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First Aid Survival In Mountains

We are going to limit the discussion here to dealing with life-threatening injuries, major bleeding, shock and broken bones. Most people can deal with minor scrapes, blisters and the like. The following discussion is no substitute for taking a proper first aid course and practising until your approach to a victim becomes instinctive. In short, your approach to a victim (or victims) should encompass:
1. Ensuring your own safety first - there is no point wading in to a situation only to become another victim yourself,
2. Being able to perform triage at the scene (see below), and
3. Being able to asses the victim for ABCDE (airway, breathing, circulation, disability, expose and search for minor injuries).
The concept of triage is very useful. Triage is about categorizing multiple casualties (like you might get in a major avalanche) into three groups:
1. The obviously dead or those who are beyond help because of their condition,
2. Those who will die unless you act quickly, and
3. The walking wounded.
What constitutes “obviously dead” Some injuries are obviously incompatible with life, such as a decapitation. It’s a bit trickier to ascertain if someone is dead who is very battered and bloody and not responsive (i.e. unconscious). In some situations the mechanism of injury (how they got injured) can be suggestive of underlying injuries incompatible with life, such as a major fall onto rocks. Even if this person is not already dead, chances are they will be shortly from shock (blood loss), a head injury or a chest injury so there’s little point in expending resources treating Group 1 victims, at the expense of those who might survive with prompt attention. Therefore, in cases of multiple victims, once we’ve quickly sorted who’s in Group 1 our attention should readily turn to identifying the Group 2 victims. This is easy – they’re the victims NOT running around moaning and screaming about their broken arm, cut head etc. These are Group 3 victims, the walking wounded who have non-life threatening (even if they are painful) injuries. Nobody died of a broken arm. Don’t be distracted by the loudest voice crying for attention. It’s the quiet victims who need your attention first (unless they’re obviously dead!).
The Group 2 victim faces imminent death possibly from a combination of causes (usually from low blood oxygen or shock), some of which we can do nothing about. Where we can possibly avert death is in rapid action to manage the victim’s ABC’s – Airway, Breathing and Circulation. Once ABC is under control we can assess D-Disability and then comes E, which is the Cold injury of the patient and search for other injuries whilst maintaining Environmental control (so the patient doesn’t get hypothermic).