Blacksmith
07-21-2009, 10:42 PM
The folowing is an e-mail I received from my brother about what happened to my nephew Kevin and his wife while on a hog hunt. I have their permission to post this because they want it shared so other people can learn. I am sure you can all see some lessons learned. This happened last Friday night July 17, 2009.
Last Friday night my son Kevin and his wife Susan were hunting wild hogs in the East Texas Piney Woods north of Houston near Porter, TX. They had parked their pickup truck off the paved road and unloaded their 4 wheel drive “Rhino” off road vehicle and driven approximately 4 miles deep into the woods where they had previously erected a platform stand about 8 feet above the ground. They had set a digital camera up several weeks ago at the hunting site and had lots of video of wild hogs in the area. They were very hopeful of a good night of hunting.
After sitting up in the platform blind and waiting for several hours they had not seen any hogs. About 1:30 AM Susan slid her chair back and slipped between the safety railings around the platform and fell off the platform. She landed on her back and was impaled on a piece of rebar that had been driven in the ground at the base of the platform stand to stabilize it. The rebar penetrated her right shoulder slightly below the collar bone and came out of her right breast. She was also bleeding from her mouth.
Kevin began immediately to provide what care and comfort to Susan as he could and to try to get help. His cell phone would not reach anyone because of the remote area. When he climbed up on the platform he was able to get a very weak signal, enough to send Text messages. He sent a text message to his 12 year old son Tommy who was still up and awake playing video games to call 911. Tommy told his older brother Sean who immediately called 911. However, all Sean could tell the 911 operator was that they had received an emergency text message that their stepmother was badly injured somewhere on the hunting lease, they did not know either the exact location of the accident nor exactly where the hunting lease was located. They called Susan’s daughter Amy who thought she knew how to drive to the lease, but not well enough to tell the 911 operator the location. Tommy, Sean, and Amy started immediately to drive to the lease.
Kevin had continued to send emergency text messages to everyone he could think of until his battery ran down. He also shot off a gun three times every minute, a universal SOS signal in the wild. He fired off all the emergency flares he had with him and set his “Q” beam search light straight up onto the air in hopes of attracting attention.
During his frantic attempts to use the cell phone, he had unknowingly gotten a brief call off to James, a coworker who lived a few miles away and knew the geography of the hunting lease. James had still been awake and answered the phone. He could hear Kevin’s call for help but Kevin could not receive on his phone so he did not know the call had gone through.
About this time 911 began receiving multiple calls from people Kevin had been able to Text and from James. James and his wife immediately left for the hunting lease and met EMS at Kevin’s truck. The problem was that no one knew where they were on the vast hunting lease. James made a calculated guess based on discussions he had previously had with Kevin about various hunting locations. He led the EMS responders toward where he thought they were. Two ambulances and two county sheriff’s cars became stuck in the deep mud shortly after leaving the paved road.
The hunting lease manager had himself been out that night running his dogs on a hunt and heard the sirens and showed up with his 4 wheel drive pickup at the location of the stuck rescue vehicles. The EMT’s loaded their equipment into the back of the pickup and they continued on the search.
Finally, an hour and a half after the accident, rescue personnel arrived at the accident scene. During all this time Susan, in a great deal of pain and having trouble breathing because the rebar was pressing against her right lung, kept her composure and Kevin in addition to trying desperately to summon help had helped Susan as best he could by slightly lifting Susan to relieve some of the pressure so she could breath easier. Thankfully, they both knew better than to try to pull her off the rebar.
Rescue personnel immediately recognized the serious nature of the trauma injury and according to protocol launched a Life-Flight helicopter from Herman Hospital in Houston. EMT’s had to carefully lift Susan up high enough to cut the rebar under her with bolt cutters, a very painful experience for Susan. They carefully strapped her to a backboard and about the time they had her medically stable for transport, the helicopter arrived. Thankfully, they had been hunting very near the cleared area of an underground pipeline and the helicopter could land in the cleared pipeline right of way. They quickly loaded Susan onboard and began the flight back to Herman Hospital. Onboard the helicopter Susan finally received some drugs for the pain.
