http://www.oucc.org.uk/procs/proc12/medic.htm - OUCC Expo First Aid short guide from Proc 12 ~1986
The main concept of our idea for caving First Aid for 2007 revolves around the idea of a two-tier deployment. The club will maintain 4 small first-aid kits for the leaders to carry in their SRT sacs, and a bright yellow Tacklesac (with two 6.4L Daren drums inside) will be kept in the minibus for use as 'second aid'.
Therefore: the leader kits are to:
- Treat minor incidences, and patch-up the casualty to enable a self-rescue
- Stabilise the casualty, most particularly from hypothermia, while awaiting a stronger rescue
The van-kit is to:
- Treat intermediate-level events fully, provide self-rescue capabilities for a sufficiently strong group
- Stabilise the casualty after a serious incidence, and prepare the way for Cave Rescue Organisations
Typical use envisaged is something like this:
- Minor self rescue: Caver Josephine abseils too fast, lands on forearm & displays an open wound and possible fracture. Fully conscious and capable.
- Treatment: Leader-kit provides zinc-oxide tape, triangular bandage, safety pins to secure and Ibuprofan as anti-inflammatory. Escorted out cave.
- Intermediate Self-Rescue: Caver Bruno slips and falls a short distance, landing awkwardly. Foot is extremely painful and will not take weight.
- Treatment: Bruno is assisted to somewhere nearby, safe from flooding + relatively warm. Foot is left in welly. Camp is made with candles / lighters, survival bags in helmets and space-blankets in rescue kits. Most experienced member of party exits cave and retrieves Rescue tackle sac, leaving note for other cavers in minibus. Leader / another leader returns to casualty and uses Sam-Splints to immobilize ankle. Bruno is assisted on SRT exit, such as by top-roping from pitch-hang bolt with spare rope + pulley-jammer.
- Major Incident: Caver Marjorie slips and falls a considerable distance. Presents an open fracture on leg and painful hip.
- Treatment: Casualty moved shortest distance to safe place and otherwise as above. Leader exits and calls Cave Rescue, allowing himself to be coordinated by the CRO leader, but most probably returning to the cave with the rescue kit. The Blizzard survival bag is used to make a more effective camp; ancillary issues are dealt with and preparations made for stretchering-out.
The leader-kits DO NOT contain: Food, backup lighting, clothing, knives or whistles. These should all be separately carried by cavers on trips.
Contents of the four Leader Packs (400ml beakers)
- Triangular Bandage
- Space Blanket
>50% of available space is taken up by above
- Zinc Oxide Tape
- Two Tea-lights
- Watch-Strap / Button Compass (Gelert)
- Waterproof paper
- Pencil Stub
- Piezo Lighter (clicky type, not flint roller)
- Safety pins
- Film Canister With:
- Wax-dipped strike-anywhere red-headed matches (loose)
- Folded strip of lighting paper for above
- Ibuprofan 400mg
- Paracetemol 500mg
- ??? More exciting drugs?
Suggestions (see Yahoogroups Jan 2005)
- Balaclava. A life saver.
- A Plastic bag & Bog paper
- Nylon pulley
- Safety Pins
- -A knife-.
- Spare Light
- A WATCH -- This is so basic, but the cause of so many callouts.
- *Emergency* Mars bar.
Rescue Tackle Sac
- First-Aid Daren Drum
- Based around mountain-leader / expo UG-camp first-aid kit
- + exciting drugs
- Rescue / Anti-hypothermia / Food / Sam Splint
- Blizzard three-layer survival bag (equiv. to a 2/3 season sleeping bag; people have slept in Daren in them)
- Jammer-pulleys on oval krabs
- Chocolate bars
- Sam Splints sufficient to immobilize a foot / arm
Fundamentally we can't put too much stuff in here: it needs to be light enough to be EASILY taken down to the casualty by a potentially TIRED leader.
Jarv, August 2007
