Worst medical situation you've had on a canoe trip

[Glenn MacGrady]

I've never had anything really bad happen to me.

I once got a bad bone bruise on the point of my hip when I fell out of my whitewater canoe, while sitting on the thwart, and hit my hip directly on a rock in shallow riffles.

I've had broken blisters my on my hands from padding, which I treated by applying duct tape.

Once in 1981, I got severely dehydrated while in paddling and portaging all day in a wetsuit in the hot California sun. I didn't realize the problem until I ravenously drank an entire six pack of soda at the takeout. 31 years later in the Adirondacks, I got dehydrated and was approaching heat exhaustion while paddling then portaging miles in 90° F heat.

On a whitewater day trip, one of our group broke her arm when she slipped on a rocky shore bank, and had to be taken to the nearest hospital via hitch-hiking.

Not in our group, but I once saw a raft passenger drown in whitewater when he fell out of the raft, tried to stand up, got his leg jammed in the river bed rocks, and got bent over underneath the current. No one could reach him.

 

[Boatman53]

As a teenager we went on a trip in the spring as that was the only time we could all go. We had a last minute change of adviser and it turned out two days in he was overwhelmed by black flies and allergic. His face swelled up losing his eyes and has hands were so swollen he couldn’t close them. He was absolutely helpless. We went straight to the ranger station the next day and he spent a couple days in the hospital. He recovered fine and came home with us. Not sure what would have happened if we were deeper in the bush.
Jim

 

[Cheeseandbeans]

A few days into a trip I started feeling lousy. Fever, exhaustion, sweating profusely for no reason… my tripping physician buddy and I figured it was Lyme Disease and it was. Thankfully I got on Doxycycline right away and have had no issues since. Buggered up the trip though.

Same partner different trip- we pulled a hypothermic young lad out of the water. From down the shore line, we watched him launch in some serious waves and wondered what the heck he was doing. About 30 yards out he flipped, the canoe floated down wind and he had no PFD. He wasn’t getting closer to shore. We were able to get him a line and pulled him in. He was turning blue- maybe in the water 10-15 min. It was early May in the ADKs. He was fine after some hot drinks, warm dry clothes, big fire, etc. We found the canoe later that day.

 

[memaquay]

I've always maintained that when taking a group of high school kids out, a well run canoe trip was much safer than your average sports team, and I still believe that. After 30 years, I have had to do a few evacs for kids, mostly for things we couldn't diagnose, like appendicitis, or allergic reactions. The run of the mill problems were usually blisters, sunburn and small cuts.

I did have a girl fall on a log when she was porting, and a small branch stabbed her in the leg and broke off in there. Although the injury was not that bad, she did get shocky, and we called in the helicopter to fly her out.

I've seen some very major accidents at basketball and hockey games, with kids doing permanent damage to knees, a variety of concussions, and other bodily harm.

There's always the possibility for a very bad thing to happen on a canoe trip, but serious risk management can mitigate most things.

 

[lowangle al]

I've been fortunate and never had anything serious happen on a trip. Probably the worst was when a friend, who carried his second pack in the front, tripped and hurt his knee. We were only two ports in and couldn't continue and had to camp on a bug infested campsite with no view.

Another time a friend had back issues but it didn't interfere with the trip.

A third time a friend got hurt was when we flipped in a rapid and he grabbed the gunnels and sprained a thumb, putting him out of commission.

The worst thing that happened to me that I can remember was getting sunburned shoulders on a portage heavy trip, not fun. I did start a lot of trips already injured and had to deal with back, knee, shoulder or hand pain, but it was all worth it.

 

[Bob B.]

2012 in woodland caribou I was solo the first 22 days, then met up with friends the last 10. We traveled out together. While solo, I had a slight infection in my right knee that was healing nicely. I ran into part of the park that was burning wildly and had to get in front of it to make it to my meetup with others. This caused me to kneel in boat and paddle hard for long stretches, kneeling in mucky gross bilge water from very sloppy portages Trying desperately to get in front of the burn. Ultimately, my knee infection ramped up into a festering mess, also swelled to the point I could not wear my britches for many days … and I lost two toe nails from being barefoot in crocks on a steeply sloped slippery rock in camp.

I ultimately bushwhacked as my travel route was destroyed ( difficult ! ) to my meet up and spent 15 days there healing up waiting on my buddies. Walking was very difficult, paddling was hard as well.

we traveled slowly to our take out, by then I could walk better … and wear pants again … but my knee has never been the same. I can no longer kneel, or even get into a deep kneeling position.

Bob.

