Yet another carry out in the Whites....

[Waumbek]

Jul 18, 7:25 PM EDT
Woman breaks leg, rescued off Mount Percival
HOLDERNESS, N.H. (AP) -- A 39-year-old Sandwich woman broke her leg Monday while hiking on Mount Percival and had to be carried out by rescuers.
Fish and Game Lieutenant Jim Goss said Abigail Hambrook and her sister were hiking when Hambrook slipped and fell, breaking her left leg. Her sister called for help on a cell phone.
Goss said about 20 people helped carry Hambrook the 1.8 miles down the mountain. He said she was taken to a Plymouth hospital.

 

[jjmcgo]

Another rescue shortened by cell phone use

There is an AT thru-hiker website where the moderator goes positively apoplectic about the possession and use of cell phones on the Trail and in the woods in general.
News reports like this show the value of taking your cell phone with you into areas where you could be in danger in the event of an accident.
They may not always work in remote areas but when they do, they shorten rescue times.
Case closed, as far as I'm concerned. A cell phone becomes the next line of defense after your first-aid kit.

 

[Raymond]

Twenty people sounds like an awful lot, to me. What were they all carrying?

You know, people who don't have confidence in their driving ability are the people who drive oversized vehicles, which are more likely to become involved in accidents because they can't maneuver out of the way and avoid accidents as well as small vehicles can. I wonder if there's a similar correlation between people who carry telephones on hikes and people who break legs on hikes. I don't recall Percival as being anything particularly difficult—nobody's mentioned it on the NorthTripyramid/Huntington Ravine thread, for example. I know it takes only a moment's inattention, but maybe the more isolated you are on a hike the more likely you are to be attentive and careful.

 

[Barbarossa]

I don't recall Percival as being anything particularly difficult—nobody's mentioned it on the NorthTripyramid/Huntington Ravine thread, for example. I know it takes only a moment's inattention, but maybe the more isolated you are on a hike the more likely you are to be attentive and careful.

I slipped and hurt myself on Mount Holt on the Wapack trail, which is pretty tame. Like you say, it takes only a moment's inattention.

 

[Waumbek]

Twenty people sounds like an awful lot, to me. What were they all carrying?

I know you were funning, Raymond, but there was a time when 20 actually sounded like overkill to me so I'll admit my own ignorance. For a long carry out on difficult terrain, Fish & Game usually likes a group of about 18-24, maybe even more if the patient's a 250-pounder, night (which it usually is when the SAR volunteer group gets there), raining or snowing. 6 people at a time carry the litter and may have to pass or transfer the litter over rocks and other obstacles (rivers, fences, etc.) to another group of 6. 10 minutes is a long time to carry under those conditions, so there needs to be frequent rotation to the fresher groups. Percival is not the most difficult mountain in the Whites by any means, but there were t-storms all over the place in NH yesterday, and if the rocks were slick, the carry out would be more difficult. That may also account for the slip, but as Barbarossa says, accidents are accidents, it just takes a minute's inattention.

 

[Warren]

Twenty people sounds like an awful lot, to me. What were they all carrying?

Chances are they were trading off on the carry out. It's supposed to be tiring work.

 

[SherpaKroto]

Grab (2) 5 gallon buckets and see how far you get before your arms and shoulders ache. It's brutal.

Part of the reason that more is better is that you need fresh bodies to make sure the injured does not get more injured in the carry.

 

[Hillwalker]

Been there

One of the toughest parts of a carry out of a person on a "Stokes" (litter) is when the carry is on a narrow, tough or steep section of the trail. There, the litter with victim is passed hand over hand down the trail while people in the back of the group crash through the woods on the sides to take their place in the front for their turn to pass the "basket". Been there, done that. It took twenty four of us seven hours to carry a big guy out of Rocky Branch #2 a few years back. I was working for the "ahem" "club" at the time. They came and got us out of dinner at "Porky Gulch", and we didn't get back until breakfast.

 

[Rugger]

I can never remember which is Percival on the loop with Morgan, but the eastern most one has a rather difficult 15-20 foot climb over some rocks right near the top where any fall could easily break something.

 

[Waumbek]

Oh, yes, while we're piling it on here (pun intended ), volunteer SARs must also be responsible for themselves on the carry out and be prepared to spend the night out if need be. There's no sag wagon carting your gear for you. Here's NASAR's recommended minimum personal gear list that you carry in your back pack while you help carry the patient. This adds another 20-30 lbs or more to the total load and can make it tough to see the ground if you're not the first in line on your side of the litter (stretcher). SK, I like the 5-gallon bucket analogy.

 

[Mad Townie]

Grab (2) 5 gallon buckets and see how far you get before your arms and shoulders ache. It's brutal.

Remembering that "a pint's a pound the world around," two 5 gallon buckets would weigh about 80 pounds--unless they're not full! Oh, and they're a lot easier to carry than a litter with an injured person on it.