The lease manager drove Kevin out to the road in the 4 wheel drive pickup where he met Tommy, Sean, and Amy. They began the long drive to Herman Hospital. At this point it was about 3:15 AM. Kevin used Amy’s cell phone to call me. I immediately set out to drive to Herman Hospital in Houston, some 4 hours away.
James took over control of the accident scene and collected all of the property, guns, lights, backpacks, ammunition, hunting bows, arrows, and the 4 wheel “Rhino” and later Kevin’s pickup out at the road. He worked through the night to get all the equipment safely secured at his home.
I arrived at the hospital about 7:30 AM and met Kevin and the kids in the surgery waiting room. Susan was still in surgery and that was all they knew. Shortly thereafter they brought Susan out of surgery and put her in a hospital room. Susan was awake and very coherent. Doctors told us that they had removed the rebar without difficulty. They said that the rebar had barely missed her lung, blood vessels and nerve bundles that fed the right arm. The bleeding from her mouth was because she had severely bit her lip during the fall, not from internal injuries. She had been very lucky. Unfortunately, it was not all good news; she had broken her back in the fall. Fortunately, although one vertebra was fractured, it had not shifted and done any damage to her spinal cord, she was not paralyzed.
Susan was very stoic about the whole affair and had to lie flat on her back, unmoving and in a good deal of pain in her shoulder and back Saturday, Sunday, and most of today waiting for surgery to stabilize the fracture with stainless steel pins.
As I write this she has just returned from six hours of surgery and is resting as comfortable as she can, given the situation.
She is expected to eventually make a full recovery, but she has a long uphill climb ahead of her.
Some added thoughts from Blacksmith.
It sure would have been nice to have a device to recharge a cell phone from the Rhino battery.
It would help to post the GPS coordinates, Latitude and Longetude at every remote hunting site.
I am sure the next time they go to the wilderness they will leave a detailed map or directions in case of emergency.
Update: She is in some pain but doing better as of this evening.
Last Friday night my son Kevin and his wife Susan were hunting wild hogs in the East Texas Piney Woods north of Houston near Porter, TX. They had parked their pickup truck off the paved road and unloaded their 4 wheel drive “Rhino” off road vehicle and driven approximately 4 miles deep into the woods where they had previously erected a platform stand about 8 feet above the ground. They had set a digital camera up several weeks ago at the hunting site and had lots of video of wild hogs in the area. They were very hopeful of a good night of hunting.
After sitting up in the platform blind and waiting for several hours they had not seen any hogs. About 1:30 AM Susan slid her chair back and slipped between the safety railings around the platform and fell off the platform. She landed on her back and was impaled on a piece of rebar that had been driven in the ground at the base of the platform stand to stabilize it. The rebar penetrated her right shoulder slightly below the collar bone and came out of her right breast. She was also bleeding from her mouth.
Kevin began immediately to provide what care and comfort to Susan as he could and to try to get help. His cell phone would not reach anyone because of the remote area. When he climbed up on the platform he was able to get a very weak signal, enough to send Text messages. He sent a text message to his 12 year old son Tommy who was still up and awake playing video games to call 911. Tommy told his older brother Sean who immediately called 911. However, all Sean could tell the 911 operator was that they had received an emergency text message that their stepmother was badly injured somewhere on the hunting lease, they did not know either the exact location of the accident nor exactly where the hunting lease was located. They called Susan’s daughter Amy who thought she knew how to drive to the lease, but not well enough to tell the 911 operator the location. Tommy, Sean, and Amy started immediately to drive to the lease.
Kevin had continued to send emergency text messages to everyone he could think of until his battery ran down. He also shot off a gun three times every minute, a universal SOS signal in the wild. He fired off all the emergency flares he had with him and set his “Q” beam search light straight up onto the air in hopes of attracting attention.
