A typical action film scenario: The hero enters a burning building and finds his girlfriend/wife/annoying female partner unconscious. He grabs her, picks her up and carries her out of the building in his arms or over his shoulder (if she happens to be wearing jeans) either running or rapidly walking before the building goes up as if it were a volcano.
Regardless of the build of the actor, thin to buff, most of the supposedly can do this easily. But what about real life? People complain a 10 lb bag of potatoes is heavy, let alone a 120 lb actress or the average woman weighing around 150-160 lbs. So, do you think the average male or female could do it?
with a shoulder carry or better fireman’s carry you can carry a person well over your weight for long distance, providing you are average fitness and health.
It shouldn’t be that hard. I’d do it now to save someone’s life, but my knees are a mess so I’d be limping for a long time afterward. Over the shoulder is a pretty efficient way to carry someone.
I am pretty big, though and a former weightlifter. I wonder what you considered as an average sized man. I’m not sure of the actual weight of very many women, but 150-160 pounds seems high to me, for an average. I no some who would exceed that though.
It’s easier if they’re willing than unconscious and unconscious than actively wriggling, but somehow these people still manage to never get stuck in a doorway; the practical difficulties of carrying an unconscious adult through the obstacle course that’s a building (never mind a burning building) are quite different from those of carrying a willing adult over a flat area. Doable, yes. Not quite as they portray it, too.
Also notice that they never have to carry someone with a build other than “slight”; when was the last time you saw someone in a movie try to lug around a 200lb woman most of whose extra weight is on her belly?
How many 200lb women get to be the heroine in movies anyway? For the actresses in most movies, 120 lbs. sounds heavy. Maybe I’m just bad at estimating women’s weight.
We had to learn how to carry an unconscious person in high school “practical training” classes - a remnant from a time Korea actually expected North Korea to come crashing through some day. Supposedly carrying them over your shoulders is the easiest way. The teacher made it sound like we should be able to carry someone twice our size, but most of us had trouble carrying even someone with a similar build. I suppose it’d be different if you had adrenaline rushing through you.
If you position them so the center of gravity is on top of you re a fireman carry etc it’s workable.
The less efficient “hero” style of carrying a full grown adult over 100 lbs cradled in your arms scenario requires a small woman or a fairly to very strong man if it’s going to go on for more than a minute or two.
As an army medic I spent plenty of time practicing carries. I was in decent shape, about 200 lbs, somewhat less muscular than the average infantryman, but probably about average in the general population.
I regularly carried 250-300 lb soldiers (150-200 lbs + full gear) 50 to 100 yards. I wouldn’t be running a marathon right afterwords, but it is pretty easy to bear the weight and move quickly to get out of danger. Now a 100 pound Hollywood starlet? I probably could run a marathon with her in a fireman’s carry.
Firefighting yes (Chemical Engineer and 10 years working in the Chemical industry, I’ve put out a few fires in real situations as well), “carrying people around” not directly but it’s part of the coursework for Safety Technician Certification (which I have), I have several friends in DYA (“stop and help”, similar to the Red Cross but focused on civil disasters and traffic accidents), and it’s also come up in conversations with company firefighters (the guys who got the “how to carry people” and “how to wear a hazard suit” training).
And I have had to carry a belly-heavy, 200lb woman to the bathroom and back, many times over almost a year, no fires involved. Not fun and I didn’t try to lift her, I was about 140lb at the time. I’ve also been carried “over the threshold” by an idiot who refused to listen to “put me down! NOW!” on grounds of “but this is romantic!” and hit the doorjamb on the way through.
Carrying an unconscious person over the shoulder is fairly easy… getting an unconsious person onto your shoulder isn’t. Remember people, in a life or death situation, there’s no shame in dragging.
I was always and only taught the Rautek grip in first aid class, probably on the basis that anybody can drag somebody else that way, even with greater weight.
And as a woman who has trouble carrying 10 kg. with my arms, and since most average men are office workers too, who don’t usually do weight-lifting in their spare time, this clichee annoys the hell out of me. (Along with women in high heels running from danger, who never once think to take off their shoes or snap the heels to run better, instead preferring the risk of stumbling and twisting an ankle while the monster/ alien / fire is coming closer).
We were taught the grip and also that so long as they don’t have anything broken, it’s perfectly fine to grab someone by an ankle and just pull them along. Like the carry (which we knew only from movies, then again it’s hard to imagine 5’0" Smurf trying to carry 6’2", built-like-an-armoire Angelón on his shoulders), the hard part about that grip can be simply getting the person in the right position. If a heavy person is down on the floor in a dangerous room, getting them out now takes priority over being careful with bruises (the first priority is always to warn others, though: first warn, then help); if they’re on an office chair it’s relatively easy to achieve the grip.
With the kind of flooring and amount of stairs in every factory where I’ve worked, that translates to “should work for two steps”. Also, someone unconscious and being pushed along on an office chair is likely to fall off; the grip is a lot safer.
Back in college, I once gave a fairly long piggy-back ride to a boyfriend. I’m six feet tall and he was maybe an inch or so taller than me; he also did a lot of biking and running, so he was pretty well muscled. Dunno what a pretty slim but fit 6’1" guy would work out to in terms of weight–200 lbs? More? Anyway, I have approximately zero upper body strength, but I was able to carry him all over the place. It’s just a matter of weight distribution–if you can carry it on your hips and shoulders instead of in your arms, it’s quite manageable.
Obviously, carrying someone who’s unconscious it’s going to be harder to get that weight distributed properly, but the principle is the same.
someone have image or better description for Rautek grip or rescue? for my efforts searching brings up text results, nonenglish sites. i saw one photo on a military topic site but it wasn’t clear how to do it just to use the method to carry wounded.
search for Rautek grip yields this page near the top of the results.
