Whoever meets Irakli West in his office for the first time inevitably thinks: This man is the right man for the tough jobs. Lift a truck – no problem. Putting a train back on track – will be done. Irakli West is the boss of “Heavy Rescue”, a company whose logo shows a heavy-duty crane and who himself looks like a mighty Viking. In fact, he has Danish roots.
Irakli West, head of the Heavy Rescue company.
(Photo: Claus Schunk)
The 53-year-old demonstrates his connection to his father’s homeland with a tattoo on his arm: a rune from the grave of King Bluetooth’s father, the famous Viking from the 10th century. But the impression is deceptive. Because the specialist for rescue operations with heavy equipment has nothing in common with a muscle man or berserker. Rather, he is a networker, a meticulous inventor and problem solver with tact, who sometimes writes a dry textbook out of deep conviction.
West and his men were not present during the operation in Schäftlarn. “It’s been managed well,” says the company boss
The train accident in Schäftlarn, in which two S-Bahn trains collided head-on, was only a few days ago. One person lost his life, many were injured. Only days later does work begin to salvage the heavy railcars with large equipment. Irakli West has nothing to do with it. He is usually not present on such missions. “It was managed well,” he says in his office near the train station in Haar, “the crane from the Munich fire brigade was there.”
The professionals from the fire brigade “rescue, extinguish, recover” according to their slogan. On the other hand, Irakli West has a company that makes sure that the rescuers are equipped with the right equipment. He sits at the PC, develops rescue systems, gives lectures with titles such as “Forcible door opening” or “Acute building collapse”. The renowned Kohlhammer publishing house has published his standard work on “Civil Engineering Accidents”.
A heavy tank wagon has crushed a car. Firefighters must now recover the vehicle. Irakli West has the right material for it and the know-how.
(Photo: Repro: Claus Schunk)
Irakli West, whose first name goes back to his mother from Georgia (“that’s a name like Thomas here”), came to the rescue service through his alternative service with civil protection. West studied video graphics in London and tried out a few things until he returned to his passion in Haar, registered the “Heavy Rescue” brand and founded FWnetz GmbH. Today he is active in the Haar volunteer fire brigade and in the technical aid organization in Günding. In several other honorary posts and professionally, he travels a lot in terms of rescue. Be it a conference in Santiago de Chile or a training course in Poland, in Unterföhring or Garching. His company has four permanent employees and eight freelance trainers. Two vans and five other vehicles bear his company logo. A crane is not included. The training courses are carried out on equipment used by the fire brigades themselves.
The knowledge in the USA is much greater, according to the active firefighter, who also works for a UN project
Irakli West’s business started with the sale of hydraulically or pneumatically driven jacks from a US company, with which entire freight wagons can be lifted. Rescue workers all over Germany were and are his customers. West noticed that when it comes to civil engineering accidents, i.e. when a worker is buried in a construction pit, knowledge in the USA is much greater than in Germany. In 2009 he therefore began to offer further training. At the same time, he is involved in the organization @Fire, an internationally networked civil protection association. Through this, Irakli West is involved in the “International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (Insarag) set up by the United Nations, which develops standards that apply worldwide so that rescuers from all over the world can get along with one another in the event of major accidents. “We all speak the same language and use the same materials,” says West.
There’s almost nothing “Heavy Rescue” can’t lift. It depends on the right tool.
(Photo: Repro: Claus Schunk)
At a meeting in the capital of Chile, West of all people from the heavy team achieved that so-called light teams were included as important units in the guide lines in 2020. It is about a group of people who use off-road vehicles to carry out reconnaissance work in the event of large-scale disasters such as the flooding in the Ahr Valley. He himself was out and about in the Ahr Valley and, with the help of drones, also made maps of places that nobody had been able to get to before. That’s one of his new topics: West wants operations commanders to have up-to-date maps quickly. He says he has just printed out a prototype card. “Management, Search, Rescue, Medicine, Logistics” – that’s the quintuple that, according to West, the light teams should cover. Irakli West sees a step in this direction in the district of Dachau, where a so-called dispatch group has been set up, which takes on this task and which he would like for every district.
Irakli West travels a lot. A permanent office job would not be for him, says the man with the gray beard. He is in the USA every year, where he has trained as a trench rescue specialist, the highest expert level for civil engineering rescue. The “highest of feelings” for him is to “crawl around in the modder” again soon during training in the USA. It was also great years ago at a scrap yard in Norway. “There were broken trucks to play with.” In reality, Irakli West plays little. He is about coordinated, well-considered action and also about life and death. He trains with rescue workers in Unterföhring, for example, at the training unit for civil engineering accidents, or is in Garching-Hochbrück with the rescue dog squadron of the local fire brigade. The people from Garching and West are currently building a house that collapsed after a gas explosion for practice purposes, in which the dogs search for people who have been buried and West uses his hydraulic supports and puts his knowledge to the test.
It is also dangerous for the rescuers when masses of sand slide and threaten to bury someone.
(Photo: Repro: Claus Schunk)
West also knows the seriousness of an operation. In May 2019 he was called to Rettenbach near Landsberg am Lech, where a house had collapsed in a gas explosion. A father was buried with his child. Despite an intensive search with a geophone and endoscope, there were no signs of life. And at some point West, as a consultant who had been called in, gave the sign that nothing more could be done. “It’s also important to be able to confirm that no one is alive anymore.” Only then, he says, can one begin to clear away the rubble. Prior to that, people who were buried could be endangered when working with excavators, which may cause vibrations. Irakli West was with the @Fire team in 2010 for the earthquake in Haiti, in 2014 for the flood disaster in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in 2015 for the earthquake in Nepal – and in 2021 for a week in the Ahr Valley.
West’s thinking revolves around the question of how rescue operations can be better designed. He has just applied for a patent that could one day save a child trapped in a gravel pit of tons of sand. With the help of the “bulk rescue box”, rescuers should be able to dig safely to a victim without material being able to slide down. Also a job for whole men.