Brain dead when having to call 911

I had a to call 911 today to report a motorcycle accident. A hexagenarian on a HD clipped a car and scattered himself and his bike across about 30-40 feet of pavement. It's not the first time I've had to call 911 (previous incident involved idiot neighbors and illegal fireworks), but I completely blanked on the street name when I was asked the location of the accident.

It is something that we should take into account when planning for emergencies. When the stress is on, you can expect to get dumb.

I bet it happens more often than you'd think.

Once upon a time, I used to be an Athletic Trainer, and was responsible for emergency care of a few travelling football and hockey teams. I used to have info cards for each location we played and stayed at, including address, major intersection, and a map of the location and building/field floor plan. It really helps to have the details written down, especially if you might have to ask someone else to call 911.

I guess with cell phones these days you could have all that info at your finger tips, but it takes time to find it. Of course, you're not going to walk around with hard copies of that info for every location you'll ever be in or pass through, but situation awareness would help. It's really easy to loose track of exactly where you are sometimes, and even if you don't, recalling that info in a crisis can be a challenge.

it helps to have a GPS to consult..

Good job.

I'm not too bad when driving. But I am at my worst when I am a passenger in a vehicle. Especially when someone capable is driving and they know the local terrain. I really, really have to focus on key routes and turns instead of scenery; and even then I don't know how effective my trail of mental breadcrumbs would be. It's actually kind of embarrassing.

Ive gotten really bad with street names.Started up here with Pine Ave,Pine road,Pine street,name your tree and add a suffix.

Got so I couldnt keep roads straight.

Turned into the turn left at gas station,right at park type of guy.

Called in a 911 and had no idea what street I was on.You Know....By the airport,south of the new bridge? Guess what,they didnt know,go figure.Almost like the call center was in India...This is 'Jose',how can I help you?

Awesome! Way to go, Izzy!

My Grandfather was a wanderer at the end and, living in a sleepy little town, always had someone looking out for him. (The guy that owned the donut store - Grandpa's favourite destination on his midnight rambles - was the best. Gave him his favourite donut whenever he'd wander in, listen to whatever story he wanted to tell, and then would convince him that he needed to go home "so Edith won't worry." Thankfully the house and store were in sight of each other.) Eventually, it got so that we put alarms in all the doors so that my Grandma would hear him when he'd try to leave.

Goes to show that there are good people, like Izzy, out there. It really pays to be part of the community. My grandparents lived in that small town for over 45 years, and as the Post Master and a high school teacher, and members of one of the local churches, most everyone knew my Grandfather. It definitely upped the safety and security factor.

I had to call 911 sometime ago..and took four tries to push 4 buttons on my phone "9-1-1" and send.

People panic, Teacher. It's our nature. Nothing to be ashamed of. When a bad situation happens, when those first feeling of panic start to sink in, just stop. Focus. Breathe deeply through the nose and force yourself to be calm. Practice this during non emergency times and it will become instinctive, like proper bone alignment when throwing a punch in martial arts. Then when the emergency do's happen you'll cool, calm and in control. If you can teach, you can do this. Hope this helps.

That's why "They" want us to recertify in FA and CPR so frequently, because when your adrenalin starts pumping things get cloudy.

exactly, Jac.

A few years back I was at a place I had bought in town to turn into a rental and was doing repairs/ My two brother, both SF vets who served in Viet Nam and other fun places had brought thier drinking buddies over. One had been Airborne and the other an ordinary grunt from the same "conflict". They helped by getting smashed and offering advice between war stories. They were shooting yet another movie here and that night we just happened to have three helicopter continually flying over ther house in a circular pattern for about an hour. Trying to calm down for vets having flashbacks wasn't exactly fun. The movie people obviously hadn't considered the disturbance they had made and the city simply doesn't care as long as they get paid to aalow the town to be taken over and the taxpayers to be disturbed and inconvienenced.

...Which is why we train & practice skills

The president of a gun club I belong to is a pilot for United. He is a big believer in procedures and check lists. The club has a lot of posted stuff including the address of the club in case you have to call 911.

In the Red Cross we open shelters in lots of random places around the county, unless you have a mind for remembering addresses your volunteers can't be expected to know exactly where they are. Which is why I insist on a publicly posted notice near the registration desk that reads "in case of emergency dial 911 and give this address: ." It tends to quicken the response among other things.

Same deal for me at work, we have a lot of remote or out of the way facilities that are sometimes occupied by contractors from out of the area. I usually hang a sign with address, cross streets, and emergency numbers near the door.

The checklist manifesto

Recent book arguing that checklists can save the world. Which they can: protocol-based medical practice began in the OR, spread to emergency rooms, then on to ems, then back to the er as folks discovered that checklists harness the best thinking of the brightest folks at their best moments and make it available to everyone. Some of the older practitioners resist, calling it cookbook medicine, arguing that medical practice is an art, and that no protocol can capture all the variables.

I am a big believer in checklists. For the past several weeks I have been creating checklists for a 4 hour presentation on Disaster Communications for the Individual. It is for a desert hamfest (Ham Radio Gathering) next winter in Arizona.

Everything discussed has an associated checklist. How to put up a field expedient tower, how to program various radios, what to do during various states of a disaster, the contents of equipment boxes and many more.

From experience I know that there is an extremely good feeling to have a checklist to work from when under stress. Not only does it refresh your memory, but you KNOW that the process has been carefully worked out in advance and that the result will be as desired.

This is especially true with todays complex, menu driven electronic gear. A checklist helps me be quicker, more accurate and much more confident in my actions.

It only takes one experience of being confused, looking at a piece of equipment you once knew how to operate and having that "brain dead" feeling to make you a believer in checklists.

If there is interest, I will post links to them and the PDF manual I will be providing with the seminar. The seminar is in January near Quartzsite AZ (google quartzfest for details) so they won't be done anytime soon.

Nomad

A checklist is a great thing to have when under stress. I've taken some wilderness first aid classes and have learned of the value of S.O.A.P. Notes. Basically a checklist of what to do & what to pay attention to when trying to keep Someone stable until help can arrive. It is also used when calling for help to say what you have found & what you are doing. You always keep two sets. One your using and you make a duplicate if you have to send someone to get help. I keep them in all my packs always.

I don't know if the information is copyrighted & I don't want to get this site in trouble so if anyone wants to see what I'm talking about type: wfa soap notes into Google.

The first link is a nols manual. The second link is for a good set of soap notes.

Perhaps some of our members who have done search & rescue can let us know what they have learned to do to record and communicate vital on scene info. That knowledge would be greatly appreciated.

Useful WAF Notes Wilderness first aid reference cards (printable)

NOLS printable SOAP note

Laurence Gonzales quoted his father, a WW2 pilot, in his book Deep Survival: “When you walk across the ramp to your airplane, you lose half your IQ."