I was volunteering this weekend as an amateur radio operator for the Canadian National Competitive Trail, Endurance, and Ride and Tie Equestrian event just west of Sundre Alberta.
I drove up there mid-day on Friday, picked a spot in the open field to camp and set up the Delica, then I relaxed in one of the mid-row captains chairs and enjoyed a book for a couple of hours waiting for my other volunteer to show up. After a well prepared supper provided by the event, and a bunch of organizational work for the next day I crawled in to my sleeping bag for the night. as it was just me I didn't bother with the queen size air mattress, and just had my sleeping bag on a Therm-a-rest on top of the seats, quite comfortable for the 3 nights, and can be quickly thrown out of the way when the space is needed during the day.
Saturday morning we get up far too early and I grab breakfast from the catering trailer on my way out on to the trail, I follow one of the veterinarians out to a location in the middle of one of the loops for a "trot-by" (the vets watch the horses go by, and if something seems out of the ordinary they check the horse over and even pull them from the race if necessary, The horses are extremely well cared for on these events!) the trip out is on back roads, mainly well-site and logging roads, but in reasonable shape. as soon as the last horse goes by here the vet returns to the base camp, and I am left to navigate my way through the well-roads to a "vet-check" further along the loop (here the vets actually check the horses over, take their pulse and respirations, and the horses get half an hour to cool down, eat and drink etc (sometimes the riders eat too)) generally uneventful and I once again relax in the Delica and read a book...
Here is where things start to get interesting... 2 riders come galloping in to the checkpoint, and on arrival call out to us that there is a rider down and injured 3 miles back and needs an air-ambulance. The patient is described as having "severe chest injuries". I get the specifics and radio them back to the base camp (no cell coverage) and ask how close to the incident we can get by vehicle, the answer is "you can't get a vehicle anywhere near by!" but at this point we don't have a good idea of where the incident really is, what resources are needed, or even if a helicopter can get there to help out, meanwhile base camp radios back and tells me that a ground ambulance is en-route, but will be at least an hour to my location (not to the incident) and the helicopter isn't sure if they can come at all. Base camp also tells me that they think they know about where the location is, but that no vehicle can get there, and that it is a rough quad trail, one of the organizers (unaware of the incident) pulls in to the vet-check and also tells me there is no way a vehicle can get there.
I decide that I have to try, even if I have to walk in the last 1-2 miles (as everyone seems to think) we need to get communication there, we need to get the coordinates of the actual site, and it wouldn't hurt to get someone with some medical training there (I am a Emergency Medical Responder (EMR) registered with the Alberta College of Paramedics) meanwhile one of the organizers leaves base on a quad with an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT-A), but they are 18 miles away, and will be taking the horse trail all the way there, it will take them a while to show up, and once they do, they will still have no way to communicate with the outside world.
Here is where the Delica excelled, I got to the end of the road and turned up the cut-line, it was a NASTY trail, freshly cut cut line up an extremely steep hill with logs all over it, mud, etc, much of it had a good side-slope as well, I put it in 4 low and started up the hill, a couple of times I bogged down, but was able to reverse a bit and surge through it, I finally got the Delica all the way to the incident site (at least a mile from the road).
I looked around and immediately thought "we can't get a helicopter in here!" the cut line was barely wider than the blades of a helicopter, and with tall trees on one side, and power lines on the other, in addition the ground wasn't level and was covered in logs and mud. About this time the quad with the EMT showed up, and she set to work, the driver of the quad then came up to me and informed me that the EMT had broken her wrist on the trip out (just what we needed, another patient!) but she was a real trooper about it, she rode on the luggage rack on the back of the quad for almost 15 miles with a broken wrist, then immediately did her job working on the patient in the mud, she didn't complain once!
