Personal Rescue Squad?

[Jens]

One partner mentioned to me that when he leaves on a climb and gives his wife instructions about when to freak out and call in the resuce, he first tells her to call several of his climbing buddies. She is to tell them where he is, what climb he is on, how long he has been gone, and other stuff and then let them assess whether or not to organize a rescue just among themselves or really call in the authorities. For instance, let's say climber "X" slips on a solo climb of stuart and breaks an ankle on perfectly nice summer afternoon. The ankle is broken but he is otherwise completely ok. Why call in the choppers when a few buddies can get him out?

Pros:

* Keeps the "high risk" image away form the public, news, & insurance people.

* Your climbing buddies may be stronger, and faster, then %95 of people that I see out doing rescues.

* Pride

* Saves the taxpayer money

* Let's your spouse think that the situation isn't life or death -because it's not)

* Your buddies probably know your habits and the area intimately.

Cons

*no chopper.

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I haven't done the above, but does anybody else do this? It might not be a bad idea for us all to adopt?

flame away

[ivan]

hey man, long time no see! yah, i do this, but mostly 'cuz my wife is totally flakey and could use some reasonable outside consulation before getting the whole wife involved. i figure if she can talk to a few knowledgable friends first, she's more likely to chill and allow me time to exticate my stupid ass from whatever situation i've worked myself into.

[Alpinfox]

 

A lot of my climbing trips are organized in the following manner:

 

RING!!!

 

"Yo?"

"Dude, lets go climb the west ridge of stuart!"

"OK, I'll be at your place in 30 minutes"

"Check"

"Bye"

 

So if I had to write up a detailed summary of route/times/contingency plans etc. for every climb, it would really cut into my productivity, not to mention my beer drinking time.

 

[sk]

A lot of my climbing trips are organized in the following manner:

 

RING!!!

 

"Yo?"

"Dude, lets go climb the west ridge of stuart!"

"OK, I'll be at your place in 30 minutes"

"Check"

"Bye"

 

So if I had to write up a detailed summary of route/times/contingency plans etc. for every climb, it would really cut into my productivity, not to mention my beer drinking time.

 

 

last time I checked you weren't married... if you were you would find the apropriate way to say " if I am not back from climb x on day z call so and so..." this is actualy a realy good idea. it takes the burden out of the hands of the person who is likely to be freaking out the most.

[Alpinfox]

 

Ah yes... lack of wife/chillens = license to be reckless.

 

I better while I'm still a free man.

 

 

I was chided this weekend for not putting in any pro on a 5.0 pitch. So it begins...

[catbirdseat]

Ah yes... lack of wife/chillens = license to be reckless.

 

I better while I'm still a free man.

 

 

I was chided this weekend for not putting in any pro on a 5.0 pitch. So it begins...

That sounds Laytonesque.

[Alpinfox]

 

Yes, I'm trying very hard. Next thing you know I'll be putting up 5.10x routes and airing my sexual frustrations on a climbing chat board.

 

[Redoubt]

Well, I'm all for self-sufficiency out there, and I'm bothered by people needing rescue because of "preventable" things like poor preparation, poor conditioning, and poor decision-making, and I'd love to see fewer rescues hitting the news and using my tax dollars. But I also know that shit happens out there even to the best. And when it does, I'd want a trained SAR team coming in for me if at all possible.

 

First of all, I think this personal rescue squad idea would only make sense if there is some communication with the injured climber (i.e. cell phone, word sent out with another party, etc.). Otherwise, how do you know that it is a relatively tame broken ankle or a life-threatening compound fracture or a head injury? Were I the victim, I would not want any rescuers assuming my injuries were not serious. I'd prefer they assume that the clock is ticking and speed was of the essence.

 

As far as one's own buddies doing the rescue, we all know that the vast majority of climbers (including me and my usual partners) are far better at climbing than at rescue. Most of us can figure a lot of things out on the fly, but how many of us practice lowering and raising and carrying techniques, and first aid, enough to do a better job than the typical SAR team? Maybe you have buddies that are stronger and faster than 95% of the SAR people out there. But there's more to a rescue than getting there fast and being able to lift a lot. I've got some good partners, but I would rather have a large number of trained SAR people, with all the resources they can call on, coming in to get me. And I really don't care if the SAR team has a bunch of out-of-shape trainees as long as the team is led by some people who know their stuff.

