Have you ever saved someone’s life?

"Dena,
What PLB do you have? Is that a registration option for all PLBs?

I've got a McMurdo 210, but it's been a while since I've looked at what I did for registration."

---

Greg, I have a McMurdo FastFind. The paperwork said registration with NOAA SARSAT was required, so I registered. I have to update every two years. Here's the link: http://www.sarsat.noaa.gov/beacon.html
It basically asks for information about you, including medical conditions, what activities you'll be using the PLB for, emergency contacts, etc. It's to help out SAR in the event you activate the PLB. There was a section where you can put comments, and that is where I wrote that I carry an FAK, a PSK (personal survival kit- assuming I'm not backpacking with full gear), and that I would only activate in a life threatening emergency and that I would activate for someone other than myself.

I gave a guy CPR on a golf course but he didn't make it. Golfers love golf courses like hikers love the backcountry. I've had multiple people say something similar to this to me while playing: I'd be fine dying out here. It's beautiful and peaceful. I told them trust me, dying on a golf course is anything but peaceful.

I'm pretty sure I saved someone's life once. Waiting for a light to change a guy stepped off the curb when the light turned green without looking. I saw the car punch it to try to make the light and grabbed the guys jacket collar and stopped him in mid-step and pulled him back. Not sure if he would of been killed but he would have been seriously hurt at the least.

If I come across someone who needs assistance of any kind in the backcountry, I'll provide whatever help I can. I also have a Inreach and will signal for help for someone else if needed.

We came off the escalator to the train platform and there was a violent fight with two guys kicking a guy onto the train tracks. The guy tried to get up and off the tracks but they kept on soccer kicking him in the face. Whenever the man tried to get up off the tracks again, they kicked him in the face and he fell back on the tracks again. The whole platform was full of people.

Me and my friend started shouting at the two guys to stop, their victim was already barely conscious – which is when they wanted to fight us of course. I wasn't interested, for multiple reasons, the main one being I wanted them to go away and get the wounded guy off the tracks. The train was coming any moment.

Nobody, but nobody on that platform full of people helped.

We managed to scare them away somehow and I jumped on the tracks and I pushed, while my friend pulled to get this big older guy off the tracks. When I climbed back on the platform covered with the mans blood I was shaking with anger – but to be honest at least half of it was directed at the people still doing nothing on the platform. Looking. I get it, when you are alone. But we were already there, you would have joined a group. You could at least help getting the the victim to safety.

Sorry it's not really hiking related or kind of a bummer.
I would definitely help in anyway I could, wherever it may be.

Ito,
Your experience reminds me of something I read about that I found fascinating. The bystander effect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect

Early on in my hiking journey I wouldn't say anything to people that I would see in the afternoon walking to a peak above treeline in flip flops carrying only a bottle of water. I assumed they knew what they were doing. Now I know better. Nowadays I caution people to be sure they realize the dangers of afternoon thunderstorms and the lack of cover they'll have. I may have never saved a life as a result but I may have. I've seen some awful lightening and hail occur shortly after people passed me on their way up as I was coming down.

Yes.

Once on mountain and another time in a town centre.

Just got to work in Queens, NY (around 1978 or so) and there was an accident in front of my father's store. Middle-aged male struck by car, on the ground in the road. He was mildly overweight and on his back, one straight leg at an odd angle (sign of hip fracture). I had EMT training (back then it was a lot less extensive than now).

His chest and stomach were sort of heaving alternately, one in, the other out. This is a sign of airway blockage, muscles work but no air exchange. Note that overweight people are somewhat prone to self-blockage by the tongue and related tissues when unconscious (think snoring and sleep apnea), and I recognized this immediately. All you have to do is move the soft tissues out of the airway.

Crowd all around, no room, so I tried that old chestnut "give him air!". Much to my surprise it worked great, everyone moved away so I could work on him.

One technique is to use a tongue depressor to, well, depress the tongue to open the airway, but I had none. Desperation is to use your fingers, but patients can reflexively chomp down and almost bite your fingers off. But you can manipulate the lower jaw in such a way as to help open the airway up.

After a couple of tries it worked, he started breathing and began gaining consciousness, and could keep the airway open himself.

