Medical Emergency Question

[Nutmeg Weatherman]

Just out of curiosity what happens in the event of a serious medical emergency up there....heart attack, broken bone, or something where you need to get someone to the hospital during one of the crazy weather events up there?

Is anyone trained for medical situations?? I am not talking about the blooding nose or cut finger......

[Knapper]

It all depends on how bad the weather event is and where the injury occured. If a rescue will put our lives in danger, it could be hours before anyone is able to go out and look for or rescue someone. Once we find the injured person, we then decide if it is easier/quicker to take the person up or down. If we have to take them up for a snowcat ride down, it takes an hour for the driver to get to the base, the fastest the cat can get up is one hour, and then one hour down then one hour to a hospital (4 hours in general). But that is in good weather in bad weather, the cat can take six hours or more round trip plus the hour wait for a driver and hour route to the hospital. Some of us are wilderness first aid trained and some of the state park employees that stay up here in the winter are EMT trained. So I guess the moral of the story is, if you have an injury where every minute counts, it may take hours to help you unfortunately even on the best of weather days.

[Bill O]

I got the impression he was asking about a medical emergency on the summit to one of the crew or visitors. The answer is still the same though.

I know some of the state park staff is well trained medically. They also have more than just your typical first aid kit. Most importantly, they have ready access to the rest of the world via telephone.

People have been rescued from the White Mountains via helicopter. In a true medical emergency that would be a viable option. More likely than not the weather is going to prevent that though.

Its all part of living in a remote location, and the risk that the summit crew takes while working for the Obs.