The Personal Retriever

After publishing a brief tutorial on the use of a throw bag in water rescue emergencies the folks at “The Personal Retriever” felt that they had a better product. Their device boasts buoyancy, and range over traditional rescue devices. Standing behind their statements a retriever was shipped to us for evaluation. So far we have had this product for about four weeks, and we have put it into a lot of different people’s hands.

We have allowed civilians with no rescue experience to try it out.

We showed it to a fire department that is currently expanding its water rescue capabilities.

We have given it to the local Coast Guard Auxiliary flotilla. Their members actually facilitated a live rescue with the device

We have also showed the tools to representatives from the regional dive rescue team.

All of these groups were very happy to participate in the review, and they all offered some unique insights and observations of the product

The first glimpse:

When we first open the box there was almost a universally positive reaction. The hard foam construction appears resilient, and ready for work. Everyone appreciated the buoyancy, and the idea of throwing a floatation device is always looked at as a positive thing.

After an initial look at the device none of our subjects could intuitively deploy it. The spiral wound chord, and the black retention strap are easy to use once taught, but with out instruction everyone had difficulty figuring it out.

Training:

In spite of this initial hurdle use of the devise is very easy to teach. Taking about 5 minutes you can show anyone how to unravel the line, and throw it out to a victim. Once trained virtually any student can quickly turn around and train others in the device’s use. With only 10-15 minutes of hands on time you can easily train an entire team to use the rescue retriever. This device would be great in a patrol car, or a life guard station, but it might not be the best tool for public use. We'll have to do some more thinking about that one

The Rescue:

During the evaluation period I gave the retriever to a group who were conducting a shake down cruse of a new boat. While putting around the lake they came across a sail boat that had capsized. After nearly 30 minutes in the 60 degree water the sole occupant was exhausted, and incapable of writing his vessel. Due to the victim’s condition our crew opted to throw him the rescue retriever. They quickly tossed the disk over his head, and expertly landed the rope in between his arms (Not bad for 10 minutes of training, and a few practice throws on shore). The victim grabbed the rope, and held on for deer life. The crew began to pull in the line, but the victim never took advantage of the flotation provided by the disk. Unfortunately in spite of instructions from the crew the victim never let the line go, and never took advantage of the flotation provided by the retriever, and the thin line caused some limited rope burns on his hands.

Reflection:

The Rescue retriever is a very unique rescue device. With its integrated tether, and Frisbee styled floatation device it certainly does turn heads. With those thoughts in mind our reviewers came away from the device with some universal thoughts and concerns.

The device gets wound specifically for Left, or Right handed rescuers. Since we never know who will be on crew, or which crew member will grab the Retriever we were not confident that the device would deploy properly under stressful situations.

The fact that our victim would not allow the rope to be pulled through limited the usefulness of the flotation component of the Retriever.

The cost of this device is limiting. After playing with it none of the individuals who tested the device felt that it was superior enough to justify the retail price of $139.00.

Here is an excellent video showing the strengths of the retriever

All in all this is an excellent device, and would be a great addition to a water front rescue response kit

Click below to see what the company felt about their product, and our review.

The sales representative that we have been working with had the following reaction to our review:

Thanks for taking a look at our Retriever technology. This first generation device was designed for the trunk of a police cruiser or the cab of a fire truck and to be used as a PERSONAL tool making the right/left hand argument moot. As Paul stated, any coiled line has been made up to be thrown by only one hand and is usually re-coiled before use by the person doing the throwing. Our testing has shown that it takes less time to drop off the line from the retriever and throw it than it takes to re-coil a rope. On the second toss the line on the retriever does not need to be rewound allowing it to be thrown out 3 to 1 to most lines. this can be seen on YouTube

Reflection 2. throw bags and heaving lines can be drowning acceleration devices because of the lack of floatation, especially in moving water. why the person in the water was not instructed to grab the disc instead of the line is a matter of professional concern. getting hit in the face with a ring buoy is most likely to cause more harm than rope burn.

Reflection 3. Price, this one always amazes me. people will pay around this amount (139.00) monthly for cable service for their television, but not for a device that took 3 mechanical engineers 3 years to create using the input from hundreds of years of experience of the best and brightest in rescue. This is a marketing issue for us that still needs work. We believe that the value is there as the technology allows the rescuer to be more accurate and quicker on the delivery.

Thanks for showing it around and giving us the feedback you collected. I would appreciate any comments you might have on our comments.

The president of the Company had this to say:

1. During the underway testing, I was surprised to see no side by side comparison with any of the typical mariner’s tools, the ring buoy, line bag or the heaving line, whenever we do this, people quickly realize that these other tools also have a left/right hand throwing issue and take far more time to reset than does the Retriever, just as proper training with the US Navy cleared this up during recent tests, one demonstration by a trained instructor can put this concern in the correct perspective.

2.The rope burn is possible with any of the traditional devices again this would have been apparent if side by side test had been conducted. The fact that we reach more people than is otherwise possible with traditional tools needs to be recognized. If we have a choice of reaching farther and thus reaching more people at the risk of giving some close in rescues a rope burn, I don’t see the problem. I’ll take a live victim, who’s bitching over a rope burn over a body recover every time.

3.In regards to the MSRP, we routinely give discounts to public safety organizations and the average price to them is around $109.00. Last year when we looked at the current price of an average quality ring buoy, a mounting bracket and a recovery line which are each sold separately, we found that the average costs for a ring buoy was $72.00, the line was $22.00 and the mounting bracket was $18.00 for a total average cost of $112.00 as opposed to our average cost of $109.00