A few minutes later an ambulance arrived and I went to work.

I did lots of training for nordic ski patrol and mountain rescue, and used that experience on ski slopes and on rescue missions for lost hikers, but I would not say I saved anyone. Most were twisted ankles, one was a broken femur. I helped get some people to safety and warmth, but they were not that close to death and it was a group effort. We hauled down a climber off Mt. Adams who had a broken leg. We tracked a lost hiker long enough to see where he was going, then radioed to a horse team to intercept him. We never saw that guy, but the horse team got him out. Hauled out a few dead bodies.

As a former EMT and ocean lifeguard at the Wedge (an infamous surf spot in southern CA), I've been involved in all sorts of rescues, medical aids, etc. Learning and developing the skills necessary to deliver medical aid makes it a lot easier to keep a cool head during an otherwise stressful situation.

Outside of the workplace, I've come across a couple of bad automobile crashes in remote areas that I've been obligated to stop and help deliver aid. One particularly complicated one took place in northern QLD, Australia about a decade ago involving three cars and about 10 victims including an infant. It took over an hour for the first police to arrive and another 45 mins or so beyond that for the medics/fire to arrive on scene. We had to get everyone stabilized, treat the most threatening injuries and prioritize them for evacuation (triage), the most urgent by helicopter.

There's been a couple of instances in the backcountry too…

In Big Sur we happened upon a group of hikers, one of whom fell off a ledge above the river. On her way down into the river, she caught her leg in-between two branches, wrenching and dislocating her knee. We helped stabilize her injury, treat for shock and sent a few of her friends back down the trail to get help. She ended up being helicoptered out.

On a winter trek on the south island of NZ, I almost lost my girlfriend at the time to a botched river crossing. She was quickly taken down the river tumbling/rolling out of control and couldn't get out of her pack. I was able to jump in and use my bigger size/strength to catch up to her and get her up on the opposite bank safely. A few days later on the same hike, I had to help rescue three hikers who got themselves soaked and hypothermic in the dark struggling to make it to the next hut and get warmed up. All of their gear including their sleeping bags were soaked through after a fall in the water.

I've also once been the recipient of aid that helped save my bacon. I was on a difficult off-trail hike with a friend. We were trying to summit three peaks over 15 miles with about 8,000 vertical feet of gain. And it was hot (~90*F)! I eventually ran out of water, hadn't eaten enough and crashed about a mile shy of my water cache. I was suffering from Heat Exhaustion and probably low blood sugar. It was all I could do to shuffle a few steps at a time, stop, rest, regain my composure and try again. I was mentally confused and could hardly function. I had stopped sweating. My buddy recognized my troubles and went off ahead to get the water cache and return with it. He sat me down in what shade we could find, used some of the water to cool me off with a wet shirt and had me drink a super concentrated 8oz of gatorade. The sugars/electrolytes and a bit of rest/water perked me back up and I was able to regain my strength and finish the hike under my own power. Had I been on my own I'm confident I would have been in a serious pickle.

Most likely yes. My youngest son. He has gone into anaphylaxis twice. The first time wasn't "bad", the second time was bad when he was an infant. He was fine one moment, look up and he was in bad shape. We didn't know that he had a severe life threatening allergy to cashews, we only knew then he was allergic to peanuts then.

You can practice using an Epi-Pen forever, but using it for real? I did it. I got it in.

I am very aware of how much I must protect him now. To the point I didn't take him hiking by myself until recently this spring. Going anywhere alone with him, out of town, brought on panic attacks. It still does. I have become a control freak of OCD levels.

And the ladies at my gym wonder why I become freakout mom when they casually mentioned last week "Oh…how allergic is he?" When a kid came in eating peanut butter smeared all over. People do not get it.

does not killing them, count as saving their life?

I probably saved a friend in High School from drowning when we were tossed out of a boat at high speed when the steering cable connection to the motor came undone.

Involuntarily I might add.

He was wearing full clothing and jeans, and was sinking. He almost drowned me with him till I could swim us to a channel marker 50 yds away. I was in a swimsuit because I was going to waterski while he was just driving the boat.

1. pulled an unconscious guy out of a wrecked burning Chevy Corvair in 1965 in front of my college apartment.

