It sucked to hear a couple of trips in again on Saturday by the Gardiner crew. I was blissfully unaware of any other details.

There was the limelight accident, and a dude slipped and banged his arm down at the far end of the trapps. on the carriage road. he looked ok to me, but what the hell do i know.

Are some of the ambulance runs unneccessary? I've been called stupid more than once but I've driven myself to the hospital a couple times with fractures after extricating myself from the wilderness. I'm just wondering if the rescue is too easy at the gunks at times, leading to folk pushing the gear/common sense quotient or going by ambulance when they might be able to get a ride or drive themselves to the relatively close facilities. The same injury in a wilderness area might lead you to limp out, rather than spend the night waiting, and then realize it ain't all that bad and you can drive yourself. Surely most cases that are truely emergent and need all the help they can get. Just wondering based on Evan's observation. Info about the gunks in "Accidents in N.A. Climbing" is scarce.

I'm just wondering if the rescue is too easy at the gunks at times, leading to folk pushing the gear/common sense quotient

Do you really think so? Do drivers drive more recklessly if they wear a seatbelt? I will agree that if someone isn't hurt too bad, being driven in a car to a hospital might make more sense than an expensive ambulance trip.

Not sure of details, but I understand there were at least three different sirens responding to accidents at the hairpin turn this weekend. As far as I know, none of the motorists involved were being properly belayed.

One at the hairpin was a man whose motorcycle hit the shale wall. I was there the next day set up with my pirate chalkbag shop and a group of people came by. It was the son, daughter and wife of the man who'd had the accident.

The man is 78 years old, and his bike was a large Harley(like a Goldwing type/size).

They were hoping to find some way to make sense of what happened, since they didn't have much information. They don't have an idea of what happened, how such a thing occurred, wondering if perhaps there was a stone or debris in the road. Very sad.

Unfortunately, he is in critical condition as of yesterday. The son says he has broken every damned bone in his face, and they did have him on a venitlator. Hopefully that is due to the injuries to his bones, and temporary while he is in such fragile shape.

I think the man and his family could use any thoughts or prayers for healing and dealing with this, if you are so inclined..

yes

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Presence-of-Mind-Buckle-Up-And-Behave.html

Quite a surprise, ShakesALot. It seems that the phenomenon takes place at a subliminal level. Thanks for the information.

Unless it is a life threatening situation 911 should not get called. We have a relative handful of ambulances available around here, limited resources. An ambulance squad tied up giving somebody with a broken ankle a ride to the ER @ Vassar is off line for two hours minimum. More than the money it costs the patient for the trip, making emergency services unavailable to somebody who really needs them is the primary concern.

excellent point whatthegunks. case in point my wife and I were down on the jersey shore escaping the hell that is the gunks on holidays. we were doing a long bike ride. about 5 miles into it she took a nasty fall going over a curb onto a sidewalk to get out of traffic. immediately a lady stopped and called 911 and the cops showed up and tried really hard to get us to take an ambulance ride. meantime we were bandaging her up with our own first aid kit and they were only distracting us by their entreaties. then we had to sign a waiver refusing the ambulance ride. gimme a break. she shook herself off and we continued the ride.

trying to make a huge deal out of nothing. all thanks to our litigous society of crybabies. are they used to taking people to the hospital for a few small scrapes?

another story, the first time I tried to lead transcon I took a fall and hit my foot on the slab. sprained my ankle. later on it really started to hurt. I could hardly use the clutch in my VW but drove myself to the hospital in POK and they gave me aspirin and some crutches. the next morning was a big job interview. I couldn't walk in there with crutches. well, that hurt. but I got the job.