During his frantic attempts to use the cell phone, he had unknowingly gotten a brief call off to James, a coworker who lived a few miles away and knew the geography of the hunting lease. James had still been awake and answered the phone. He could hear Kevin’s call for help but Kevin could not receive on his phone so he did not know the call had gone through.
About this time 911 began receiving multiple calls from people Kevin had been able to Text and from James. James and his wife immediately left for the hunting lease and met EMS at Kevin’s truck. The problem was that no one knew where they were on the vast hunting lease. James made a calculated guess based on discussions he had previously had with Kevin about various hunting locations. He led the EMS responders toward where he thought they were. Two ambulances and two county sheriff’s cars became stuck in the deep mud shortly after leaving the paved road.
The hunting lease manager had himself been out that night running his dogs on a hunt and heard the sirens and showed up with his 4 wheel drive pickup at the location of the stuck rescue vehicles. The EMT’s loaded their equipment into the back of the pickup and they continued on the search.
Finally, an hour and a half after the accident, rescue personnel arrived at the accident scene. During all this time Susan, in a great deal of pain and having trouble breathing because the rebar was pressing against her right lung, kept her composure and Kevin in addition to trying desperately to summon help had helped Susan as best he could by slightly lifting Susan to relieve some of the pressure so she could breath easier. Thankfully, they both knew better than to try to pull her off the rebar.
Rescue personnel immediately recognized the serious nature of the trauma injury and according to protocol launched a Life-Flight helicopter from Herman Hospital in Houston. EMT’s had to carefully lift Susan up high enough to cut the rebar under her with bolt cutters, a very painful experience for Susan. They carefully strapped her to a backboard and about the time they had her medically stable for transport, the helicopter arrived. Thankfully, they had been hunting very near the cleared area of an underground pipeline and the helicopter could land in the cleared pipeline right of way. They quickly loaded Susan onboard and began the flight back to Herman Hospital. Onboard the helicopter Susan finally received some drugs for the pain.
The lease manager drove Kevin out to the road in the 4 wheel drive pickup where he met Tommy, Sean, and Amy. They began the long drive to Herman Hospital. At this point it was about 3:15 AM. Kevin used Amy’s cell phone to call me. I immediately set out to drive to Herman Hospital in Houston, some 4 hours away.
James took over control of the accident scene and collected all of the property, guns, lights, backpacks, ammunition, hunting bows, arrows, and the 4 wheel “Rhino” and later Kevin’s pickup out at the road. He worked through the night to get all the equipment safely secured at his home.
I arrived at the hospital about 7:30 AM and met Kevin and the kids in the surgery waiting room. Susan was still in surgery and that was all they knew. Shortly thereafter they brought Susan out of surgery and put her in a hospital room. Susan was awake and very coherent. Doctors told us that they had removed the rebar without difficulty. They said that the rebar had barely missed her lung, blood vessels and nerve bundles that fed the right arm. The bleeding from her mouth was because she had severely bit her lip during the fall, not from internal injuries. She had been very lucky. Unfortunately, it was not all good news; she had broken her back in the fall. Fortunately, although one vertebra was fractured, it had not shifted and done any damage to her spinal cord, she was not paralyzed.
Susan was very stoic about the whole affair and had to lie flat on her back, unmoving and in a good deal of pain in her shoulder and back Saturday, Sunday, and most of today waiting for surgery to stabilize the fracture with stainless steel pins.
As I write this she has just returned from six hours of surgery and is resting as comfortable as she can, given the situation.
She is expected to eventually make a full recovery, but she has a long uphill climb ahead of her.
Some added thoughts from Blacksmith.
It sure would have been nice to have a device to recharge a cell phone from the Rhino battery.
It would help to post the GPS coordinates, Latitude and Longetude at every remote hunting site.
I am sure the next time they go to the wilderness they will leave a detailed map or directions in case of emergency.
Update: She is in some pain but doing better as of this evening.