2. At an inland lake in Pennsylvania my (then) 14 year old daughter and I quickly paddled my canoe to 2 drunk guys whose decrepit boat was sinking. We instructed them hold onto the stern of our canoe while we paddled them to shore. They were not going to make it otherwise.
The incident shook my daughter up when they profusely thanked us. She then realized how close they had come to drowning.

vacationing on the beach at Rocky Point,Mexico (Sea of Cortez), I noticed someone in distress, waving their arms and shouting for help out in the water. Other on the beach were standing by,doing nothing. No boat was handy, so I swam out to see what the situation was.

I approached a fairly obese woman,who could not swim,who said she was caught by the incoming tide and could not get back to the beach -she was going steadily seaward. I realized I had put myself, one who possessed no lifeguard skills, in a classic drowning situation – a victim who might panic and drown both of us. While I was contemplating this, my young teen age daughter swims out to me -she had just finished a junior lifeguard course. "Do you know what do do" I asked – silly question! She nods yes, swims out, ducks under, comes up behind the lady, gets her in a cross chest carry, taking calmly to her all the time,and we get her back to the beach – problem solved.

The bystanders standing by on the beach stated that they thought the commotion was just a couple of kids goofing off…..

Years ago… maybe 1993, I plucked a couple kids out of the snow that were confused, lost and about a mile from a shelter in the Smokys.

My knee had started acting up after post-holing through a couple feet of snow all day on the AT. I took a rest day in a shelter. The students were out in groups of five or six and the leaders showed up after dark in a blizzard. I didn't know they were in a group and I had warm coffee that I offered to share. I asked them how they were doing and general "where did you come in from" type of questions. Then I found out that they had left the rest of their group (stragglers) which strangely didn't seem to bother them.

I headed down the trail to meet them and found two sitting/laying on the side of the trail exhausted in the snow. They had been there for some time and were considering just pulling out their sleeping bags and staying. I think they would have made it up to the shelter eventually but you never know. All of these kids were teenagers and we all know teenagers have nine lives.

Anyway… next day I cut my trip short due to my knee issues. I made it back to the car 2-days later and within 24-hours over three feet of snow covered the Smokys. I guess teenagers aren't the only ones with nine lives because I would have been stuck with a gimper knee in 3+ feet of snow.

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/03/17/us/last-michigan-campers-are-lifted-from-snowy-forest.html

I was next to a rather frail elderly gentleman at a New Year's Eve buffet, and he was helping himself to California roll sushi. He had a bad ticker and had been through multiple heart surgeries. He put a huge blob of wasabi on his plate thinking it was guacamole. I put my hand on his arm and said, "you don't want to eat that, Carol," thereby unequivocally sparing him a massive myocardial infarct. Yer welcome, Carol. :^)

I was fortunate to work for a great boss when I started my career in EMS. As a rookie, it takes some time to realize that you can't save everyone and that despite your best efforts, people will die. After working my first code with him, something he said was so simple but helped me process this during my short career, "It's a medically proven fact that 10 out of 10 people will die."

The first time I didn't save someone's life was when a gentleman was ejected from a vehicle following a rollover. He was the only person not wearing a seatbelt and the only person who died. Buckle up folks.

I've worked countless codes where the deceased suffered with chest pain for several hours prior to calling the ambulance. One of them was one of our firefighters (arguably some of the worst patients in the world) who had chest pain for 24 hours and we never received a call until he died of a heart attack. Even if you think it's a backed up fart, some heart attacks will not show up on a 12 lead and can only be detected by a physician reviewing your blood values. Get it checked out.

I'm not sure if she ended up dying but I responded to a call where a woman did a head dive down a flight of stairs from her second story patio. More than 10 years later, I still cringe when I see anyone not holding on to a handrail.

A couple deaths related to misuse of prescription drugs (Viagra and nitro pills don't mix).

Even though I worked in a wilderness wonderland where many thousands of people would go snowmobiling, hunting, canoeing, hiking, camping, etc, it wasn't a significant source of EMS calls.

I can't speak for nationwide statistics but it seems many of the fatalities our SAR group deals with are drownings. I know one man who had to shoot a mountain lion who tried to pounce on him. Whether or not he could have scared it off is up to speculation but she was committed. He's a good an honorable man who had a tag anyways so I'm willing to take his story at face value. I've responded to people who fell through the ice but made it. Usually we would get a couple drunk snowmobile fatalities every year.

