EMERGENCY! Be Prepared!

[liltank]

Not sure where to share this, but this forum receives the most traffic. It was a fine day in the PA woods this weekend for a day at camp. All were working hard collecting and cutting firewood for the year. All of a sudden one of the senior members asks if anyone is attending to his younger brother (60yrs of age). We all stopped and looked at each other wondering what was going on. He said his brother was in bad shape.

Let's rewind 5yrs. to the week of the younger brothers retirement from the fish commission. In the first week of his retirement he suffered a heart attack. Fast forward to this past Saturday.

I walk in and see him lying on the couch in obvious pain. His pulse was very high for an at rest position and asking that we hurry the ambulance up. I just kept an eye on him and read to administer CPR if need be. I came to find out that I was the only with any kind of medical emergency training due to my current position of a residential counselor for mentally handicapped and mentally retarded adult of varying age. Cardiac arrest is a very real problem in the age group that I work with. I will also say that I was fortunate to be chosen when in the military to be a battlefield aid to the medic in case of mass casualty. I immediately took his pulse, and administered nitro another individual had on hand. We were able to transport him to the ambulance out of the woods and at the main road.

It's amazing how quickly that training comes back. But the real emphasis I want to convey is being prepared. Luckily another victim of a heart attack of 10yrs ago, had his nitro with him. The current victim had some, but was 4yrs out of date.

Men we need to be prepared for any casualty that we may encounter in the woods. It came to my attention that we need to do some of the following to maintain our preparedness:

1. Make sure you have a designated area to be able to use your cell phones in case of an emergency. It is merely a paper weight if you have no signal. Luckily they knew at the end of the lane they could get signal and call for an ambulance.
2. Get trained in basic first aid and CPR. This could save the life of a friend, or a relative in case of a bad accident such as broken limbs, head injuries, shock, heat related injury (heat exhaustion, heat stroke), cold related injury (frost bite, hypothermia) or heart related issues.
3. If at all possible, make sure you are hunting with other people that can administer aid, and or help you in case of an emergency.
4. Make sure that you keep track of everything that you do to aid the victim. Keep track of times that any meds were administered (insulin, nitro, aspirin, epy pens). It is important that you relay a time frame of initial injury, and all aid rendered to the paramedics so that they do not administer anything that may injure or kill the victim you are trying to save.

Following these steps will help to save your life, a life of a buddy, or like this weekend, a life long friend. Take care gentlemen and be careful. We are involved in a sport that the likely hood of being injured is very high.

If you could keep my friend in your prayers, he is going under the knife this afternoon at 2pm. He will be receiving a double or triple bypass heart surgery. They want to do a quadruple, but the doctors don't feel his body will be able to handle that much abuse under his current physical state.

Our actions, working together as a cohesive team saved my friends life. I am very proud of everyone of the men that acted accordingly to this stressful and very scary situation.

Thanks,
Tank

 

[Russ Hatch]

Tank, you could not be anymore right if you tried. The members of my camp are also getting up in age. Two of us have had heart attacks already. Because of this everybody is CPR trained and we keep CPR masks at camp. Everyone knows which pocket each of these individuals keep their Nitro in.

 

[sniperjwt]

Thas some scary stuff but so very true and might i add just because maybe your camp does not have any one getting up in age does not mean you dont need to be prepared. Anyone at any age can have a heart attack even if you are healthy. Im sure you all herd about that football player a couple weeks ago that died of a heart attack he was in good shape and only 26. Its way better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.

 

[bigbuck]

Not sure where to share this, but this forum receives the most traffic. It was a fine day in the PA woods this weekend for a day at camp. All were working hard collecting and cutting firewood for the year. All of a sudden one of the senior members asks if anyone is attending to his younger brother (60yrs of age). We all stopped and looked at each other wondering what was going on. He said his brother was in bad shape.

Let's rewind 5yrs. to the week of the younger brothers retirement from the fish commission. In the first week of his retirement he suffered a heart attack. Fast forward to this past Saturday.

