Dan the air man, my son took a pretty good tumble on his ATV yesterday. He is a pretty new rider and dad (me) told him to keep it cool and remember these things can hurt you. Well he and his buddy went out for a little desert ride yesterday and about 4 o'clock we get a cell call that he crashed and was hurt. The cell reception was really bad and it was hard to understand his injuries on the phone.

Basically we got, "he is on the ground and he won't move." I knew the area he was supposed to be riding in, so I called a retired fireman where I live and told him the situation, asked him to call the FD, (Small Town life is great) Put flight for life on standby and send a rescue down toward the sewer pond area, when I find him I'll give a better location.

I found him after about 15 min. His buddy came to meet me; I left my wife to direct in the rescue. When I got to him I was happy to see everything hurt! Being on the FD for more than 18 years, believe me this is a good sign! He was complaining of his collarbone and his right leg near the thigh. I did the touchy feely thing and everything looked good there ~whew~! I took off his right boot and sock and went looking for a petal pulse in his foot and found it, another good sign.

I grabbed his leg at the ankle and told him I was going to pull on it. I slowly applied traction and he said that it felt better, and would I pull on it some more. Uh oh. Classic signs of a femur fracture. By this time the rescue arrived and 3 friends in 4X4's (Rick the FD guy) called out the troops and they went to work. C-collar, back board and checking for everything else. 2 large bore IV's were started en-route to the airport where Flight for life was waiting for us.

By the time we got to the trauma center, (We had to drive) Dan was pretty much done with all the hospital scans and checks. He did not have a broken femur but a fractured pelvis. He has a broken collar bone and a punctured lung, but this was minor and they were not going to do anything about the lung unless it got worse. He had a chest protector on and I was surprised to hear of the punctured lung and no broken ribs. We are still not sure how that happened.

The pelvis being fractured according to the doc was actually good news, in comparison to the femur. When I told him about Daniel having relief when his leg was placed under traction, he went and looked again at the x-rays but could find no fracture.

Several times, he and his buddy have asked us the parents if they could go out riding alone. We have always said no. Never ever ride alone!

Hopefully a few lessons will be learned here and old ones will be driven home as to why. I hope the big one is, mom and dad really don't nag just to hear ourselves nag! *L* Stay in the area where you say your going to, be home before dark, never ride alone, and always wear your safety gear.

Daniel will fly again!

 

Hey, Im glad he will be OK.

He is lucky to have a level headed, get it done type dad.

I will have to get your cell phone # next time I am in Vegas,,,in case I have a need for a rescue!!!


Never ride alone!!!!!!! The risks are way too great.

 

good reading

 

I'm glad Dan will survive to ride another day.

The ablitity to communicate is great, - even when we are just riding here on the farm, we all carry GMRS radios - several of us "neighbors" (1-3 miles apart) have base stations at the house, so we know that someone could be reached at almost all times.

 

Thank you! Anytime buddy! Just let us know when your coming to town. We will light up the strip for ya! [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

Sorry to hear about ncscrambler. I have read many of his posts. I hope he has a speedy recovery.

Craig

 

Thank you!

We have those too, they are great. Won't work in our situation as we are too far from the riding area. Usually we have good cell phone reception here in the area. Not sure what was up yesterday with that.

Craig

 

Having spent 3 years on a Level I Trauma Center, I can explain this. (I also was the resident expert on mechanism of injury).

Punctured lungs don't always happen from broken ribs, the commonly thought mechanism for this injury. It is often caused by barotrauma, meaning trauma by air pressure. The way this happens is one of two ways (or maybe even both). As a person tenses up during or just before a crash, there is air in the lungs, with the epiglottis closed when a person holds his breath for the crash. Then, there is something where the chest cavity is compressed (rollover, dash crunch, airbag, etc.). Fixed amount of air, decreased volume of chest cavity (lungs), leads to higher pressures, and something's gotta give! That something is sometimes an air sac, or maybe even a weak area called a bleb. The weak area "blows," and there you have it: a punctured lung.

The second way is very similar. The trauma of compressing the chest cavity is so sudden and fast that the air can't escape an open epiglottis fast enough, and an air sac/bleb blows.

Make sense? Trauma mechanism of injury intrigues me.

Larry

 

Glad to hear he is going to be okay VegasFireman. I too have a 15 year old that rides a yz125. He knows the rules and understands them after a few close calls with wrecks.

 

Oh yea I understand well. Thanks for the info. Doc's are so busy at the trauma center, it's hard to find time do discuss the why's of something.

Craig

 

Hopefully he will have learned something to by all this! Just as soon as he get's all healed up, I'ma gonna kill'm! *L*

Craig