Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Self-rescue Training

Some posters might like to know how to carry an injured buddy out of the backcountry, if they have no means of calling for help from a SAR team. The following links describe two ways of constructing primitive litters. The first rope-only litter is one I used in the Swiss Alps, but requires caution and practice, especially if the person has a back or neck injury. The second link describes a much more complicated litter using backpacks and pads - more practice required. Bear in mind (no pun intended) that the physical effort involved in carrying someone in the mountains is HUGE! At least four to six people are needed to carry one of these self-constructed litters, with backup folks to allow the others rest time.

http://www.wilderness-survival.net/mountain-rescue-evacuation/rescue-litters/

http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/559088333aNwonm

Would any of you current SAR folks have any info or techniques you'd like to share? How about hands on training conducted by your SAR teams?

I strongly encourage anyone who spends a lot of time in the back country take a Wilderness First Responders (WFR) (pronounced woofer) course. A lot of techniques are taught with limited gear and the class is usually only 12-24 hours long (most of it hands on)!

WFR is a great wilderness first aid course but it's much longer than 12-24 hours. A WFR is usually more like 90 hours of instruction over about 9-10 days.

Hi The Whitney trail and area has the resource of several hundred people at any time during the main season, of this group we have doctors, nurses ,firefighters , the list is long on people that can and will offer aid when someone is in trouble, even if it just a strong back and the willingness to put some time into helping.


That said I went up one day to help a lady down , I did a test to see if maybe I could get a little help if we had to carry her down , I reached the lady and could see she had rested and drank some water , looked fine, she had not fallen so no injury and thought she could walk , We walked down. I had ask 33 people on the way up if they had any information about the lady and would they help me carry her down if needed all said they had talked with her and no they had to get down.

We have used hiking poles placed in jackets, two poles on each side and have used only a single on each side to carry people down . This system works very well on the narrow parts of the trail , turns can be made by the front carry folks going to the high side of the trail and making a sharp turn as the rear carry follows the chord path.

Clyde was laying in the North fork creek about 2AM the people helping him down ran out of power and got me out of bed I found two guys driving into the parking lot and ask if they could help. We found Clyde in very bad shape, he had flushed his system, shaking and not making much sense , His voice was a strange sound , we knew we needed to get him down and to the hospital very fast , we used the fireman carry and when we could we would carry him with his arms over our shoulders and one person carring the legs, we put Clyde into the back of the truck and had him in the hospital very fast.

Now leaving part of the group on the mountain and finding you do not have the keys when you return to the Portal may not need a rescue ,or if you pass someone on the trail and see them struggling maybe offer a little help , but the worst case is passing and telling about 10 other people how bad the person is doing and one or more of those contacted will start a rescue when they get down to the Portal, not knowing the name of the person , location of the person or the injury if any.

Some thoughts Thanks Doug