I went to a race this weekend and one of my buddies had a bad crash. He stuck his front wheel in some mush and flipped over the front, smashed on the ground, his bike chased him down and body-slammed him into the dirt again, then he and the bike go flipping off into the wild blue.
As he is scratching around trying to get up - a competitor came by and smashed into his head, tearing off the face guard of his helmet, along with a good chunk of his lip and poked a hole in his scalp, cutting an artery (I really didn't know there were arteries in there) and now he has blood spurting all over. Grisly.
Another competitor comes by and runs over his leg, causing no apparent damage. End of crash.
I manage to get stopped, turn my bike sideways in the track and flag the rest of the field off.
At this time one of the spectator guys run up and strips off his (own) shirt to apply pressure to the cut and stop the bleeding.
Now here comes the EMTs shouting "Don't move him!! Don't move him!!"
We needed to flip him over so we could get the direct pressure on the bleeder. This was no little bleeder either.
No, I am not an EMT.
My question is this: After all of the crashing, cartwheels, body slams and getting running over that this guy went through, what are the chances that we are going to further his injury by rolling him over so we can get to the bleeder?
It took thirty minutes to get him strapped to a board to get him in the back of a truck to get him to the ambulance. C-collars, belts, the whole nine yards. And he was leaking badly the whole time.
So someone must have sudied this issue; how many injuries are aggravated by moving the injured person?
The good news is that my friend got stitched up later that evening and came home. No big deal.:)
As he is scratching around trying to get up - a competitor came by and smashed into his head, tearing off the face guard of his helmet, along with a good chunk of his lip and poked a hole in his scalp, cutting an artery (I really didn't know there were arteries in there) and now he has blood spurting all over. Grisly.
Another competitor comes by and runs over his leg, causing no apparent damage. End of crash.
I manage to get stopped, turn my bike sideways in the track and flag the rest of the field off.
At this time one of the spectator guys run up and strips off his (own) shirt to apply pressure to the cut and stop the bleeding.
Now here comes the EMTs shouting "Don't move him!! Don't move him!!"
We needed to flip him over so we could get the direct pressure on the bleeder. This was no little bleeder either.
No, I am not an EMT.
My question is this: After all of the crashing, cartwheels, body slams and getting running over that this guy went through, what are the chances that we are going to further his injury by rolling him over so we can get to the bleeder?
It took thirty minutes to get him strapped to a board to get him in the back of a truck to get him to the ambulance. C-collars, belts, the whole nine yards. And he was leaking badly the whole time.
So someone must have sudied this issue; how many injuries are aggravated by moving the injured person?
The good news is that my friend got stitched up later that evening and came home. No big deal.:)