This story is wonderful - almost hard to believe.

Volunteers on the spot, and then S&R crews, performed CPR on a (presumably) hypothermic woman for hours. And she survived!

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-co...death-1.2591379

Wow. Just wow. Nicely done, people.

Wow! That's really amazing. We toss the word "hero" around a lot but it really applies here- all involved in saving her are heroes.

Great,inspiring story to start the week! You are not dead until you are warm and dead....

Wow!

Amazing story, thank you very much for posting it.



This looks like further support for the concept of keeping critical gear on your person in case you lose your pack.

The link in the article takes you to another article on Tree Wells . That article is a good read.

This story is receiving a lot of media coverage here and rightfully so. This young woman is very fortunate that her rescuers never gave up even after hours of CPR and really impresses upon the fact that sometimes, it is never too late to try and save a life...no matter how far away proper medical help and resources are.

The use of the Camelbak tube as a suction device is nothing short of brilliant.

I am sure that a lot of good will come out of this and possibly rewrite or enhance SOP's for not only SAR teams but also for hospital ER rooms.

All the rescuers; from the people immediately on the ground to the chopper crew to the hospital doctors and nurses are to be commended for pulling off the impossible that ultimately saved this young woman's life.

They're not dead 'til they're warm and dead.

Amazing that it happened to an adult. Usually it's kids.

I read that and took note, but what I want to know is how they applied suction to the tube, without risking personal contamination. The Camelbak bladder would be no use in applying suction.

Amazing save! The stars really aligned for this one.

Regarding the suction question, I would assume that that they would only suction fluid partway into the tube from down in the airway and then remove the tube to blow out the fluid. I didn't see any mention of a CPR shield, so the rescuers were already exposing themselves. I'm curious if the retired paramedic made any mention of that risk.

Amazing. I'm still trying to understand it though.

lesson learned for me. I probably would have walked away at some point. my rule of thumb was that serious CPR is only worthwhile for drownings and electrocutions. I guess i'll add hypothermia to the list :-)

Pete

What a save.

Since nobody mentioned the obvious yet, I will. Her being gorgeous and alone had something to do with their continued efforts. She was like the dazzling damsel in distress. I guarantee at least one of the guys (or girls) had previously fantasized about her being his (or her) future wife.

I dunno. I've performed CPR and I've had sex, fortunately rather more of the latter. CPR and sex are not at all similar.

While unconscious biases sometimes influence people's actions, I think sucking out the "pink froth of death" through a tube is about as unsexy as it gets (ooh, baby!). The situation would have been cold, wet, exhausting, and bleak all around. The real story is how an ad-hoc team formed, under experienced leadership, and kept going against all odds.

That right there is the funniest thing I've ever read on ETS.

I'll present this concept another way. Would your motivation to save your daughter or mother be greater than your motivation to save a complete stranger? For me, the answer is absolutely yes. (I am sorry if that makes anybody feel uncomfortable, but honesty is important for useful dialogue.)

Accordingly, it's possible to be more motivated to save some people and less motivated to save others. I believe that concept came into play here. After all, we are talking about an unprecedented CPR effort that is likely to cause instruction manuals to be rewritten. Note that the rescuers spent some time with the girl before the rescue. They weren't strangers.

Interesting and significant question. To me, the answer is no; this is based on actual experiences in responding to serious situations involving complete strangers, friends and acquaintances, and family members, especially my oldest daughter. The immediate, visceral response to the immediate situation is identical, and one's training kicks in to render immediate care.

There is a significant difference in the extent and duration of one's involvement to those three categories. With strangers, you involve other components of EMS,and hand off fairly quickly once you have performed your function, which may be quite strenuous and even potentially hazardous. Your emotional involvement is fairly minimal and you resume normality soon.

An example of a close friend situation. We were attending a meeting out of town and he suffered a grand mal seizure, no previous history and quite unexpected. I was there to ride to the ER, provide info,call his wife, but I was back essentially to normal very late that evening about seven hours after the event.

My daughter sustained a depressed skull fracture while we were doing field work at Canyon de Chelly. I was immediately off the project, participated heavily in emergency care, and spent the next week at her bedside in the ICU, alternating with my wife. We got back to normal, kind of, in about three weeks. I remember attending my SAR group's monthly meeting the first evening we returned home. The presentation that night was "Cranial injuries and their care."

... about 30 years back while on active duty we were participating in a Naval exercise in one of the Norwegian Fjords'. The staff doctor was a Naval flight surgeon and he was the first person who made the comment to me that "you aren't dead until you're warm and dead", while discussing cold water survival and hypothermia.

30 years later... My thinking is that the responders in the case at hand knew that if they gave up before she warmed up they would have failed; once you start you don't stop. This woman is fortunate she had a team of responders to keep her alive from the snow to the hospital and that the team in the hospital was ready. I don't think it was because she's a looker; I think there was a group dynamic at work and this effort will rewrite the book.

My second case of CPR was a witnessed arrest in a male subject about four miles in on a popular trail in Sabino Canyon near Tucson, AZ. CPR began immediately and was continued once our group arrived on scene. We sustained the effort for about forty-five minutes until the chopper arrived and took the victim to the ER. While we were giving CPR, trading off at about 5-10 minute intervals, pupils were equal and reactive, and we had good nail bed filling.

The ER physician concluded that the subject was dead the minute he hit the ground. Unfortunate, but it was excellent training for all who participated. Once CPR is started, basically you continue until death is pronounced or, I believe,death is patently obvious, like rigor mortis.

I really liked this story ... strangers coming to the rescue ...or rather newest aquaintences stepping up aid someone they just met ... and sticking with it too. two and half hours of CPR is exhausting ....even for 4 or more people ....and the EMT folks kept it up for another two! The pros don't always hang in there that long ....though people that really hypothermic have a perceived better chance of survival than others not chilled so much.
Still ....it is inspiring to read these stories ...

Without a shred of doubt.

I suspect that the four Navy rescue specialists who parachuted into the water to save that one year old on the sailboat were probably not her relatives. That would qualify as a fairly extreme act in my book....

We don't know for sure but they probably would have done the same for family.

Fair enough.

It could be argued, in a broader sense, that wilderness travellers in (especially winter travellers) form a loose community or fraternity by their very nature. When you are far from official help and cell phone service, there is (I think) an unwritten rule that you help out as best you can -- because someday the dice may fall, and you may very well need help yourself. That's a set of shared values you won't necessarily find at a city bus stop.

Another consideration that may be of interest to you south-of-the-49th-ers is that British Columbia has Good Samaritan laws, which protect private citizens who try to render aid from lawsuits. http://www.bclaws.ca/EPLibraries/bclaws_new/document/ID/freeside/00_96172_01

Doug, very well said. Yes there are unwritten rules for wilderness adventures. In my decades of experience, I have never seen anyone shirk from offering help to those who needed it. History is replete of many stories, large and small of these examples.

Many jurisdictions south of the border have GS laws of roughly the same nature. Arizona's has been on the books for about fifty years, thankfully.

Living rural rather than urban may tend to foster providing aid. I have received significant help from Arizona ranchers and from Navajo folks (that's right, both cowboys and Indians). Luckily, I have also had the opportunity to return the favor....

Glad to hear it. My understanding was that it was a patchwork quilt down there, so you really had to CYA.

We have quite a strong Good Samaritan Law in Alaska. Besides lay people it also covers volunteer members of organized rescue teams and volunteer ski patrolers. See Alaska Good Samaritan Law

Ah yes the pink froth, talk about lowered expectations...!