Thanks for The Help (Pine Creek Mini Rescue)

[spinesnaper]

Gravity-always on the job.

Dislocated shoulders are best reduced by trained medical personal. A little midazolam and a touch of fentanyl does not hurt either.

Just because you saw Mel Gibson do it in Lethal Weapon does not mean that you can or should reduce your own shoulder.

Ken

[Sombeech]

I just had my dislocated thumb reset a few days ago and almost pee'd my pants

http://www.bogley.com/forum/showthre...locate-a-thumb

I looked the doctor in the eye and asked her how sure she was about being successful on the first try

[mzamp]

Ouch! Mishaps like this can happen to anyone and it looks like most agree with that.
I want to know more about the rescue part. Sounds like you did a simple 2-1 pulley system? Was this by choice (was that all that was needed) or was nobody familiar with say a 3-1 or a more complex system?

[canyonguru]

We were going to use a shunt and pull him up bit by bit but being that the injured would have needed to slide the shunt that was quickly abandoned. Being that i was down low and we had plenty of bodies we just did a 2-1 which was plenty. If we had only a few guys we probably would have done a 3 or 4 to 1 if we needed too. This was my first experience doing any type of rescue and it was a great learning experience. One thing we should have done was tie up his arm to his body but being that we needed to slide him on his belly over that little rock noll it worked out that we didn't.

He is a good guy but not in the best of shape and was going into shock. on the climb out to the road he was loosing strength in his legs, getting light headed and a little sick feeling. All in all it turned out well and he is doing just fine. The Doctor at the zion clinic was awesome and had a very good attutude twards the situation. He we joking with us and make light of the situation trying help my friend to cope with the injury. He also was trying to get him to calm down becuase he would not have been able to get his arm back it while he was tense. Thanks again for all your comments

The purpose of the post was to share this experience so that we can all learn from it. I do still consider myself to be a novice in this sport even though i have been doing it for 15 years. I don't hold a candle to most of you on here with experience and skill, but i know that a cool head and a little bit of knowledge can go a long way. I hope everyone else out there will be safe this season.

[JTMiller]

Dislocated shoulders are best reduced by trained medical personal. A little midazolam and a touch of fentanyl does not hurt either.


Ken

In the Red Cross Wilderness First Aid course i attended recently they taught us to use the "Stimson technique" to reduce a dislocated shoulder. It seems pretty straightforward. Is this a good technique or is it still best to get them to a medical professional? I suppose a major consideration is the time and distance to get there.

[spinesnaper]

In the Red Cross Wilderness First Aid course i attended recently they taught us to use the "Stimson technique" to reduce a dislocated shoulder. It seems pretty straightforward. Is this a good technique or is it still best to get them to a medical professional? I suppose a major consideration is the time and distance to get there.

Unless you are specifically trained, i.e. have actually reduced a dislocated shoulder under the direct supervision of a more experienced physician, I would not recommend this maneuver in the field. The Milch method is probably easier to accomplish in the field and has a higher rate of success. The decision to make a reduction in the field will depend on a number of factors including the ability of the individual to be relaxed for the reduction. Pain may prevent your patient from cooperating. The need to self-rescue will likely play a role. Faced with this decision in the field, where shoulder impairment will impact on the ability to self or group rescue (i.e. you and your party are 5 hours into Imlay), I would activate my personal locator beacon, shelter in place, and wait for rescue for my injured partner. The personal locator beacon is the most important component of my first aid kit.

Ken

[dlofting]

The personal locator beacon is the most important component of my first aid kit.

Does your PLB work in a slot canyon ?

[spinesnaper]

My understanding is that a 5 Watt personal locator beacon will ping the NOAA satellite out of a canyon. I believe some of those tests were done in Zion. The PLB would not be able to establish a GPS fix however. I think it would be smart to find the most open area to activate the beacon to increase the likelihood that you can get a GPS fix. This increases the accuracy of the signal from about a mile to 9 meters.

[dlofting]

My understanding is that a 5 Watt personal locator beacon will ping the NOAA satellite out of a canyon. I believe some of those tests were done in Zion. The PLB would not be able to establish a GPS fix however. I think it would be smart to find the most open area to activate the beacon to increase the likelihood that you can get a GPS fix. This increases the accuracy of the signal from about a mile to 9 meters.

Thanks for the info....I always bring my PLB with me when I come to Utah, but was never sure if it would work in a slot canyon.

[Iceaxe]

Search through the Bogley archives and you will find a couple stories where PLB's didn't work in slot canyons.... and by didn't work I mean NO signal of any type was ever received.

YMMV

Tap'n on my Galaxy G3

[spinesnaper]

I looked up the details. Here they are with warts and all (http://www.itrsonline.org/PapersFold..._ITRSPaper.pdf):
[INDENT][SIZE=3]
"Summary of Results

[FONT=FrutigerLTStd]The results of these tests can be looked at in several ways. From the standpoint of the visitor to Zion NP, theresults could appear to be discouraging in that the PLB failed to report precise position data to the satellites inmany of the test locations. When individuals put their trust in a piece of equipment to notify rescue personnelof their predicament, they would naturally hope that the notification would be followed quickly by a rescue.In the case of Zion