 

Pride? No problem there for me. If I need a rescue, I need a rescue, and I don't really care at that point about keeping it a secret. I like to think I'd never let pride get in the way of my safety.

 

With proper advance training, a spouse can be taught to know that MOST rescues that occur are not life or death situations, even when SAR is called in.

 

And, finally, that "no chopper" con is a big one. Conditions allowing, they can speed a search tremendously. And when one is able to safely get in and pluck someone out of there, the victim will very quickly get to wherever he/she should be and won't get dropped onto that bad ankle, and rescuers can get out of harm's way.

 

Having said all of that, I think lots of things are possible if you have a cell phone with you. That is not a recommendation for one. I do, turned off and in the bottom of my pack, in case the shit hits the fan, but I understand the position of people who don't want one with them out there. But the fact is that they open up rescue possibilities, and my guess is that satellite phones will eventually be commonly seen in the backcountry. If one has a phone with them, and something happens where you need some help but are not seriously threatened, you have lots of possibilities for getting help. Calling in SAR, calling your climbing buddies, or (ready for this?) using your high-tech phone to make a real-time post to the new RESCUERS WANTED forum on cc.com! Vigilante rescue!

 

I'd be interested in the comments of any SAR people on Jens original post.

[markov]

I think this is one of those situations where, if everything goes well in a variety of situations, a private rescue party could do a sufficient job. But it's when the 'unexpected' occurs that it's helpful to have backup for your backup. What if a rescue party of three is sent and it turns out there are 2 (or more) non-ambulatory victims (and no bystander helpers)? Calling the next friend on the list will take a whole lot longer than calling incident command at the trailhead. But creating a rule that only parties of a certain size will go on rescues will delay and probably derail many rescue attempts before they begin.

 

Advanced Life Support (IVs, meds, etc.) is something else that would be impossible to administer without a physician on-site, since even a paramedic with a killer first aid kit would be without the oversight of 'Medical Control' while on a 'private' rescue mission. It's not always necessary (or available, even with 'offical' rescue parties), but if I had a collapsed lung, I'd sure want someone nearby with a big needle and the skillz to use it.

 

Lastly, unless I misread the original post, the spouse wouldn't know if the slip resulted in a broken ankle, or a broken femur. If I was sitting on a ledge looking at my femur poking out through my thigh, I'd sure hope my wife was dialing 3 numbers instead of 7.

[ketch]

I'm not sure on buddies completing the rescue. Some of my partners I would trust in a rescue, some I would rather have a little better trained folk. I do like the idea of calling some other opinions first, especially if it is a route that I've never done before. It' entirely possible that I just misjudged the route ar was "delayed" for a few hours while off route. If my SO called someone with a little perspective it would really help the worry factor.

[iain]

It is better to get injured on some mountains than others. Even which side of the mountain range on which you are injured can determine the quality of response.

 

The above scenario would probably require a mobile phone and many (including me) do not carry one most of the time.

 

It would be sad if someone had to spend two chilly nights out w/o pain relief rather than one if the "personal crew" couldn't get the job done.

 

Most rescue units have liability insurance to protect them when operating under the county, or they have their own unit policies in place. Make sure these are really good friends.

 

Be sure you have some rock solid medical background to work with. A distorted tib-fib fx can easily distract someone from an aching spine, for example, and shock must be recognized and the source identified.

[Alasdair]

There is a lot more to technical rescue than most climbers think there is . First off, is the loads involved in many rescue situations are much higher than typical climbing, and I would rather have a group of people who know EXACTLY what those loads are and what margin of error needs to be used picking me off a mountain than a bunch of my climbing buddies. Some SAR people are not in the best of shape, but many are, and they are the ones that will get to you first. Either way most SAR and Mountain Rescue folks are anal to the point of anoyance when it comes to making sure loads are not exceeded, your climbing buddies probably would not be. You tell me who you would want picking you off a route.

