"EMS sees increase in mountain bike accidents"

Evolution in action....

Mike


http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pb...04/ADVERTISING

BENT CREEK * Carly Heyman is amazed at her good fortune when she looks
at the broken helmet, filled with rock-bashed holes that could have
been in her head.

While wearing the helmet was smart * likely saving Heyman's life in a
nasty mountain biking accident in March * the 23-year-old novice rider
knows she also made some costly mistakes.

For starters, she began her ride late in the day when it was close to
dark and when she was tired. She had little experience on single
track, and although she was with an experienced friend, she rode
behind him, and he didn't see her fall. Neither rider carried a cell
phone.

All mistakes that Tim Hinman, operations officer with the Skyland Fire
Department emergency medical services, said he sees too frequently.

As the agency that responds to emergency calls in the Bent Creek area,
Hinman said his staff has been extra busy the past couple of years as
the number of 911 calls from mountain biking accidents has more than
tripled.

“In the last four years in particular, the number of mountain bike
accidents has grown exponentially,” Hinman said. “Last July, we had a
call every day for two weeks straight. We usually get 10 calls a year
(for mountain bike accidents). In 2008, we had more than 30 calls. In
the past three years we had two deaths.”

So far this year he has had seven calls, including Heyman's accident,
and as the long days of summer heat up, Hinman is expecting more calls
for help from the forest. July has the most accidents.

By contrast, accidents do not appear to be rising in DuPont State
Forest in Transylvania County, another popular mountain biking area,
said forest supervisor David Brown.

“In 2008, we had a total of seven accidents, including hikers, bikers
and horseback riders,” Brown said. “In 2007, there were five, so there
has not been a marked increase.”

Brown said about a quarter of the 139,000 yearly visitors to DuPont
are mountain bikers.

Randy Burgess, district ranger for the Pisgah District of Pisgah
National Forest, which includes Bent Creek, said a visitation study is
under way so current numbers are not available. But he said
recreational use is on the rise, as evidenced by the overflowing
parking areas any day of the week, and Bent Creek's proximity to
Asheville draws more people than any other local mountain biking area.
(2 of 5)

As a mountain biker himself, Hinman doesn't resent emergency calls,
but he wants people to be better prepared.






Putting the pieces together

Heyman wiped out on the Pine Tree Loop Trail while on an evening ride
in Bent Creek Experimental Forest just southwest of Asheville in late
March. She has no memory of the accident, but friends and rescuers
have helped her to piece together the events.

Heyman, a native of Atlanta, was in her last semester at the Medical
College of Georgia and had been nearly done with a three-month
rotation as an occupational therapy intern at CarePartners.

“I really wanted to come to Asheville because I love the outdoors
scene,” Heyman said. “I was so excited to be here. I met so many
people who had similar interests like hiking and mountain biking. I
had been to Bent Creek three times prior (to the accident) and had
been mountain biking maybe seven or eight times total.”

One Tuesday evening, Heyman and her friend Ben Morrison decided to go
for a ride in Bent Creek.

“I was tired when we started,” she said. “I was riding behind Ben. I
remember seeing Ben do a jump and thinking, ‘That's cool.' And that's
all I remember.”

Heyman's next memories are of being chilled to the bone, feeling blood
running down her face and Morrison * whom she didn't recognize –*
sitting her down and telling her he was going for help.





'Very spooky' situation

Ben Morrison, 27, is considered an advanced mountain biker.

“I ride like it's my religion,” said Morrison, who works at Earth
Fare. “If I'm free, I ride every day, as much as I can. I know the
Bent Creek trails in my sleep.”

He had been riding only twice with his friend Heyman, a novice rider.
As they had done previously, Morrison led the way, Heyman following
behind as fast as she could.

“I had already done a road ride that day, so it was pure bliss for me
to go mountain biking,” Morrison said. “I was feeling great, it was a
beautiful evening, a little misty, a little wet, sun peeking through
the clouds, beginning to set.”
(3 of 5)

After riding about 45 minutes, at the bottom of a hilly section,
Morrison didn't hear Heyman behind him. He stopped to wait. After a
couple of minutes, he figured she was having mechanical issues and
turned back.

“I see her on her bike, covered in blood, yelling for help,” Morrison
said. “It was very spooky. It breaks my heart. I said, ‘I know this is
not good.' I didn't feel much of anything. It was just, ‘We've got to
save this girl's life.'”

Morrison got Heyman off her bike and sat her down. Her helmet was
broken, and she didn't know who he was or what day it was. She was
freezing cold. It was getting dark.

“She was begging me not to leave, but I knew I had to go for help,”
Morrison said.