 

[ScottS]

sunburn

 

[Cruiser]

This spring I had 2 trips planned, the second one had me going in solo to join in with a group trip. Was straight forward 12 km paddle, with a short portage and a 2.6 km one to get to the final lake. Although it was hot and i drank all my water on the big portage, I made to camp and had a long swim to cool down. The initial plan was that the group was going to be there for a few days, but the plan changed that they now intended move out, back over that long portage, which I knew I wasn't up to without rest.
Turns out a few folks where splitting off and moving deeper into the park, a 500 m and an 800 m portage set sounded more doable than the other 2.6 km one, so I joined.
It was quite overcast when we started out and that quickly turned to drizzle and the temp started falling, first 500 m was easy, we met and chatted with 2 other groups going the other way.
After winding through a small creek dotted with beaver dams, we got to the next takeout and an 800 m portage. I got separated from the group at this point when another group came in the opposite way and proceeded to spread all their gear at the takeout, while they took a break, which left me waiting for a bit on the water. At this point it started raining in earnest, making the trails a mess. The terrain was quite rocky and boggy, I completed my first carry (double carry), talked with the rest of my group at the other end and started back to get the last load. With my canoe and gear bag loaded, I got to just past the halfway point, where the trail started down a slope and there was a large mud pit to walk around ... it happened so fast, down the side of a large rock ... sounds I never want to hear again .... and a foot that shouldn't be able to bend that way.
I managed to get to the portage end, my friends retrieved my gear ... we discussed options as walking was not going to happen. I carry a PLB, but it was decided that using that on a portage leaves the group stuck there. So they loaded my gear and me into my canoe and we proceeded through the marsh, over 3 beaver dams, getting my gear and me out and in as required ... then out into the grasslands ... we paddled for the better part of 4 hours to get to the first campsite.
It was about 14:30 when we arrived, we popped the beacon, got tarps setup and changed into dry clothes to wait and think. The path out was ~25 kms of paddling and several kilometres of portaging,that didn't seem very doable ... hope that beacon works (really hope).
Around 19:00 hours we heard the drone of a helicopter heading straight at the campsite, they circled once and very nearly landed at the back side of the island ... we assumed a failed landing attempt. Then out of the bush comes a police officer ... the rest is a bit of a blur, there was a dock at the backside (for a nearby ranger cabin), the group cleared a path through the brush and got me to the dock, the chopper came in an hovered, one landing strut on the dock, the other over water, the rotors only a couple feet from the tree line ... the downwash from a chopper has to be felt to be be believed, they got me onboard and then it was over, I was inbound to the hospital.

Not quite over, 2 weeks in a cast waiting for surgery, 2 weeks in a cast after surgery, then 6 weeks in a boot (no weight bearing) ... I have a new plate and the tendons and ligaments had to be reconstructed. I am out of the boot for 2 weeks at this point and walking, it's a chore but getting there.

I share this to emphasize the importance of having an EVAC plan, this could have gone so much worse. A trip can go from being a grand adventure to literally being a nightmare in a few heartbeats. Having spent the time planning for the worst can make a huge difference in how a situation gets handled and obviously the outcome. The interesting thing about this is, I got the PLB in case some one else in my group got injured or disabled, with no thought it might ever be me .... if you think this, realize it could be you who gets into trouble.

I was with a great group and they helped me along and took care of getting my gear out ... although the guy who is currently storing it mentioned storage fees and something about salvage rights on the canoe (it was posted here as a light weight strip build).

Brian

 

[Chip]

My buddy was climbing a bank on the Buffalo River and slipped, becoming impaled on the jagged end of a broken limb. He took it in the middle of his inner thigh, about a four inch deep stab. Luckily, it didn’t rip the femoral artery that runs in that area, but was a deep and serious wound. I could lift the flap of flesh and see the layers of fat and muscle, but for the size of the wound there was relatively little bleeding. I flushed it with disinfectant, wrapped gauze around his thigh, and put him back in his canoe. There was no cell coverage and we were about an hour from the next take out, and he paddled there without incident.

Still, at the take out, there was no cell service. A group of horse riders were fording the river and one of the riders agreed to call for help once they got cell service. Maybe an hour later, an NPS ranger came down to the river. In a coincidence, we recognized him as the guy we used to get backcountry permits from at Assateague. The ranger contacted our outfitter who was able to expeditiously deliver my vehicle. It was after dark by the time we arrived at the ER in Harrisonville. It took over a year, but my buddy fully recovered.

afterwards, I augmented my medical kit with a medical clamp, needle and thread, and blood coagulant. God help the person if I ever have to use those, but the stick that got my buddy could have easily severed a major blood vessel, and if I ever have to face that situation, I want some tools.

 

[PacketFiend]

The worst for me was on a car camping trip, only about an hour's drive from a hospital.

My brother is a type 1 diabetic. He had been diagnosed at the age of 35 (yes, it happens) and was still figuring it all out. Type 1s generally need two kinds of insulin: a long acting, once daily shot, and then a short acting, bolus shot, taken with meals.

