Pictures - Superstition Mountains Rescue of Injured Hiker
Just a walk in the park. An improvised "piggyback" carry out of an injured hiker just below the Flat Iron in the Superstition Mountains. A good illustration of Mountain Rescue Team innovation using minimal gear to get the job done safely.
Every so often I like to go back and scan some old mission photos and post them. This was a daytime mission in the world famous Superstition Mountains to rescue a hiker with an ankle injury.
Here is the short story. The patient and a friend were hiking the very challenging Siphon Draw route up high to the Flat Iron. The injury occurred about three quarters of the way to the top. We were dispatched to Lost Dutchman State Park where Glenn Speight, Chuck Clover and I hustled up to see what we had to deal with. Several hours later we found a woman with a broken ankle which, by itself, was no big deal but she was in a very difficult area. A physical litter carry either up or down would have required another dozen SAR Techs on the mountain, a running belay or raise system and maybe 10 hours of hard work. We have done that a hundred times before but it is tough on the patient and there is a good chance, especially on that route, that a rescuer is going to get hurt (because the trails are very tight and the load-rescuer, litter, rescuer-is wider than the trail so one side or the other is always in the thick and nasty) in the process.
The most expedient method of extraction would have been a helicopter long line or short haul but that very dangerous technique is usually reserved for life or death situations. This was not a life threatening injury and the weather was mild so we didn't think a long line was warranted. We also didn't want to bring half the team out for a broken ankle even if it was on Siphon Draw.
The question on the mountain was what is the best way to get this stable but non-ambulatory patient off the mountain. It struck me that the most pragmatic solution was to haul the woman piggyback style to the closest landing zone and wait for a bird to come in and take her down to a ride to definitive care. However, we had not done that before in this kind of terrain for that length of time, it was maybe a mile and a half to the LZ. We didn't have an SOP (standard operating procedure) for it but fortunately Chuck Clover, the Operations Chief and HMFIC on the mountain, agreed that it was a good idea and doable. After all, she weighed all of a buck twenty if that and I could handle it if Glenn carried my pack. We pitched the idea to the muckity mucks at Command and they approved it so we packaged her injury accordingly.
The only concern I had was that I wanted to make sure she was secured to my back and that I could use both of my hands to negotiate the steep, rugged terrain. We accomplished this by putting Glenns waist harness on the patient, running two CMC pick-off straps from her tie in point over each of my shoulders to my harness tie in point and then taking up all the slack while sitting down on a rock. When I stood up all of her body weight was born by my shoulders like a one hundred pound backpack. All she had to do was squeeze a little with her legs and put her arms around my neck to keep the load stable and centered. Piece of cake. Chuck tied a twenty foot piece of webbing to the back of my harness so he could manage a rudimentary running belay and arrest a fall.
Arizona DPS Ranger 41 comes in to save us and the patient from a long, uncomfortable and risky litter evacuation of a non-life threatening injury. The pros at DPS could always be counted on to be there when we needed them.
Despite one little misstep at the very beginning the set up worked beautifully. It took us just over an hour to work our way down and over to the LZ. Arizona Department of Public Safety Helicopter Ranger 41 (Bell 206L3 LongRanger) which had staged earlier at the Command Post came up to meet us at what by our standards was a gigantic LZ and we were able to effect a fairly straight forward warm load. Ranger took the patient and Chuck down to the Command Post LZ for transfer to a ground ambo and then came back to get Glenn and I saving us a two hour hump back to the trucks.
You know I say a fairly straight forward warm (engine running and rotor turning but not spooled up to high RPM) load but that doesn't properly illustrate how risky helicopter operations are even when you are doing something "routine" like this. Fact is, experienced professionals have been killed doing very much the same thing so anytime the big wind machines are involved everybody has to be on their toes and at their very best. Even so, accidents can still happen and have. Remember that next time you are out enjoying the backcountry. Everyone in that picture is risking their lives to help a stranger in distress.
Which reminds me. If you love the backcountry and spend any time there at all you need to do two things. 1) Send a note to your Legislators and tell them how important our Public Safety helicopters are to everyone and that they need proper funding. 2) Remember that the vast majority of Search And Rescue Teams in this country are not funded by local government and manned by volunteers so when it comes time to make your annual donations to your favorite charities, don't forget about those who will drop everything and bust a gut to save your butt. Send some money to NASAR and or the MRA.
Thanks.
Wade Nelson
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Posted by Wade Nelson at Wednesday, January 19. 2011 
Categories: Search And Rescue, Video-Pictures
Tags: sar search and rescue superstition mountains mountain rescue association nasar
Categories: Search And Rescue, Video-Pictures
Tags: sar search and rescue superstition mountains mountain rescue association nasar
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