Dropping the rope and detaching are external things at first. But you have to start somewhere and in most cases the "somewhere" needs to be tangible.

If you were trapped in a burning house and your body was engulfed in flames you would not be wondering how to treat the burns and what he recovery time will be. You will be wondering how the hell to GET OUT. Once you are out then you focus on the recovery.

Dropping the rope gets you out of the burning building. Once you are out it's a long road to recovery. You can only recover from the fire once it's extinguished.