I'm presonally more in favour of a drag - as mentioned earlier, much easier to do when someone is kitted up, it's somewhat safer, especially over uneven ground (I"ve dropped and been dropped because some smart *** decided to make us do it on a snow covered field that had a lot of ground squirrel dens) - not all that safe to have someone battle loaded fall on you because you twisted your ankle or hit a rut or couldn't see where you were going. Forget the injuries to people's backs I've seen - and these are fit people - from doing fireman's carries. Most frefighters won't do it with a dead weight casualty now - they drag them or do a two rescuer carry if they have to. I used to teach people if they had to do a fireman's carry, they should de-kit the person as much as possible to give them a fighting chance of geeting them up and on- not easy when they have the tac vest and frag vest combo with strike plates, since they get a bit stiff. However, I do find it most preferable to doing the leopard crawl with the poor slob on my back - that not only hurts the elbows, but is really tiring. The only plus is the casualty can be used to protect you... :
.
MM