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 The current victim had some, but was 4yrs out of date.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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
