OVERVIEW
This writeup is not meant to be entertaining. Just so much happened on
this weekend course that I need to write it down to help assimilate
the experience.
Bcm
As more and more Gonzo events include getting out of cell range and
including people of various skill and fitness levels, I have been
getting more concerned that we aren't as prepared as we should be to
handle accidents common in these types of sports. The past few years,
I have been concentrating on my own gear, trying to find out what
works and what I'm comfortable using.
If you're in the woods with 6-10 people and someone gets hurt, how
you're doing and how prepared you are yourself may be irrelevant as
far as dealing with the situation. I feel that we have been quite
lucky so far and have been ignoring the fact that we need to be more
aware of some of the potential risks and to spend some time ensuring
that we have the skills required to deal with threatening situations
like hypothermia.
In the past 2 months, I have taken a CPR and Emergency Procedures
course, both to help upgrade my competency level and ability to deal
with health risks in the outdoors. The Emergency Procedures course is
one of the seven Outdoor leadership modules put on by NSOLDP it is
designed to give you real-time experience in outdoor medical emergency
situations. It took place in Annapolis Valley
Preparation included reading all their glossy stuff and buying a
10'x10' square of see-through 4ml plastic for emergency shelter usage.
I also loaded every bit of of outdoor clothing I had into the car as
we were going to be out all weekend in all sorts of weather, and
getting wet was a requirement for the course.
FRIDAY
Arrived in,camp. met everyone (Kevin, Bill, Mark, Scott, Gillian,
Janet, Lorrie, Todd, Martin, Bernie, Charlie, Helen, Paula, Ken and
Eric), including the 6 instructors (Gary, George, Darlene, Kathleen,
Chris and Tyler), nice little chat about this and that and admin rules
for the camp. Then at 8:00 (feeling tired after a day of work and all
that driving), we were split into 2 groups and given 10 minutes to get
ready for a little 45 minute night hike. Seemed innocent enough. No
idea what to expect.
15-20 minutes into the hike, we come across a woman, obviously
distraught and perhaps drinking. She's going on and on about her
injured boyfriend somewhere behind her. It's obvious that this is a
"SCENARIO" and we have to deal with it. There are 8 of us and it's
pandemonium. Kevin and I were first on the scene, gathered some
hurried data and took off looking for the boyfriend. The group
naturally split into 2 groups and 5 of us took another 3-4 minutes to
find "Eugene", who is face down on a steep slope, wearing jeans,
sneakers and a fleece jacket, no hat, no gloves, ankle trapped between
2 trees. All we get from him is moans, unless we move him, then we get
a stifled scream. Everyone is talking fast moving fast.
I break out my
space blanket, Paula has a spare fleece. Bill, Eric and Kevin work on
a splint for his broken ankle and we all decide to unhook his feet and
swing him around face up on the hill, then perhaps ferry him to the
woman. I run back to the first group to get info and reassure the
woman (name lost) who just has a twisted knee. We a lot fo grunting
and some yelling, we get Eugene out, around and down, then over to the
woman, who is sitting under a blanket. Nothing to prop up the man on,
so we hold him and finally get a hat, then some gloves on him and
something under his butt. We decide to send 2 back for more help
(Kevin and I) One of the facilitators (Kathleen) holds us up and asks
what we know, what we should know and who we should have told, then we
watch until the end of the Scenario, as the "victims' have become
pretty cold and are shivering a lot.
While this is going on facilitator George has been dunked in a pond to
be saved by the other crew and I gather they did about as well as we
did. There is a bit of discussion on-site, but basically we head back
to the cabin and everyone gets hot drinks and biscuits. We review the
scene step-by-step with lots of side-arounds for what was missed,
should have been thought of/done, etc. While there was positive
re-enforcement for the good stuff, here is a list of what we did or
missed:
- Rushed to boyfriend without any real info
- Rushed around in dark, no idea of terrain
- Rushed around with no plan and no way to communicate back to
original group
- Some of the stuff we didn't do, I thought of (as I'm sure many
others did) but there was no good way to get this info out or make it
useful.