On this trip, he forgot his Lantus, the long acting insulin, and felt he could get by without it, by managing with only the Humalog. The first night, he did fine. The second night... he did not.

We awoke to find him in hypoglycemic shock. He was barely responsive, and when he was, he was delusional and belligerent. He was unable to walk and regularly emptying his stomach contents.

We decided to treat him there, rather than driving to a hospital. He suffers from major depression as well and I felt that not only was his life not in immediate danger, he needed the win by recovering on his own (well, with our help), not to mention that, as I mentioned, he was belligerent, and the presence of strangers might exacerbate the problem. It was not an easy decision. He recovered in a few hours.

But I learned something that day. We now carry TWO complete diabetes kits, including enough insulin for twice our trip, in case we lose one. We carry a "diabetic crash kit" as well. Our two other companions, while helpful, were utterly incompetent through no fault of their own, and had to rely on my experience as his brother (this had happened once or twice before at home... it's a monumental and immediate life change, and not one that's easy to adapt to).

Now, on every trip I plan, every participant is expected to fully disclose any and all chronic medical conditions, no matter how personal. IBS, depression, alcoholism, STIs, I don't care. We are all expected to have a rudimentary understanding of them, any complications or risks that could arise from them, and any courses of treatment.

 

[Robin]

I embedded a fish hook in my finger once, too deep to back it out. I poked it thru and squeezed the barb down, then backed it out thru the two holes.
That evening in camp I flattened all the barbs on all my hooks,never again.
I used to trip with a friend and his young son. The boy never washed his hands, even after using the thunderbox. On two trips he ended up sick in his tent for a day. His dad and I had words about hygiene and dishwashing procedures on our last trip together.

 

[PacketFiend]

I used to trip with a friend and his young son. The boy never washed his hands, even after using the thunderbox. On two trips he ended up sick in his tent for a day. His dad and I had words about hygiene and dishwashing procedures on our last trip together.

Did you consider hand sanitizer? That's what I use after #2 when washing my hands is impractical. It's much faster and easier when washing your hands can feel like a chore.

 

[Robin]

Did you consider hand sanitizer? That's what I use after #2 when washing my hands is impractical. It's much faster and easier when washing your hands can feel like a chore.

It’s not my job to teach his son proper hygiene on the trail.
Fool me once….

 

[pblanc]

I was paddling with a group on the Ocoee River in Tennessee that included some Ocoee first-timers. A friend of mine, a very experienced kayaker who had run the Ocoee hundreds of times ran Tablesaw Rapid, one of the larger rapids on the Ocoee, first in order to set safety in an eddy at the bottom in case anyone swam.

As we watched from the eddy at the top of the rapid, to our surprise he clipped the side of a "boof rock" in the meat of the rapid and capsized. When he was inverted he hit his head forcefully on an underwater rock, had immediate severe neck pain and dysfunction of his left arm. He exited his boat and a commercial raft trip put him on a raft to ferry him from river left to river right where the road parallels the river. Those of us who were watching did not quite appreciate the severity of the situation.

His girlfriend and some raft guides helped get him up the bank to the road where amazingly an ambulance happened to be passing. They flagged it down and put him in the back and took him to a small hospital in Ducktown, TN where he underwent a CT scan of his neck that was read as negative. Some of the rest of us got his boat and gear off the river. He was released after a couple of hours and his girlfriend put him in the back of his truck and drove him back home.

His pain and arm dysfunction persisted and he underwent a repeat CT scan a few days later which showed a non-displaced fracture of the lower cervical spine. A hard collar was slapped on him, he was admitted to the hospital, and underwent surgery the next day.

Besides that the medical issues that I have personally encountered on paddling trips have been severe dehydration complicated by poorly-controlled type 2 diabetes mellitus, mild hypothermia, various lacerations and puncture wounds, a dislocated shoulder, a severely sprained ankle, and broken ankles twice.

On one other occasion I dislocated a finger when I fell scrambling around on wet rocks on the Ocoee River looking for a lost paddle after they had turned the river off.

 

[PacketFiend]

It’s not my job to teach his son proper hygiene on the trail.
Fool me once….

Twice, actually

One fellow I trip with is otherwise a very clean and sanitary person. In the bush though, he tends to regress. We had known each other for decades through a mutual acquaintance, and one day I found out he'd always wanted to do expedition wilderness trips, but lacked the experience or companions to undertake them, so I kinda took him under my wing and taught him what I know. And I've never regretted that decision.

On one of our first trips, this otherwise fastidiously clean person wandered off a portage trail for a few moments for #2. He came back rather quickly. I asked him "Uh, Bob (not his real name for obvious reasons), did you wipe?". He hadn't. I literally had to explain to him that wiping was not optional even in the bush, unless you like diaper rash. Some of the gory details of perhaps a better way to poop to make wiping easier as well. His reasoning was that by avoiding wiping, he was keeping his hands free of feces.

