Tactical Medical Solutions® in Anderson, South Carolina, is a global leading developer and manufacturer of pre-hospital medical gear for both the tactical and civilian world. TacMed is the manufacturer of well-known products including the SOF®T-Wide Tourniquet and OLAES® Modular Bandage and is a medical supplier to DoD, US government agencies, law enforcement, fire, and EMS agencies, private institutions and individual purchasers. TacMed provides everything from individual kit components to stocked kits of all sizes that can be customized to best fit your needs.

In 2016, TacMed created its training arm and rescue brand Rescue CraftTM. Rescue CraftTM team members have backgrounds in Special Operations, law enforcement, and fire rescue as they relate to rescue and vertical rope access.

The primary course that Rescue CraftTM teaches is the Operational Vertical Specialist (OVS). OVS is the overarching name of a variety of courses that teach the same principles to targeted audiences. For the California Association of Tactical Officers (CATO), it is a 3-day Tactical Rope Access Course for SWAT team members. For tactical medics, it is the 4-day Tactical Rescue Technician Course, which includes more medical capabilities. There are also courses geared for SOF climbing teams and USASOC medics. Rescue CraftTM has the ability to customize any training to an organization’s specifications. The end state certification is consistent with the relevant job performance requirements found within NFPA 1006 (2017) Rope Rescue Technician.

The purpose of OVS is to provide special operations team members and medics a common baseline of rigging, rescue, and vertical access that is applicable to a full spectrum of variable environments (urban through mountain) and variable operational constraints.

The OVS technique and equipment selection takes into account that many end users are not full time “rope handlers,” where “technical rescue” may not be their primary, secondary, or even tertiary team function. But when it is needed, it is needed without second thought and must be executed innately in less than optimal circumstances. Difficulty in the execution of rescue should arise from the emergence of outlier tactical variables, not from the techniques and equipment utilized. It is for these reasons we deemphasize many hallmarks of traditional courses, such as memorizes numerous and complicated knots. We prefer to teach various wraps and hitches due to their inherent ease to recall, execute, and utilize under the stress of the operational rescue environment.

One of the primary requirements within the OVS curriculum is to de-mystify complicated rescue systems. Our technique selection is designed with redundant fail-safes, dynamic adaptation, and universal foundations that can be applied to multiple areas of operation. Specificity of techniques and gear is de-emphasized due to the dynamic nature of SOF personnel.

Most commercial and many military training and education programs exist for the purpose of encoding a specific response to a specific problem, which effectively teaches the student “what to think” instead of “how to think.” We believe that a program of instruction should always focus on encoding principles, requiring performance under unpredictable and varied conditions, resulting in giving the student operational skills that are the result of being shown “how to think” in an asset-depleted dynamic environment.

The world is dynamic and ever changing. Training for the modern domain of friction and violence must incorporate exercises that require participants to think, engage chaos, rapidly problem solve, and perform under varied conditions with varied assets.

Rescue CraftTM is available for unit level evaluation and training. Individuals seeking training should look at the below announcements. Contact for training opportunities will be Dana@tacmedsolutions.com and Ryan@tacmedsolutions.com.