Interview: You're out in the back country and something happens. Do you call Search and Rescue? How do you know? We'll examine that next on The Scope.
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Interview: So you're out maybe hiking in the back country or camping, or maybe it's just a day hike, and something happens to you or somebody your with. Is it bad enough that you should call Search and Rescue? How do you even know? Are there times where you should absolutely call Search and Rescue?
Dr. A. J. Wheeler is from St. John's Medical Center in Jackson, and he's also the medical director and a member of the Teton County Search and Rescue in Wyoming. He's going to try to help us figure that out.
I'm out. How do I know if I should call Search and Rescue, because that's kind of a big deal to me? I don't think I'd want to do it unless somebody was bleeding and about ready to die. But are there other times that you might want to do that?
Dr. Wheeler: I think that there is definitely hesitancy on the part of people that are recreating in the back country to call Search and Rescue. From the Search and Rescue standpoint we see a lot of incidents where we are notified late in the game and wish that people had called us earlier so that we could have helped them in a more timely fashion.
Interview: That's interesting because I would think that there would be some instances where I'd call and you guys would show up and you'd say, "Well, why did you call us? This isn't a big enough deal." So how do I know when I should call you? What are those instances?
Dr. Wheeler: From a medical standpoint, I think that anybody who has an altered mental status, who has fallen, is injured and can't think straight deserves a call to Search and Rescue. Definitely, it could be a sign of a significant head injury. It may just be "a concussion" and improve on its own, but it's hard to tell in the back country, especially for non-medical people, and if a person does have a serious head injury then having some medical resources heading that way could certainly speed their recovery and evacuation.
Interview: And time is of the essence when it comes to any head injury, from what I understand.
Dr. Wheeler: Yes, in many cases.
Interview: What are some other cases where you should call Search and Rescue right away?
Dr. Wheeler: We see a lot of orthopedic injuries in people that are recreating in the back country. Anybody who is clearly non-ambulatory after their injury, if their ankle is sticking out the wrong direction, they're clearly not going to get up and walk on that leg. They're going to need some major assistance to get that person out of the back country. We would want a call as soon as possible from that party to start planning and getting people in the field to help with that evacuation.
Interview: So even if you thought you could carry that person or put them on the back of another four-wheeler, you should still call Search and Rescue if there's a bone sticking out?
Dr. Wheeler: Well, certainly, if there's a bone sticking out, that would be what we call is an open fracture and definitely is a bit more time-sensitive. More common is a closed fracture where the bone doesn't come through the skin. But even those instances, if people are looking at carrying out an individual, from a Search and Rescue standpoint we use a wheeled litter and four to six attendants on that litter, and we think with that we can move about one mile per hour.
Interview: Oh, wow.
Dr. Wheeler: And so without those resources, you can just imagine a party trying to carry somebody in the back country on their own is probably going to move quite a bit slower than that, which is another thing that we like people to think about when they are injured or considering whether to call Search and Rescue. If they're injured earlier in the day and they start to try that self-evacuation and it's taking them a long, long time, often what we see is people wait until dark is upon them and they call for Search and Rescue, and that's now limited our resources because we can't fly helicopters safely in the mountains at night. Helicopter evacuation would be out of the realm of possibilities, and we'll be looking at sending in a ground team which may take 4 to 6 more hours to help evacuate that person.
Some of the other things that definitely deserve a call are anybody who has major bleeding, bleeding that cannot be stopped with a simple bandage in the field, and anybody who's having any significant breathing problems. Those are always reasons to call for help, whether or not you're in the back country or in an urban location.
Interview: Has there ever been a time somebody has called Search and Rescue and you kind of thought they shouldn't have? I guess what I'm looking for here is a common theme that probably you don't need to call Search and Rescue.
Dr. Wheeler: I think people tend to think that, but I have found almost every time that we have been activated on our Search and Rescue team, people really needed our help. It wasn't always a major evacuation. They did need help and we were happy to provide it. I think that people really should try to get over any hesitancy in calling Search and Rescue when they feel they need it, as long as they are using common sense. We want to be there to help them.
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