He never had success with cell phone reception in Bent Creek, so he
didn't have one with him. He rode as hard as he could, about a mile to
Hard Times Trailhead, hoping to see someone, but the parking area was
dead.

He rode farther on to Rice Pinnacle Trailhead, where his truck was
parked and called 911. He told the dispatch to send help to Hard Times
and started riding back to Heyman.

He met three women, one of whom had a medical background, and she
offered to go with Morrison. They met another group of riders, and one
rider, Justin Mitchell, also agreed to go with them.

“I thought, ‘Two people, thank God,'” Morrison said.

When Mitchell saw where Heyman was, he rode back to the trailhead to
direct EMS personnel back to her. Nearly an hour after Heyman's
accident occurred, medical help arrived, and she began her bumpy ride
strapped to a stretcher on a specially equipped all-terrain vechicle,
back to the trailhead where an ambulance was waiting to take her to
Mission Hospital.

She spent two nights in the hospital, emerging from the wreckage with
a concussion, a broken back, 30 stitches in her face (mostly around
her left eye), hairline fractures to her face and hand, and multiple
other cuts and bruises.





Common mistakes

Heyman's accident fits into a common set of mistakes.
(4 of 5)

More than 80 percent of the emergency calls from Bent Creek are from
people from out of town * visitors or riders new to Asheville who are
not familiar with the trails or the terrain, or not familiar enough
with the sport, Hinman said.

“People need to educate themselves,” he said. “They need to have a map
and know where they are.”

One of the biggest problems his department encounters is in locating
people who have had an accident and can't tell dispatch where they
are. Or they don't have a cell phone with them and need to walk out of
the woods wounded or leave a wounded friend to get help.

By the time they get to a phone, it is hard for them to give
directions to 911 to locate their friend.

“Nothing frustrates an emergency responder more than not being able to
get to a person who's hurt because they don't know where they are,”
Hinman said.

Using GPS technology, dispatch can locate people using their cell
phones, so the closer they are to where an accident happens, the
easier they are to find, Hinman said.

Hinman now dedicates one month out of the year to special training for
his department of 42 full-time and 25 part-time firefighters focused
on wilderness rescue in the 6,400-acre Bent Creek area, which has some
45 miles of trails.

The training includes sending crews out on emergency drills to locate
victims with only a vague description of where they are or only a
trail name; performing wilderness first aid; and loading a victim onto
the ATV. He also does the drills at night.

This year, Skyland Fire Department bought a new $20,000 ATV so the
department can always respond to an emergency call in the forest with
two ATVs and a crew of four.

“We're there to respond to emergencies and try to mitigate these
situations as much as possible,” he said. “But one thing that scares
me is that we see a lot of people not wearing helmets. We try to stop
and educate people. We see a lot of head injuries.”





Getting educated

Hinman said firefighters are also trying to work with cycling groups
like the Pisgah Area Southern Off Road Bicycle Association to help
spread the message.
(5 of 5)

“We have beginner rides every Sunday, and we really encourage people
to come out,” said Mike Brown, who works on trail advocacy for Pisgah
Area SORBA. He said these rides help orient new mountain bike riders
to the subtleties of the sport.

“If you're a novice, stick to the easy to moderate trails,” he said.
“They have these designations for a reason. If you come to a difficult
section, there's nothing wrong with walking.”

Riding with a group can also help you pick up mountain biking “common
sense,” Brown said.

“Your bike goes in the direction you are looking,” he said. “If you
are looking up at a tree you don't want to hit, you're going to hit
that tree. A lot of people fall because they slow down too much and
lose momentum. If you can't ride with speed, it's better to get off
and walk. It sounds so basic, but it's really not.”

Heyman said she is eternally grateful to Skyland Fire Department and
the doctors and staff at Mission who took care of her, and in return,
she will ride more safely and help to educate other mountain bike
riders.

“I'm an adrenaline junkie, but I was scared. I'm a different rider
now,” said Heyman, who was already on her bike a month after the
accident but must stick to flat roads while her back heals. “I will
never go riding without a helmet. I want to take a skills course. I
will always call someone before I go out riding. I'm going to carry
plenty of water, plenty of warm clothes. I'll always bring a cell
phone.

“Mountain biking is a rough sport. It's not something to be taken
lightly.”
--
I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to
humans ("pure habitat"). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8
years fighting auto dependence and road construction.)

Please don't put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are fond of!

http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande

"Mike Vandeman" wrote in message
...
Evolution in action....

Mike

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090529/.../sbd_obit_ruby

On Jun 18, 10:04*am, Mike Vandeman wrote:

Since Mike was MIA for a bit, it would be a smart to check and see if
any eco-terrorism has been committed lately.