In essence, the "scenario" had a life of it's own
- Did not do an injury search on Eugene. Moved him without really dealing with the
spinal injury concern
- The decision to drag him down to Darlene was
more basically to keep busy
- We caused him a fair bit of pain during
the manoeuvre
- Didn't get hat on him for 10 minutes (and we know how
long 5 cold minutes are, don't we) and gloves for five more
- I think
we used all our clothing resources, but we didn't have much
- I was pleased to have my fire makings and spare blanket, but that's really
not the point
- Once stabilized, our 2 victims were not warm nor in
any comfort and it would have been a minimum 2 hours for extra help
How should have we reacted:
- Spend 2-3 minutes with first contact and get everything possible
out of her
- Assign 2-3 people to get her stable and warm
- Assign 3-4
people to do a quick scratch (Perimeter) search, and if required a
more serious grid search
- Report back with info once we found him
(need a coordinator)
- Assess all injuries (he had puncture in chest)
and decide on them and spinal (given that this was not a first-aid
course, the spinal was left out)
- Heat management for real, asap
-
Getting victims together for a fire was good, but we had lots of time
to pick a good spot and minimize movement
- Runners should have had
more info and checked with everyone, then detailed how long they would
be
- We didn't do anything for Eugene's leg much less anything else
-Man, that was ugly
So the de-briefing sounds bad, but really, that's why we are
here...to learn. The instructors are amazing. All positive,
confident, and experienced. Since they take turns being victims, they
learn as well, but from the other side. What a great way to learn
stuff
Anyhoo, it's off to the sleeping quarters. Seven of the guys are
associated with teaching cadets and are very military. between that
and that 5? are Newfoundlanders and it was a loud weekend
SATURDAY
Breakfast, some class work about scene management (control, plan, act, stabilize, ongoing)
(Environment, Resources, People, Situation, Leadership), (Abcde - Environment, Disability)
and it's out into the wilds again. We are split into 3 groups of five and our group
(Lorrie, Mark, Janet and Bill) heads to a spot on the map where we
encounter Kathleen and Chris. Chris is an a culvert, not moving, and
Kathleen is unconscious across the stream, lying in the snow. Lorrie
and I get across the stream and Lorrie does basic first-aid and we
quickly get under my my big plastic tarp, on top of my little sleeping
bag and under Lorrie's fleece blanket. Then it's hat and gloves and
situation sort of stable. I check with the other crew and they have
the guy sitting up, under a tarp and stable. Bill and Janet are sent
as runners (a few feet away, but out of the scene)
There is a bunch of back and forth with info and some thought of
moving everyone into the culvert, but the girl is throwing up (food
poisoning) and perhaps recovering a bit, and there is the stream. Did
I mention that it snowed all last night and now it's raining. Fun
stuff.
We are in hurry up and wait mode, but stabilized. I "start" a fire,
but really would have a hard time maintaining it. Lorrie convinces me
under the, but no real decisions as to whether the fire or 3 sitters is
better.Scenario stops and we hike back to cabin for de-briefing, which
goes well.
The discussion about specific actions goes well. The tarps were a
blessing. We didn't have a scene manager, but with 5 people and two
split victims, we did OK. We perhaps could have decided to get
everyone into the culvert and get an external fire...before the
runners were sent (time hard to gauge). My fire would have been good
for the support crew. It took us a long time to ask if the victims had
any resources/food/clothes. I missed the fact that Kathleen's legs were
wet and should have been changed. All in all it went MUCH better than
Friday.
Lunch and more classwork about scene management, resource collection
and search and rescue techniques. And of course, out into the weather for a few more scenarios.
We hike out to the river and watch buddy (Gary) on skis plop into the
freakin' river bank and know himself out. We are on the other side, up
a bluff. What do we do, but split in 2 and rush to left and right
looking for a way over. I all over to tell buddy, but he's out, Janet
offers to talk to him but scene is cut right there. Damn, I should
have though to stay there, take control and get 2 teams to give me
timeframes for coming back. We also should have discussed roping
across the water. Once again, the scene speed ramped up and we lost
control. Damn. Doing that one over with a clear head, we would have
done well. @ runners each way, rest of us to maintain control and suss
out crossing the water and what risks were involved. Damn
The debriefing is tough. we're not really getting the concept. Chris
is nice about it, but we didn't do this one well. Very interesting
discussion about what it would take to cross the river and under what
circumstances. I was ready from the get-go, the missed the big
picture...scene management.
