Mounted search and rescue

["Jorene Downs" <Jorene@CEOates.com>]

Irv, if you ever have this training and disagree with it, you’re welcome to take on both the National Park Service (Mounted Officers and volunteer Mounted SAR) and US Marine Corps who teach and use this training.   No, you don’t put someone with possible spinal injury on a horse’s saddle to transport. It’s all part of the training, and also why nobody should be performing this kind of process without having that training. ;-)

 

You should also keep in perspective that many  SAR teams have First Aid as highest level of medical training. Some areas don’t even teach or require litter carry training, much less require that every team carry a litter into the field. Also recall that many “found” people don’t need much more than some food and water and being assisted back to civilization.  Higher medical training and related equipment is more commonly found in the technical teams, where the potential for a rescue with injury is higher.

 

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Jorene Downs

SAR & CERT

Mounted SAR

www.ceoates.com/msar

 

 

From: IRVIN LICHTENSTEIN

The first rule is do no harm.  Almost all first aid training and higher levels of skill preach no to move a injured person if there is an alternative and not to lift or carry without a stretcher.  While we could drag a person on a tarp or in a coat across a floor or a paved highway to remove them from immediate danger you would not want to do so for miles of unimproved horse trail. Putting a person erect in the saddle without being able to definitively clear the entire spine is asking for trouble.  You can improvise a litter from branches and cloth or rope if necessary but the extrication team should have the proper equipment to move the patient.  This may be a back packable  Stokes, a long or short backboard, CID, and splints.  We must distinguish here between a professional search operation extricating a subject or searcher and a group of riders self helping or self rescuing themselves.  In the first case the proper skills, certifications, and equipment should be available promptly.  In the second case there are no skills, no equipment, and the closest response may be hours or days away, thus you are allowed to be ignorant. 

 

The liability issue is moot in either case.  If you do what you were trained to do in the manner you were trained to do it and did not exceed your scope of practice you are generally immune from damages. You are not immune from being served.  If you attempted an extrication where the urgency you perceived required you to move the patient before proper equipment arrived or where proper equipment was not available when it is foreseen to be needed then you are in big trouble.  The reason many doctors don’t go into the field is that they are held to a higher performance level, and are expected to operate in the field like they had a full hospital with them.  Many states now prohibit doctors or nurses from organized emergency response unless they have had some training in field operations.

 

The real liability issue arises during training or evaluation activities.  Since these activities are planned the possibility of injury should be foreseen and provided for.

Just having first aid kits is not enough.  There should be a plan beyond calling 9-1-1.  The plan may include calling 9-1-1 but it should also include at least basic life support.  If the event is off the road but accessible by ambulance the local dispatch center should be notified in writing before hand with a map and access directions. If not accessible by wheeled vehicle a carry out point or a helispot should be determined and proper equipment deployed, and again a map prepared. 

 

Irv Lichtenstein   

 

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From: msar-riders-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:msar-riders-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Jorene Downs
Sent: Friday, July 03, 2009 7:46 PM
To: 'Mounted search and rescue'
Subject: Re: [MSAR] MSAR-Riders Digest, Vol 77, Issue 3

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