20 people sounds about right to me.

I carry a cell phone, TURNED OFF, because I have kids. I like the first aid kit analogy--we don't carry them because we think we're going to use them, we carry them in the hope that we won't. Besides, adding a little more weight gives us a little more exercise, right?

 

[smitty77]

I used to work as a volunteer EMT for a town ambulance/rescue squad. I feel for all of the SAR workers on carryouts. 6 of us had to carry a 350+ pound guy 1/8 mile through some open woods (nice and level). The carry only lasted 20 minutes, but everything hurt afterward, my back and shoulders especially.

My hats off to the SAR folks and their families. It's not easy living your life on-call. Emergencies don't have any consideration for your sleep schedule, family dinnertime, birthdays, Thanksgiving, or Christmas.

Smitty

 

[SAR-EMT40]

Grab (2) 5 gallon buckets and see how far you get before your arms and shoulders ache. It's brutal.

Agreed. While I have questioned some of NASARs equipment (I have never figured out, and the FUNSAR instructors haven't been able to explain what the razor was for in the first aid kit). I do always carry a couple of biners with 20 to 30 feet of 1 inch tubular webbing. I have used this several times to hook into the stokes and run the webbing over my shoulders to my belt on the opposite hip. This transfers the weight to your shoulders which makes for a much more comfortable carry. While it doesn't entirely free up your hands it removes the weight from them and allows you to stabilize the stokes rather than carry it with your arms. This isn't always possible to do depending on how wide the trail is etc. but when it can be done it is heaven.

And I agree that a group of 20 people is just about what you would want on a carry, providing that the patient isn't too heavy or the terrain too difficult or too long a carry.

Keith

 

[jjmcgo]

Smitty77 said

"It's not easy living your life on-call."
I know. My dad drove an ambulance when I was a kid and he was always going out in the middle of the night, while working a full-time day job. Some of the stories involved carrying 400-pound people down narrow stairs.
When I was working for the Trenton newspaper, a guy fell asleep in his small boat fishing in the Delaware on the Saturday night before the 4th of July. His anchor slipped and he was being carried toward the rapids near the Route 1 bridge. Very dangerous currents.
Fifty off-duty rescuers arrived to assist the on-duty firefighters and EMTs. I thought to myself that if there's any night of the year you might have anything from a drink to a bender, that would be the night and here were nearly 75 people staying sober on a holiday weekend because they might be needed to save the lives of others.
We owe them our thanks and prayers. There ought to an annual day of recognition.

 

[MichaelJ]

and the FUNSAR instructors haven't been able to explain what the razor was for in the first aid kit

I always thought it was for snakebite - to make the incisions for extracting venom from the bite location.

At least, that's what I learned as a little kid. Is the prevailing wisdom to do things differently now?

 

[DougPaul]

I always thought it was for snakebite - to make the incisions for extracting venom from the bite location.

At least, that's what I learned as a little kid. Is the prevailing wisdom to do things differently now?

Cutting is out of fashion now. Too much chance of doing more harm than good. You are still "allowed" to apply suction.

Doug

 

[David Metsky]

I always thought it was for snakebite - to make the incisions for extracting venom from the bite location.

At least, that's what I learned as a little kid. Is the prevailing wisdom to do things differently now?

I don't think anyone recommends making incisions for a snake bite anymore. It is strongly counter-indicated now. Calming someone down and applying a constricting band are the main methods of treatment.

http://www.fpnotebook.com/er7.htm

-dave-

 

[SAR-EMT40]

I always thought it was for snakebite - to make the incisions for extracting venom from the bite location.

Like has been posted. The incision stuff has been disproven a long time ago along with the tourniquet. People did much more harm than good. The suction really doesn't get much poison out either but there is no harm in doing it. Just don't use your mouth. Any sore/cuts/etc in your mouth would allow poison that is sucked out to get into your tissues/bloodstream. As well as possibly any blood borne nasties.

I never carry the razor in my first aid kit and during testing I had no arguments from the NASAR instructors. Seems like it could cause more problems then solve. The last thing I want to be worrying about when I am jamming my fingers into my med bag looking for something in the middle of the night to help someone is that my razor may have fallen out of its protective covering.


Keith

 

[Waumbek]

I was in an upscale N. Conway NH outdoor store yesterday, one with only NH outlets, and saw a snake bite kit for sale. I thought about buying it and selling it on Ebay as an outdoors collectible. Along with a canvas tent, a collapsible drinking cup, a soap bar plastic holder, and a number of other things I used to lug around in the woods! In fact, there's a thread in that--what "outdoors collectibles" do you still have (the ones you no longer use, that is)?

 

[SAR-EMT40]

In fact, there's a thread in that--what "outdoors collectibles" do you still have (the ones you no longer use, that is)?

This would probably make a GREAT thread.

Keith