first aid on board
February 17th 2007 02:11
Dealing with first aid on board:
It is tough enough dealing with first aid on land, in the home, on the roads, at school or work where the dangers to ourselves and the victim are often solid and predictable. At a roadside crash you expect a truck to roar over the hill and come down at you at great speed. At work you may be in a tall office block where ambulance help is a long way off or your work place could be dirty, crowded with onlookers or almost as well equipped as a suburban medical centre.
At sea or even just free of the wharf on your boat, you have all but severed your ties with shore. If you have a medical emergency it is fair and square in your lap. You have the nous and equipment to deal with it or the emergency gets worse and worse.
For the worst case scenario it is without doubt the best reason to have your radio operational and you being confident in its use. Mobile phones are mostly best used as fishing sinkers at sea. Having fast access to a doctor’s advice can be life saving. Sure there are plenty of cases where sailors have been able to ring their GP for advise but you can’t rely on phones. Your radio is your friend and if you are out of range it is likely another vessel can relay messages for you.
How good is your first aid kit? If it is a pissy little number that you bought out of specials catalogue start to look at it very critically. You can overload with medical or first aid supplies but you should have the basics and plenty of them. Think about how many people usually are on board and for how often. Do you go to sea or are you always close to shore. One hour from help is not so close to shore.
Yachting Australia have minimum requirement for yachts of a certain length that race in certain conditions. This is also a good guide of the minimum required for motor and sailing cruisers.
Do you know the medical condition of your crew? You have picked them up out of a bar and now they make up your race or cruising crew. Are they asthmatic? Do they require insulin? Are they on any medication that they can’t keep down when they are seasick? Have they taken seasick tablets that will make them drowsy and slow to react to commands? Can you cope with this if it becomes an emergency? I know of an instance where a crewman was unable to keep his diabetes medication down for many days at a time while seasick and ended up with gangrene in his toes and lost both his feet. This operation was performed in a hospital but had the vessel been a long way offshore, the skipper would have had to perform the operation under guidance from a radio operator. Scary? You bet, I think about what sort of saw I have on board that would do that job. An old hacksaw, a sharp knife and a sail-maker’s needle. Plenty of bandages and some Panadol is about all you could expect on my boat at the moment.
It is tough enough dealing with first aid on land, in the home, on the roads, at school or work where the dangers to ourselves and the victim are often solid and predictable. At a roadside crash you expect a truck to roar over the hill and come down at you at great speed. At work you may be in a tall office block where ambulance help is a long way off or your work place could be dirty, crowded with onlookers or almost as well equipped as a suburban medical centre.
At sea or even just free of the wharf on your boat, you have all but severed your ties with shore. If you have a medical emergency it is fair and square in your lap. You have the nous and equipment to deal with it or the emergency gets worse and worse.
For the worst case scenario it is without doubt the best reason to have your radio operational and you being confident in its use. Mobile phones are mostly best used as fishing sinkers at sea. Having fast access to a doctor’s advice can be life saving. Sure there are plenty of cases where sailors have been able to ring their GP for advise but you can’t rely on phones. Your radio is your friend and if you are out of range it is likely another vessel can relay messages for you.
How good is your first aid kit? If it is a pissy little number that you bought out of specials catalogue start to look at it very critically. You can overload with medical or first aid supplies but you should have the basics and plenty of them. Think about how many people usually are on board and for how often. Do you go to sea or are you always close to shore. One hour from help is not so close to shore.
Yachting Australia have minimum requirement for yachts of a certain length that race in certain conditions. This is also a good guide of the minimum required for motor and sailing cruisers.
Do you know the medical condition of your crew? You have picked them up out of a bar and now they make up your race or cruising crew. Are they asthmatic? Do they require insulin? Are they on any medication that they can’t keep down when they are seasick? Have they taken seasick tablets that will make them drowsy and slow to react to commands? Can you cope with this if it becomes an emergency? I know of an instance where a crewman was unable to keep his diabetes medication down for many days at a time while seasick and ended up with gangrene in his toes and lost both his feet. This operation was performed in a hospital but had the vessel been a long way offshore, the skipper would have had to perform the operation under guidance from a radio operator. Scary? You bet, I think about what sort of saw I have on board that would do that job. An old hacksaw, a sharp knife and a sail-maker’s needle. Plenty of bandages and some Panadol is about all you could expect on my boat at the moment.
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