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Injured Climber on Mt. Baker's Coleman GlacierWhatcom, WA Mission Report by Tyler Severy TMRU was called at 0230 for a injured climber on Mount Bakers, Heliotrope Ridge. Seven members responded to include Chris Berryman, Tod Lokey, Greg Lang, Christine Davies, Dan Deprez, Duane Perham and myself. We arrived at the Glacier Creek Trailhead around 7am. Added to our team were three trainee members from BMRU and three members from EMRU. Our assignment was to get additional rescue gear to the team up with the patient who had slid and fallen approximately fifty feet into a crevasse. At the time we did not know that the team was only two people. We were informed that Navy Whidbey would provide a Helo for the extraction of the patient and were all under the impression that we would probably get turned around. As medical information started to flow from above we found the patient had a fractured pelvis, broken hip or femur, broken tib/fib as well as neck, back and head injuries. Our team split on the way up as further consideration was given to medical issues, more gear was needed so a team of four went back to the truck. We arrived at the glacier to see only two figures up at the accident scene. We prepared for glacier travel and climbed up ice and hard pack snow to the scene. The two men were friends of the victim and there were the two members from Bellingham down in the crevasse. The ice was very steep and fortunately there was a safety line installed at the lip already for us to clip into. At this point our scope of work changed as we were not aware that we were going to be building the systems and providing all the staff to operate them. We used Ice Screws and personal gear to build our Haul system, COD and Belay as much of the gear that was suppose to be there was not. Not everyone could be at the scene due to the working conditions and technical difficulty of being there so we used the two friends to aid in pulling on the system. First out of the crevasse were the patient and Justin from BMRU situated in a horizontal lift, next out was Bob from BMRU. We moved the victim down to a pre cut shelf at the end of another crevasse where he was tied off. The Navy guys were called in and they lowered their medic who in short order got their lifting harness on the litter and called for the pick off. In a matter of minutes the subject was on his way to Harborview for treatment. We broke the systems down, roped up and walked back down to the moraine. This mission encompassed difficult working conditions, high angle and helo ops. Our team worked seamlessly together. It is further proof of our commitment to training and the pay off it provides. It was good to work with BMRU, their people were professional and did an outstanding job with the patient. Respectfully, Tyler Severy |