[Freeman]

Jens, altho I've been doing rescue in the central cascades for more than 25 years, I have real mixed feelings about this. The following are my personal opinions and do not represent any official position of my group.

 

First, the most important thing that you and your buddies can do is to learn some "self rescue" technique (really "partner rescue"). The normal stuff from Fasulo's book - excape the belay, ascend to your injured parnter, rappel with her, pass knots - basically get yourselves as much out of trouble as possible. How many of us can do this? How many of us practice these techniques? How many of us actually have a plan of what we will do if things do turn to stink?

 

Your choice of Stuart is interesting as there have been several "broken ankle" type accidents there the past couple of years. One involved a frequent poster here - he simply got himself off the mountain. Another involved a fall on Cascadian where the climber's partners carried and assisted her to a LZ where she was evacuated. One on the north side involved a pair of climbers who were two pitches up and the injured one had to be lowered two rope lenghts (passing a knot) to the glacier where the helo made a pick up. And as you know, one a few weeks ago that involved a couple of helicopters and several rescue volunteers. I'll talk about that one from the standpoint of the rescue dudes....

 

When we got the call the reported injuries where lacerations to the ankle, but that the victim was being helped down by her party from about the level of Long John Tower. We were air lifted by a military helicopter and winched to scree below LJT - the pilot had been given working ceiling of 8000 feet. We took in a paramedic, two volunteer rescue people, and had five more standing by in case we had to do a ground evacuation. We took a fairly complete medical kit, break apart litter, 300 foot static line, "lowering kit", and the normal sort of climbing gear. As it turned out none of that was really necessary - but we had it anyway. It turned out that the climber did have a non displaced fracture of the tibia and some fairly significant wounds.

 

With air support (two helicopters) we were in and out in a few hours (and went cragging that afternoon). For a ground carry from the West Ridge I would have wanted 12 people minimum - 6 on the litter and 6 more ready to take over (or to pass the litter over obstructions). Think about carrying a litter from 8000 feet on the lower West Ridge thru Ingalls Lake and up to the pass where you could finally put a wheel on it for the trip down to the parking lot - is that something your buddies could do? The helo had a cutoff hour of 1200 and we just made that, otherwise we were going to press every climber and fisherman at Ingalls into being a litter bearer.

 

On a recent mission on the North side of the mountain two military helicopters attempted to reach the climbers in deteriorating weather. Four people went in on the ground and three more were enroute. The ground party had litter, 300 foot static rope, etc. Three more were standing by to be lifted as high on the mountain as possible - they included an ER doc, and had another litter, medical kit, "hot pot" hypothermia device, 300 ft rope, and food. The climbers were able to get down with assistance, but again, would your buddies have access to the kind of gear that was available that day?

 

I guess my thoughts on this is that if your buddies were volunteer members of their local SAR unit they could help you if needed with the training and equipment to really do some good. When they can fly helicopters can make the missions so much easier, but as we have discussed in other threads, they frequently are at their limits in the mountain environment. And granted, some of the SAR folks you will meet are pretty pathetic, but only by climbers joining and contributing their time and talents will we have a good pool of people to help.

 

Last, and in summary, in our little area, the rescue dudes are the local climbers, so it doesn't matter whether I call my wife or the IC thru the sheriff - the same people will be coming. But if I call it thru the sheriff I will have the infrastructure to make it happen right. Either way I know that if I'm injured that the people who are coming to get me are trained and equipped. I'll probably recognize them when they get there.

 

They ARE my buddies.

[chriss]

 

I think that's a great idea for the right people.

 

I would rather have experienced, knowledgable people making judgement calls. Not just about medical issues or rescue techniques but what each other is capable of.

 

What if you didn't break that ankle at all. What if you just got a little AMS and were going slow. Headlamp messed up and wouldn't light, you got pissed and threw it in a crevasse. What if, you just got slowed down in the dark.

 

What if ..., what if ... We could do this all day.

And at the end of that day it would still be all your call.

 

 

chris