I radioed the incoming ambulance and fire department and they told me they were at the end of the road, I directed them up the cut-line, it took their 4x4 pickup half an hour to get up the cut-line, when they got there the first words out of their mouths were "someone get me a camera! there's a mini-van up here!!!!" they couldn't believe I had driven up there (and honestly, neither could I!) The fire department confirmed my thought that a helicopter wouldn't be possible and started making preparations to evacuate the patient on a trailer on the back of a quad, only problem was, the quad couldn't make it up the hill with the trailer attached! They radioed STARS (Shock Trauma Air Rescue Society, Alberta's helicopter air-ambulance service) and discussed the situation, after much debate STARS decided to give it a try, they told the fire department that it was only because their most experienced pilot was on duty that they were even trying it, they said that had any other pilot been on duty that day we would have been out of luck. With the helicopter on it's way we set about clearing a landing zone, we had 6 fire fighters, 2 ranch hands, and me... (I felt rather useless to be honest, those guys had 4 times my strength each!) we got the landing zone cleared of logs just in time to look up and see
The Helicopter flew slowly up the cut-line evaluating the landing zone and radioed in "you're right, that's one ugly landing zone... we're going to take another pass", with this they flew a large circle and crept along the power lines a second time... they obviously didn't like our landing zone and tried to make their own just down the cut-line, but after several attempts they couldn't make that work either so they came back up to ours and managed to land. The pilot informed us that we had really made him work for his paycheque today! Due to the nasty ground the helicopter crew couldn't get the stretcher out of the chopper, so we had to carry the patient on a spine board to the helicopter and load them. You can clearly see the power lines and the trees in this picture, many of the logs you see scattered around the helicopter had been where it is now sitting.
This event has really stressed to me how vulnerable we are every time we venture in to the back country, we had the best possible resources available, and all only a few miles away, and yet this person was lying in the mud for almost 3 and a half hours before that helicopter took off, it would have been about 4 hours before they got to the hospital... I can't imagine what would have happened had her injuries been even slightly worse, or had she been slightly further in, or the trail slightly worse, etc... I found out afterwards that she had several broken ribs and a punctured lung, after she and her horse had fallen the horse had stood on her when getting up.
The helicopter took off without further incident and we were left to clean up and get ourselves out of there, the saddlery from 3 different horses was loaded in to my vehicle along with the EMT with the broken wrist, and 2 other riders who had been helping out. The trip up the cut-line had been difficult, but the trip down was much more treacherous, on the way up I knew that if I got in to trouble I could simply back out of it, on the way down if I got in to trouble I knew I would be screwed! I started the trip down in 4-low and lowest gear, I still had to ride the brakes the whole way down to stop from losing control... there were deep ruts cut across the cut-line to allow for water drainage, they were too deep to take straight on, but the slightest turn made it feel like the Delica would fall over on it's side, I really got to appreciate how low the centre of gravity is on these vehicles! in one particular rut I took a slight angle and nose-dived, the vehicle felt like it was starting to roll and the tires weren't getting any traction, I was sliding toward a steep drop-off and I was sure I would be rolling sideways down the next 400 feet of mountain! A few seconds of sheer panic and fancy manoeuvring saw me back in control though. When we got to the bottom the fire department guys ahead of me, and the guy on the quad behind me both said that they were sure I was going to go over, The guy on the quad said there were a few moments there where he's sure he could have stood up under my rear tires without them touching the top of his head!
I've watched the video of Adrock smashing the front bumper in to the ground many times, and I've seen many people talk about the vulnerability of that front license plate bracket, and of the radiators underneath, I never thought it would be a problem, but as you can see, my license plate isn't quite the shape it once was, I also smashed up the guard on that side's radiator under the front steps (the radiator itself appears ok) and took a good hit to one of the bash plates under the vehicle as well. (that and even after a very thorough car-wash I still seem to have mud in every nook and cranny!)
The rest of the trip back to base camp was quite uneventful, and I went and parked by the finish line to watch the results, and relaxed in what the other radio operator termed my "living room" the clouds then closed in and we got a nasty downpour with hail and LOTS of water, the organizer sent me out to pick up some stranded volunteers on the other side of the creek at the half-mile marker, so the Delica got to do the short and shallow river crossing and pick them up (they were quite grateful to be out of the hail!)
After supper I parked back in my old spot in the field and re-assembled my bed for a nice cozy night in the Delica (meanwhile the other radio operator returned to his tent praying that his sleeping bag would still be dry (luckily it was!))
The next morning after breakfast we started off toward the first "vet-check", but the organizer's truck wouldn't start, so I loaded up 4 extra people and all their gear in to the Delica and headed out on to the well-roads again, a relatively uneventful day, I spent most of it reading in my "living room", when we got back to the base-camp I stayed out of the rain in the Delica and watched the riders going through the finish line, and then relaxed in bed for a while reading my book by the fluorescent light, we headed home first thing in the morning.
Tuesday I get a call from a friend needing help moving "some stuff" I head over and the Delica gets loaded floor to ceiling, from the front passenger seat all the way to the tailgate with miscellaneous lathe pieces and wood chunks, just another day in the life of a Delica, always ready for whatever I throw at it!
"I could be just around the corner from heaven, or a mile from hell." -- Jackson Browne, "The road and the sky".
Call me BCDelica-less
