Emergency Training

How many people have taken Wilderness First Responder training? Rope rescue training?

CAn you do a proper head to toe assessment on the ground? In a tree?

How do you do proper triage [treeage ] ?

Learn on-ground rescue from authorities and trained personel first. Then apply those techinques to aerial work.

Practice rescuing logs or dummies.

How many people have a first aid kit with them in the tree when they climb in remote or even urban areas? Not just band aids and ace wrap FA kits. Proper kits.

Many times giving FA without moving the patient is the best plan. Once the patient is stabilized then they can be transported. Tree climbers flip-flop this and seem to be too focused on transport ie: get them to the ground first, instead of treating in situ.

Tom

Thanks, Tom.

Yes, I'm sure that it indeed is necessary to do a triage first, before jumping into action to get the injured climber to the ground. As an extreme example, if blood is spurting from an artery, it certainly makes sense to treat that first and then lower the person.

As for the first aid kit, I ashamedly admit that I still have not added one to my gear. I have virtually all I need (from when I used to be part of an emergency response team), I just have not packaged it yet. I virtually always climb with kernsloth, and he does carry a kit.

However, my concern still is the process of bringing an incapacitated (and stablized) victim to the ground. As I said before, I saw some pros have difficulty doing this, so wonder if there is much hope for me ever to do it well.

On the other hand, I couldn't just leave an unconscious climber hanging while I trekked for help, not to return for maybe a few hours.

My questions are:
(a) what do inexperienced (I guess "ignorant" is the proper word) rescuers naturally do during the retrieval process that we should be warned against, and
(b) what *should* we always do (e.g., protect the head) while rescuing?

Are there some written references available, or do I have to go to a well repected arborist firm and hire someone to spend some time with me?

Thanks again.

Ohmagracious!

Well, I asked for information and I sure got it! That's a lot to read and it's pretty late--I'll dig into it tomorrow.

Thanks, Jay.

Maybe you and I should do some practice rescue tasks as part of our climbing expeditions. And maybe some of the pros you deal with can tell you about some of their formal training . . . assuming they've had some.

Thanks again.

Jay--

I think this info is so important that I've copied it over to a permanent file on my computer. I hope every treeclimber takes the time to read this and to at least think seriously about how they would rescue themselves and how they would rescue another climber. I practice rescues several times a year in the trees at my farm.

--Wild Bill
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