I guess I'm of the opinion that as long as you use good judgment, drink water, choose your water crossing sites carefully, and listen to your body, the wilderness is a pretty safe place to be.

> (Viagra and nitro pills don't mix).

The image of body parts exploding, comes unbidden into my head.

I don't belong to the "save a life" club unless dogs and birds count. It's certainly a club I'd like to belong to, and I envy those of you who have saved human lives. You must enjoy some additional gratifying meaning that the rest of us live without–less existential angst, perhaps?

"The image of body parts exploding, comes unbidden into my head."

Nothing that exciting but an equally tragic end.

Together they cause massive vasodilation where the patient's blood pressure drops to the floor.

Edit to add: Dogs and birds certainly count.

…

I cant say that I have undoubtedly saved anyone's life in the backcountry. I have provided water to a man that appeared severely dehydrated and provided warm clothes and built a fire for a person that appeared to be on the verge of hypothermia. Were these life saving measures? maybe….but probably not.

In the ER I have been involved in quite a few successful codes where we truly brought someone back to life; however, probably for every person we have saved, 2 were not so lucky.

I will say that having even basic first aid and medical training is something everyone should have. Most likely, you will rarely if ever need it. BUT…the one time you do, you'll be happy you have the training and knowledge to truly help someone in a emergency situation. With that, I think that first-aid isn't something you learn once and are set for life…its something you need to keep refreshing yourself with and practicing.

My niece and I bumped into a lost party headed into the wrong direction away from their car before the onslaught of a major storm.

It had been storming ALL week after 5pm… and HARSH storms.

It was 3pm.. they were about an hour away from their car. Hiking in the wrong direction.

Seemed out of place… So I asked them where they were going… and they said their car.

They were lost and completely un-equiped to handle rain…

"I can't speak for nationwide statistics but it seems many of the fatalities our SAR group deals with are drownings."

Oddly enough, doing SAR in southern Arizona, drowning was the #2 cause of fatalities, right behind falls, and way ahead of dehydration. Every once in awhile, it rains hard, the dry washes fill with that funny liquid stuff, and many people have no idea of how to handle it.

One good strategy -make camp and relax until the water goes away.

My experience is from the 70s and 80s – the current situation along the border guarantees that dehydration fatalities are up significantly.

It is rarely mentioned in training, but if you get involved in serious situations, you will be dealing with a lot of fatalities. It's like baseball – hit 300 and you are doing quite well.

just last weekend i cut my trip short to get someone off the mountain in pa and drove 2 1/2 hours to there car because they were hiking with to much weight and trying to cover to many miles, i didn't plan well myself because i was trying to kill two birds with one stone last minute, i had to go out to pa were i last left off trail and with work getting in the way was not planed very, well like all my trips. might get back out there this weekend he lived in the next town over from me witch i found out after talking to him and offered to get them home safely. i don't know if i saved there life but kept them from putting it in danger

Sitting on a float one summer in Seattle by lake Washington, I found myself looking at a guy who kept going under in something that was definitly not a dramatic fashion as seen on TV.
I took me a moment to realize that he was drowning and I jumped in behind him and swam him 30 fet to the pier. People don't neccessarily thrash around and scream.

Another time my hiking partner and I took a novice friend of mine on a trip in the Cascades following a river gorge that had many trail washouts. We came across a severely carved out bend that had essentially turned into a cliff with boulders at the bottom.

We ran one by one along the edge to the other side and did not follow the "one at a time" rule. I went first, made it and Alan was right behind me, knowing that I was like a moutain goat. Alan got stuck for a moment and new guy followed him by copying everything he does gets stuck for good and begins to slide down torward the edge and a 25ft drop off into sharp, broken boulders. We yell instructions. New guy freezes and just keeps on sliding.
I drop my pack and run back out into the sliding wash, grab his sternum strap and somehow drag him/fall/slide with him to where the trail resumes. We just made it.

We learned that day that new guys need things explained and not to assume they will make a correct choice, especially when you set a bad example. He never came out again.