A Chicago school principal was in luck Aug. 19 when he became ill on the high ropes at the Irons Oaks Adventure Center and facilitators Susan Walski and Nathan Mainor came to his rescue.
They were honored by the Homewood-Flossmoor Park District Board of Commissioners at the Sept. 17 meeting for their quick actions and outstanding work at the park district.
The 51-year-old man was at Irons Oaks with teachers for a bonding and problem-solving exercise. Participants do the exercises on the high ropes in pairs 30-feet off the ground. Walski said the teachers divided into two groups, and the principal was in the group she and Mainor were monitoring. Everybody was high up in the trees and climbing the apparatus. The principal was active and participating, but then he found himself in trouble.
He asked for water, and Walski started asking him questions about whether he’d eaten and how he was feeling.
She got him to take a break and sit for a minute. She offered to take him down to the ground, but he declined. Walski said she watched him, and when she next checked on him “he didn’t look good and I went over with my (emergency) pack. He fainted and was upside down.”
All participants are tethered to a safety system, so with all her effort Walski got the principal right-side up.
“I have no idea how I got him to go back up,” she said, but her partner said “she has some muscles.”
The man regained consciousness and Walski got him sitting again on one of the platforms. She called down to Mainor on the ground asking him to belay and come up to assist her.
While they are trying to assist the principal, all the teachers are watching what’s going on. Walski said it was important to keep them calm and remind them not to move from where they were.
Mainor reached the top and hooked the principal to his harness so that he could bring him down to the ground.
“When I got him down to the ground his legs buckled, and he fainted for a second time,” Mainor said. “So, I’m in the process of unhooking him because he’s fully tethered to me, and he tried to take me down.”
Mainor got the principal in a sitting position, unthethered him and then found a place where he could lay down while the team waited for an ambulance.
Days later, the pair heard from the principal who assured them that he’s fine. He thanked them repeatedly for saving him and joked with Walski that he wonders how a 60-year-old woman managed to save a nearly 300-pound man.
Walski has been at Irons Oaks for 15 years and Mainor on and off for 20 years. They’ve assisted hundreds of patrons over that time and brought many down to the ground because of exhaustion. The principal was their first medical emergency.
“With this guy … the calmness that came over me was, I have no idea, but I was calm because I knew exactly what to do,” Walski said. Mainor remembers he knew he had to “get in position and take him to the ground.”
The pair credit Deb Stanfield, Adventure Center coordinator, for their excellent training. Twice each year facilitators review their procedures.
“Really the training is put together by the staff,” Stanfield says. “We learn each time we do takedowns, and we practice on each other, so there’s a lot of trust and communication and we work together to find the right answers.”
The ropes have been in place since about 1988. Stanfield has been at Irons Oaks for 30 years and she, too, has been responsible for rescues.
“When you’re doing the rescue your adrenaline kicks in and you just want to take care of that person, so all the things that we do when we’re practicing, we have time to think about. When you’re taking care of someone you don’t have time to think, you’re just doing the things you have to do,” she said.