Sometimes even the best planers can blow it. Last Friday night there was an initial fire dispatch for an injured mountain biker on one of the bike trails in the local state park. Exact location unknown, the injured biker had his cell phone and called 911, but was not sure of his exact location. The initial dispatch should have included the Advanced Technical Rescue (ATR) Team of which I am member, it did not. As a member of the fire company that was initially dispatched my page did activate, so I was able to listen to the call as it progressed. The Incident Command System (ICS) was instituted, with a senior fire office assuming command, based upon ongoing conversations with the patent via cell phone, several points of search was initiated. As I listened to the call, I had a gut feeling the team was about to be requested. Sure enough, the IC, noting the trail conditions and the approaching nighttime, requested the team as well as the Maryland State Police Helicopter (MSP) for a possible extraction. Our team is 1 of 4 in Maryland that is trained to perform helicopter insertions and extractions with MSP and the US Park Police. Unfortunately it took almost an additional 10 minutes from the time the IC requested the team for the Emergency Communications Center (ECC) to page the team for dispatch. We arrived at the staging area, based upon radio transmissions, we believed that we would be taking the patient out on foot, so first grabbed our fiberglass Stokes basket setup for just that function. We also took a backpack with rigging equipment. We were told the ambulance crew had BLS supplies with them and patient did not require any ALS intervention. As we moved the equipment to the brush truck that was going to transport us part way up the trail, we were informed that a helicopter evac was still being considered. We then needed to go back to our truck and retrieve a stainless steel Stokes, we use for all helicopter evacs and high angle evolutions. Attached to that basket were two bags we thought contained our patient packing materials (i.e. blankets, webbing, etc.). During our transport to the patient some of the fire and ambulance crew arrived at the patient, they decided since the patient was not severely injured (approx. 4-5” deep laceration behind the knee) and the approaching darkness, a helicopter evac was too dangerous. It took about 45 minutes +, between the brush truck transport and hiking on foot, to reach the patient. As we left the brush truck, it was decided to leave the backpack with the rigging gear, since we were going to carry the patient down the trail. We also figure we had the two bags with the gear to package the patient. When we got to the patient he was in reasonably good condition, he was getting cold, we did a quick trauma survey, confirmed the laceration was his only injury, transferred him into the Stokes basket and prepared to package him into the basket. Low and behold the one bag we thought had blankets, webbing, etc. actually had equipment for an attendant to attach to the basket for a high angle rescue, the other had cordage for assisting in carrying the basket down a trail, so we were okay with that bag. With no blankets or webbing we scoured what everyone was carrying and came up with two turnout coats to keep him warm and 3 pieces of short webbing. Most of our own personnel gear was left back at the staging area (dumb thing to do). We were able to effectively tie the patient into the Stokes and transport him down the trail to the awaiting brush truck, it took another 30 minutes + to transport him to the awaiting ambulance to take him to the hospital. Fortunately he was not in serious condition, although we have done this same type of rescue many times, sometimes things just do not go as expected, even by experienced crews. Many lessons learned on this one - Pete
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