapse. If you duck under a desk to take cover, you will be squashed when the ceiling comes down.
Inside of a collapsed train station, Kobe. This is typical of what the Rescue Team crawled through in 4 hour operational shifts.
Another shot from inside the train station in Kobe. Team members crawled in a zig-zag pattern through a path about 800 feet long, with about 1 1/2 to 2 feet of head room, looking for survivors. This photo is typical of the voids or spaces in the station.
Just like in this picture, the people inside their cars were squashed. It happens far too often. During the last San Francisco earthquake in 1989 many victims inside their cars were squashed.
If they would have got next to their cars
they would have survived !
The American Rescue Team International has been there. We have seen it. We can assure you that survival is really that simple!