Chris switches to showing us a pita-wrap on Janet (My now beloved
plastic tarp. very cool
The second one was a really hysterical woman (Tyler) with 2 lost
girls, one of them hearing disabled (not deaf....can likely read
lips....duh), the other quite young. I did spend more time with the
original victim but did not step into any organizational role. So,
while I was pleased so far with my gear collection and concentration
on getting facts, I was still missing the big scene/resource
management concept)
Our scratch search (man, this is deep snow) yields nothing (we cut off
20 m shorts of the pines) and conduct a line search for 20 minutes and
have to get a Broad hint to get back in the pines. I find Darlene,
speaking too fast for hearing disabled, but we get her back as the
other girl had been found on the other crew's scratch search
The de-briefing points out the lack of leadership, the mistiming on
the scratch search (need more time in deep snow). One control in the
center could have allowed resources to do a bigger scratch search (no
need for pairs as we could all be seen) and we would have been done in
10 minutes. Our competencies are going ok, but the control issue is
still a dud.
Back to the site for the first scenario and Chris is showing the other
crew a pita-warp on Lorrie. This time with ropes so we can litter her
out. Lots of discussion on technique and I basically convince the 2
crews that options 1 (walk 2-3 minutes, put her down, crew switch) and
2 (each carrier shuffles up the body every few minutes) aren't as
good as one at a time replacements (keep moving, no risk of drops, no
fancy organization). We get her back to the camp field and Chris
re-shows the ropework for the litter and Gary convinces us all to
strip a few layers and lie on the snow for 5 minutes, then get a pad
for 5 more. Excellent lesson
Dinner and a promise of no night scenarios gets everyone to relax. The
cadet guys head out for some beef, everyone else for salad and beans.
Class work is a big "gear bare" with Chris doing the 100+ lb version
(Hike of the pack), Gary doing the "Nawthin'" version (Hike of the
head) and Tyler breaking down a fine leader's pack in great detail.
Lots of ideas, many of which I already use. Some refined, some new:
- Big plastic, see through
- Waterproof bag - small sleeping bag
- Waterproof bag - BIG extra clothes, full set
- Great misc gear bag, fold-out, nice use of sucrets tins
- Need a metal pot, even for a fire
- Always a big candle (for heat)
- Knife on the knapsack belt
- Compass/whistle/watch on knapsack straps
- Full plastic rain gear
- Quality map case and 1st aid case
- Big garbage bags (2)
- Notepad/pencil/pen
- 50 ' flat band nylon webbing
- Foam pad
- Purify tablets
Basically, you need enough stuff to do basic first-aid, and handle a person cold and wet, immobile on the ground. (rope,pads, clothes, plastic, heat, water, food)
SUNDAY
It's April Fool's and the 6:30 wakeup no one wanted to believe, but with all the instructors dressed, Darlene walking around as a victim and a emergency sheet detailing 3 kids out in the woods, we are into another scenario.
This time,we appoint a leader (Bill) and things get under control quickly (Paula writing stuff down), people assigned to Darlene. We fast-hike out to the culvert (missing some bloody detail on the bridge) and are split into 3 groups, as we can see Tyler already. That crew has a lot of fun trying to restrain him, but they get it done (talkie vs action). The 2 other crews do scratch search, then detail search, with Bill in the middle. The second crew finds george all bloody and spend a lot of time with him. We break into detailed search mode and finally turn up Kathleen. Frustrating checking everywhere with no results for quite awhile.
The debriefing goes well. We missed lots of stuff, but have obviously learned a lot on the weekend. Fun going around the circle with everyones impressions on the weekend.
Astounding weekend. The concept of scene management and organized resources plus specific details for search/rescue and hypothermia and a new term "Experiential Learning"
Bcm
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