Yesterday was my first ride back in a while, and on the tandem with Monique - man, did it feel good to turn the pedals! I've missed a lot of riding this year due to injuries and, most recently, a work and travel schedule from hell. But somewhere in the past few months I managed to attend the PV First Aid and CPR Training class, and yesterday it came in handy...
We (me, Monique, and three new riders - Wendy, Chi and Karen) were at the end of the ride on Evergreen and just as we passed the big oak tree right before Intel, we were passed by a rider doing a pretty fast clip. We said hi, and he seemed to be having a good time. Well, after we passed the light on Shute, we saw the same rider on the sidewalk sorta reclined and not looking too happy. Since we was on the sidewalk, we figured he was taking a break, or flatted or something. But as we got closer, we saw a nice scrape on his elbow and he was trying to get up, but unsuccessfully all the while swaying back and forth and mumbling.
As we found out later, he had been reaching for his water bottle when he lost his line, and his front wheel hit the sidewalk resulting in him doing an endo onto the sidewalk. Ouch. We're not sure if he hit his head as his hemet was still on and was not scraped or cracked, although he could have smacked it on the lawn which, at 20+ MPH is still gonna hurt.
Anyway, we approached, asked if he was alright and got more mumbling. So we got him to lie back and sit still and asked him 3 of the 4 questions we could remember from First Aid class - "What's your name", "Do you know what day it is", and "Do you remember how this happened?". There's a fourth question, but I didn't remember it and it wasn't necessary because all we got back was "umuhumahumanumu". So we whipped out the mylar blanket in our handy-dandy ride leader's first aid pack, covered him with it and stabalized his head.
Meanwhile, I dialed 911 - here's a tip: keep your cell phone on during the ride so you don't have to deal with the 45 seconds or so it takes for the goddamn thing to fire up. Also, don't hand it to someone else and expect them to know how to turn it on. I handed my cell phone to Monique and we lost 3 minutes from the above. Anyway, I dialed 911 and got the following:
"Thank you for calling the Washington County emergency response center..."
"If this is an emergency, please say 'emergency' after the beep..." (I yelled "EMERGENCY!")
"If this is not an emergency, please hang up and dial 503-555....."
"Please hold while we connect you with the next available operator..."
I freakin' kid you not! I got an automated operator - and it burned another 30-45 seconds! So naturally, I was audibly pissed when the operator picked up and she had to tell me to calm down. The lesson in this one is - remember that with cell phones you will get the automated response. You have to factor that into emergencies on the road.
Well, the good news is that the firemen, EMT and Hillsboro police were there in less than 2 minutes (one fireman was kinda hunky, which was not lost on Monique :) ). They were able to get Jimmy (that was the rider's name) to answer some questions and they helped him to his feet. He had come out of his initial shock and was able to stand up, walk around and talk normally. So they checked him out a bit more and figured he was okay to pedal home, which luckily was around the corner. Monique and I circled back after we picked up the car from Longbottom to make sure he wasn't back on the sidewalk talking to his invisble kangaroo friend.
I'm glad Jimmy was okay and I'm also glad that 1) we had the first aid kit with us and 2) we knew at least enough to assess the situation and take action. The big take-home lesson for me was that I need to periodically review my first aid material - I mean, something as simple as remembering all four assessment questions can be a little stressful when you're under pressure. I probably could have thrown in something like "what the color of the green chick on Star Trek?", but I should probably stick to the standards.
So props to Mike Mulligan for getting the first aid kits together and to Johny O and Mike for getting the first aid class together last March. I hope we can offer that again soon, and I would highly recommend taking it when it comes around again.
Cheers-
Carlo
P.S. Sorry we missed you all after the ride - we ended up talking with some folks in the parking lot and then jumping into the car to check on Jimmy. I'll see you all next week!