I walk in and see him lying on the couch in obvious pain. His pulse was very high for an at rest position and asking that we hurry the ambulance up. I just kept an eye on him and read to administer CPR if need be. I came to find out that I was the only with any kind of medical emergency training due to my current position of a residential counselor for mentally handicapped and mentally retarded adult of varying age. Cardiac arrest is a very real problem in the age group that I work with. I will also say that I was fortunate to be chosen when in the military to be a battlefield aid to the medic in case of mass casualty. I immediately took his pulse, and administered nitro another individual had on hand. We were able to transport him to the ambulance out of the woods and at the main road.

It's amazing how quickly that training comes back. But the real emphasis I want to convey is being prepared. Luckily another victim of a heart attack of 10yrs ago, had his nitro with him. The current victim had some, but was 4yrs out of date.

Men we need to be prepared for any casualty that we may encounter in the woods. It came to my attention that we need to do some of the following to maintain our preparedness:

1. Make sure you have a designated area to be able to use your cell phones in case of an emergency. It is merely a paper weight if you have no signal. Luckily they knew at the end of the lane they could get signal and call for an ambulance.
2. Get trained in basic first aid and CPR. This could save the life of a friend, or a relative in case of a bad accident such as broken limbs, head injuries, shock, heat related injury (heat exhaustion, heat stroke), cold related injury (frost bite, hypothermia) or heart related issues.
3. If at all possible, make sure you are hunting with other people that can administer aid, and or help you in case of an emergency.
4. Make sure that you keep track of everything that you do to aid the victim. Keep track of times that any meds were administered (insulin, nitro, aspirin, epy pens). It is important that you relay a time frame of initial injury, and all aid rendered to the paramedics so that they do not administer anything that may injure or kill the victim you are trying to save.

Following these steps will help to save your life, a life of a buddy, or like this weekend, a life long friend. Take care gentlemen and be careful. We are involved in a sport that the likely hood of being injured is very high.

If you could keep my friend in your prayers, he is going under the knife this afternoon at 2pm. He will be receiving a double or triple bypass heart surgery. They want to do a quadruple, but the doctors don't feel his body will be able to handle that much abuse under his current physical state.

Our actions, working together as a cohesive team saved my friends life. I am very proud of everyone of the men that acted accordingly to this stressful and very scary situation.

Thanks,
Tank

Tank, Thanks for the read it was very sobering to me . I need to get some basic training I wander if the rescue squad offers this kind of training and what it costs? I will be praying for your friend keep us posted.

Bigbuck

 

[flyin lizard]

Bigbuck,, you can check with your local rescue sqad and also the red cross can tell you where any CPR courses are going to be held..

 

[liltank]

You could probably check with your local police department.

Tank

 

[3fingervic]

Great post. I work at a Youth Home (troubled and emotionally impaired kids). I am CPR and First Aid certified. So everyone could get some attention, except me. I may start to give some quick instructions when we get to that cottage.

 

[mike33]

Your local Red Cross offers these courses. I am a 22 year vol. ff. and our training is thru Univ. of Md. but for members only, however different states and locations could be different. I have a similar story of why training is so important for EVERYONE. About 15 years ago i had to go to red cross for a cpr class for national certification for a higher level of firefighter cataglory. My fire company has an ambulance service but i mainly stayed on the fire side. I received my cert and of course the manuever for someone choking. About 2 months past than i attended a wedding in Ohio, during the reception i stepped out side for a chew and no one was around. With in a couple a minutes a man crashed thru the door acting very in different , he started to throw him self against a car hood and it finaly sunk in, he was choking. I right of way grabbed him and started the hymlec ( how ever spelled ) the guy was real big and it took all i could do and after 4 cracks he finally spit out a chicken bone he was choking on. By now other people including his wife was out side and stated what happened. The guy right of way thank me for saving his life. It happened so quick and i thought later of what happened if it didnt work. Speaking to ems staff after i got home everyone said keep on doing it because the person will die otherwise. I actually thought after the 3rd lunge i might of broke a rib i was doing it so hard, but that is what it took. Later i had a man walk up and thank me for my action he was the county sherrif and the man i saved was one of his deputies. I later received a nice plack from the Portage County Sheriffs office for doing this. The plack was nice but seeing the man walk away breathing and a simple thank you was enough. Here is a case where this guy tried to get away from the crowd so he wouldnt feel embarrased and was the wrong thing to do. Inside the reception room just to my knowledge was my wife, sister in law, and mother in law of whom was all registered nurses. The guy actually ran away from help and if a redneck like me was not outside it could of been fatal. It is so important for everyone to have a little training in these fields you NEVER know when you might need it. I will say CPR does save lives but if you run in to this situation and apply it and it doesent work, do not beat yourself up and feel you done your best. I hate to say this but over the years just driving the ambulance i have seen it given around 15-20 times and it didn't save the person. That is mainly do that most of the time it was given to late. My story!
Mike

