About the Author

Tom Vines has a wide spectrum of experience in urban and backcountry emergency services, along with years of work in training emergency responders and in publications. While in the east coast, he provided consulting services on high angle rope techniques to the Washington DC Metropolitan Police Special Operations Division and to the National Headquarters of The International Association of Firefighters. While there, he responded to search and rescue calls to backcounty areas that included vertical cave emergencies. While in Montana, he served a Civilian Deputy for Search and Rescue (ret) for Carbon County and worked search and rescue responses in the mountain areas of Carbon County and adjoining Stillwater County. In nearby Yellowstone National Park, he has joined in mutual response training with national park rangers in specialties such as helicopter rappelling and helicopter short haul operations. His medical experience includes ambulance service in Billings, Montana and as an instructor in wildernessEMS. On the national scene, he helped establish and coordinate the International Technical Rescue Symposium (ITRS). For 20 years, he edited the “Rescue Report,” column, a review and analysis of actual rescue incidents nationwide. In addition to the three previous editions of High Angle Rescue Techniques, he was co-author for Confined Space and Structural Rope Rescue.