But then again, he took my advice in stride and became a better tripping partner, and that's actually the incident that precipitated us always keeping hand sanitizer available. Not so much in your case. I likely would react the same if someone regularly got sick over a lack of basic hygiene.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Now, on every trip I plan, every participant is expected to fully disclose any and all chronic medical conditions, no matter how personal. IBS, depression, alcoholism, STIs, I don't care. We are all expected to have a rudimentary understanding of them, any complications or risks that could arise from them, and any courses of treatment.

This is very important. In the clubs I used to paddle with, and led trips and instructed for, there was always a full disclosure rule about medical issues, even just for day trips. A medical condition that arises during the trip can end up involving, or endangering, the entire group. If anyone didn't want to abide by the medical disclosure rule . . . go find someone else to paddle with.

I forgot the time I got what I self-diagnosed as a recurrence of a tick disease when paddling in the Cobscook Bay area of Maine around 2005. There were three of us from Connecticut on the trip. We had all driven in my van. The second night I was freezing in the summer night but sweating profusely. I had a high temperature, no energy and could barely move.

My friends went paddling that day on the Machias River while I attempted to recover, but I was worse when they returned. They took me to the emergency room, clad in their wetsuits and paddling jackets, in Machias. After a long wait, the ER doctor had no idea what was wrong with me after a superficial exam. I told him the symptomology was identical to a tick disease (ehrlichiosis) that I had had a few years before, but which he had never heard of. He had no computer access to medical materials and looked up ehrlichiosis in a book, which had only a sentence about the disease. I told him I was treated the earlier time with a course of antibiotics. He very reluctantly prescribed one, but spent more time warning me about possible side effects.

I took the antibiotic after calling my wife, a nurse, but was in no condition to drive my van. The other two guys drove back to Connecticut and I slept the entire eight hours on the back seat. I recovered in three or four days.

 

[jdeerfoot]

I was on a BWCA trip in the late 1990’s with six teenage boys from my wife’s church. They were a boisterous and energetic group which myself and the other 2 adults used to our advantage by encouraging their competition with each other while portaging, all I ever carried was life jackets or paddles.

However, the competition among some of the boys caused one to work at cutting birch bark off a large downed log for a craft project too hurriedly while using a 5-6 inch fixed blade knife. As I was walking up to tell him to drop the knife when turning the log, he dropped the log and it bounced forcing the blade into his calf as he straddled the log. Checking his wound I found it to be lightly pumping blood. We pressure wrapped his wound as best we could and knew he had to be evacuated so the other 2 adults loaded him in a canoe and paddled off planning to take him to the nearest entry point. After portaging into the next lake they encountered a USFS work crew with one member trained as Wilderness First Responder. Unfortunately their radio batteries had died so 2 of them took off to find another work crew on a nearby lake with a working radio.

Several hours after the accident myself and the remaining boys watched a USFS Beaver aircraft land in a bay at the far end of our lake. The injured boy had been carried back to our lake which the plane could land on. He was flown to the hospital in Ely and was back at camp when we arrived several days later. I heard later that after he got home he developed an infection that caused him to be hospitalized for a few days.

 

[yknpdlr]

Can't say i have ever had any significant medical issues in literally many thousands of miles of paddling including in recreational paddling, racing and race training.

However I have been well prepared by having paddled with many highly trained professional medical people. I have often paddled the Yukon River and other canoe race events with some or all of these medically trained friends: a county clinical pathologiist, an active duty military combat medic fresh from recent duties iin Iraq and Afghanistan, a hospital surgical suite coordinator, a cardiac surgeon's physician's assistant, a physical therapist, and a hospice end of life care provider. Thankfully I have not needed the services while canoeing of either the first or the last person on that list, all interesting people and good to have their experiencess and skills on a remote wilderness trip.

 

[PaddlingPitt]

Kathleen and I, in my opinion, take a pretty complete first aid kit on our canoe trips.
We have never used most of our supplies. The worst accident we’ve ever had is when I
spilled very hot tea on my bare thigh, after which I applied Second
Skin. I removed the Second Skin after two days because the burn wasn’t healing by being all
covered up. Exposed to the air, the wound dried out and healed very
quickly. Perhaps the Second Skin wasn’t necessary or even useful.
I’m not actually a medical doctor, so I don’t really know.

 

[Mason]

For those of you venturing into the bleak unknown, a worthwhile read is "The Twenty Ninth Day", wherein the author gets attacked by a grizzly bear in the Dubawnt environs. He sustains significant puncture wounds, and the trip leader does an admirable job tending to him, using up a considerable amount of dressings over the trip. It brings about two questions: a) do I have the skills to deal with such an emergency, and 2) is my first aid kit big enough?