 

[liltank]

Great post. I work at a Youth Home (troubled and emotionally impaired kids). I am CPR and First Aid certified. So everyone could get some attention, except me. I may start to give some quick instructions when we get to that cottage.

That's cool. I worked in a teen's boys home. I had to quit my job there so that I could bring one of them home. I don't regret quitting my job because I now have a much better one. The boy I have can be a real pain, but it will be worth it in the end.

Tank

 

[liltank]

Your local Red Cross offers these courses. I am a 22 year vol. ff. and our training is thru Univ. of Md. but for members only, however different states and locations could be different. I have a similar story of why training is so important for EVERYONE. About 15 years ago i had to go to red cross for a cpr class for national certification for a higher level of firefighter cataglory. My fire company has an ambulance service but i mainly stayed on the fire side. I received my cert and of course the manuever for someone choking. About 2 months past than i attended a wedding in Ohio, during the reception i stepped out side for a chew and no one was around. With in a couple a minutes a man crashed thru the door acting very in different , he started to throw him self against a car hood and it finaly sunk in, he was choking. I right of way grabbed him and started the hymlec ( how ever spelled ) the guy was real big and it took all i could do and after 4 cracks he finally spit out a chicken bone he was choking on. By now other people including his wife was out side and stated what happened. The guy right of way thank me for saving his life. It happened so quick and i thought later of what happened if it didnt work. Speaking to ems staff after i got home everyone said keep on doing it because the person will die otherwise. I actually thought after the 3rd lunge i might of broke a rib i was doing it so hard, but that is what it took. Later i had a man walk up and thank me for my action he was the county sherrif and the man i saved was one of his deputies. I later received a nice plack from the Portage County Sheriffs office for doing this. The plack was nice but seeing the man walk away breathing and a simple thank you was enough. Here is a case where this guy tried to get away from the crowd so he wouldnt feel embarrased and was the wrong thing to do. Inside the reception room just to my knowledge was my wife, sister in law, and mother in law of whom was all registered nurses. The guy actually ran away from help and if a redneck like me was not outside it could of been fatal. It is so important for everyone to have a little training in these fields you NEVER know when you might need it. I will say CPR does save lives but if you run in to this situation and apply it and it doesent work, do not beat yourself up and feel you done your best. I hate to say this but over the years just driving the ambulance i have seen it given around 15-20 times and it didn't save the person. That is mainly do that most of the time it was given to late. My story!
Mike

Thanks for the support. Luckily we had the early warning signals and were ready for it if it came to that. It would have only been a quick second before it started. Considering all of his arteries were blocked to the heart, I don't know how effective it would have been if it came to that. Thank goodness we'll never know.

Tank

 

[3fingervic]

That's cool. I worked in a teen's boys home. I had to quit my job there so that I could bring one of them home. I don't regret quitting my job because I now have a much better one. The boy I have can be a real pain, but it will be worth it in the end.

Tank

Did you work at Glenn Mills? We send a lot of boys to that placement.

 

[liltank]

Did you work at Glenn Mills? We send a lot of boys to that placement.

No, I worked at Zerby Gap, in Spring Mills Pa.

Tank

 

[3fingervic]

That's cool. I worked in a teen's boys home. I had to quit my job there so that I could bring one of them home. I don't regret quitting my job because I now have a much better one. The boy I have can be a real pain, but it will be worth it in the end.

Tank

I've heard of Zerby's. You are a good man to take that boy home. I hope he knows how lucky he is.

 

[winmag]

My family and I will pray for your friend. And thanks for the reminder, too many times at work the guys just want thier dang card so they can get back to work. I get re-qualified every year or two on all counts being a comercial const. supt, but I may share this story with my guys, most of wich hunt, to help it hit home. I know those classes are boring and rediculously long, but what if it was you......
THANKS TANK