WMI Students in Action - letters from our files

Our students come from all walks of life. Many work in the outdoor education and guiding industries, still others are employed by governmental agencies including the National Park Service, the Forest Service and the Department of Defense. Regardless of how our graduates utilize their wilderness medicine training, they all share a profound passion for helping others.

Matt Johnson

The first three weekends in November present an unusual opportunity for whitewater enthusiasts in the southeastern United States. This is the time of year when dam releases above Georgia’s Tallulah Gorge draw paddlers from all over the world. On November 2, 2003, I was standing in this gorge when I witnessed a terrible accident involving a fellow paddler.

The gorge’s whitewater is short but packed with exciting class IV and V rapids that challenge even the most experienced kayakers and rafters. The first class V rapid, Oceana, is a very photogenic bedrock water slide broken up by a granite shelf named “The Thing.” I was standing near this rapid when the accident happened, watching kayakers slide down the falls.

A female kayaker hit the rock shelf in the middle of the rapid with frightening force. Although she had received rather severe injuries in this collision, she coolly righted her boat several times before paddling to the edge of the pool below the slide. At this time, she alerted others on the river’s bank to the severity of her injuries and they asked if there was anyone with any medical training present.

Fellow W-E.M.T.-B, J.D. Dixon and I both responded immediately and aided the other bystanders who had removed the patient from her boat. Once they sat her down away from the river, I began to examine her closely. It became clear that she had suffered severe traumatic injuries to both of her lower extremities.

The paddler’s helmet and personal flotation device (life vest) were able to eliminate the possibility of a spinal injury and prepare her for evacuation. Fortunately, there was a medical supply stash nearby, and we were able to bandage a laceration created when a fractured tibia had ruptured the skin of her right leg. We also prepared an extrication device to be used in place of an impromptu litter. And a fellow paddler was able to use a professional photographer’s radio to contact a search and rescue team.

Other kayakers contributed splinting material, created roped anchor systems for the litter, and helped carry the litter up the river to the put-in. A group of us continued to monitor the patient. She remained conscious and stable with good circulation, sensory response, and muscular coordination in the effected extremities, despite the difficult carry back up river.

After nearly two hours of exhausting hauling over rocks and trees, the evacuation team reached the landing, although we were on the opposite side of the river from the put-in. So the search and rescue team encouraged a group of private rafters to create a taut line in order to ferry the litter across the river on their raft. The ferry was completed successfully and a paramedic crew met the patient at the landing to begin administering care and transport to a trauma center in Atlanta, Georgia.

The success of the evacuation was due to the enormous cooperation of the participants involved. The community of outdoor enthusiasts, although often fiercely individual, displayed their altruistic fortitude and compassion for their own in aiding in this difficult rescue.

NOLS Instructor Matthew Johnson graduated from WMI’s W-E.M.T.-B course from in the summer of 2002.

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