You never know where or when your pup will suffer an injury. But when you’re in the backcountry, it’s almost certain to happen at a less-than-ideal time. That’s what happened to Dante, our 5 month old puppy, when we were skiing at Berthoud Pass in Colorado on New Year’s Day. We made mistakes that day, but here’s what happened and what we learned in order to be prepared going forward.
Dante’s leg was cut by our skis when we were skiing down the slope to our car. We were heading there to put him in the car because he was tired, but on the way down our skis knicked his back paw, right where he has an artery near the surface of his skin. Although the cut was not big and not even that deep -- it did minimal tissue damage -- the blood vessel was penetrated, and blood started pouring onto the snow, flowing heavily.
We quickly wrapped a neck gaiter around the wound but it was flowing through that, and he was squirming so we didn’t get a tight wrap around the cut. We then tied the sleeve of my down jacket around the cut to put pressure on it. This was not effective either, so I squeezed his leg tightly as I skied him down to the car. Blood was pouring through my clenched fingers.
A Colorado State Patrol vehicle happened to be in the parking lot, so I waved the Officer down and asked him for help. A man also came over and asked if he could help. These two people were crucial in saving Dante’s life. The Officer calmly made a tourniquet out of gauze while the man applied a bandage and used his kid’s scarf to wrap around Dante’s leg. Alaina held Dante still, and I looked for our medical kit, which was buried somewhere in the emergency bin in the back of our 4Runner. I couldn’t find it, so I was directed to get towels from the Officer's vehicle.
Once Dante’s bleeding had been stabilized and it wasn’t pouring through the make-shift bandages, the Officer called in on his radio to find out where the nearest animal hospital is, since we have no cell service on Berthoud Pass. The hospital is in Fraser, about 16 miles down the pass, away from Denver. This was good news since the road into Denver was bumper to bumper traffic. Alaina held Dante’s sleeping body with his injured leg elevated and compressed in her arm. We drove until we had cell service and called the hospital. The recording said they were closed for New Year’s Day and to call the Emergency Vet number. We had to re-play this message several times trying to memorize the number.
We called the Emergency Vet who said she was in Grand Lake, about 40 minutes away. The road was dry and traffic light, so we made it quickly to the Vet’s house. She was in the process of setting up her mobile vet clinic but it wasn’t ready yet, so we put Dante on the floor near the kitchen. The Vet quickly and calmly assessed the wound, informing us of the extent of the injury. She decided to put him under anesthesia since he needed internal stitches for the artery and external stitches for his skin. She performed the surgery and bandaged and cleaned him since he had a lot of dried blood on him and then brought him out of anesthesia.
Everything went well. We thanked the vet many times, paid for the surgery, and drove back home. The wound would need to be in bandages for 10-14 days until the stitches were no longer needed, and the internal stitches would dissolve on their own. Dante slept the whole way back.
We felt relieved but also extremely lucky. Overall, we caught a lot of breaks and Dante will be fine, but it certainly could have gone so much worse. We might have cut him on a different trail and needed to skin back uphill to the car. He would have bled a lot more because we didn’t have an emergency kit on us, and I would’ve been carrying him so it would’ve been slow. There might not have been a highly-trained professional or extremely generous volunteer in the parking lot. But there were, and we have called and thanked the Officer. We don’t know who the volunteer was, but many many thanks to him.
What we learned:
- Skiing with dogs is dangerous. We knew this but didn’t realize how quickly the injury could become life threatening. If we choose to ski with our dogs again, we would be far more cautious. Right now we have no immediate plans of skiing with the dogs again.
- Always travel with an emergency medical kit. Better yet, one in each of our avy bags. In the backcountry, we are the only aid we can count on. We were VERY lucky to have the parking lot nearby, and even luckier to have an officer and a volunteer willing to help there. We should know what’s in our kit and how to use it. When blood is flowing, it’s not a good time to learn.
- Hospital contact numbers and locations. Before we go, research the nearest 24-hour Emergency Vets and Hospitals (animal + human) and have their phone numbers in our contacts list. Some animal hospitals are not open on the weekends or holidays. You can never count on cell service in the mountains.
- Always have boots on the dogs. It may not have prevented this particular cut, but since nearly all cuts happen on their lower legs/paws, even just a thin barrier would help.
- A very serious cut like this can happen at anytime. We are almost always a 1+ hour drive away from a hospital -- human or animal. Even when out running, a stick or barbed wire to the wrong part of the body can turn deadly if we can’t stop the bleeding. A small first aid kit should always be on us if we are more than an hour away from a hospital, even on ‘short’ runs.
- Antiseptic wipes (BZK-based wipes preferred; alcohol-based OK)
- Antibacterial ointment (e.g., bacitracin)
- Compound tincture of benzoin (bandage adhesive)
- Assorted adhesive bandages (fabric preferred)
- Butterfly bandages / adhesive wound-closure strips
- Gauze pads (various sizes)
- Nonstick sterile pads
- Medical adhesive tape (10 yd. roll, min. 1" width)
- Blister treatment
- Ibuprofen / other pain-relief medication
- Insect sting relief treatment
- Antihistamine to treat allergic reactions
- Splinter (fine-point) tweezers
- Safety pins
- First-aid manual or information cards
- More Gauze wrap
- Sterile towels for compression
- Quickclot
- An easy to access Trauma kit (specific to bleeding) (like this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003DPVERM/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1) it’s all in one so you don’t have to open multiple packages.
- Tourniquet
- Wound stapler (for extreme backcountry)
- Milk of magnesia (help with poisoning)
- Hydrogen peroxide (induce vomiting)
- Thermometer- (sometimes the only way to check a dog)
- Muzzle
- Another resource: http://www.gundogsupply.com/ready-dog-gun-dog-first-aid-kit.html
Commands that must be 100% proofed:
- Stay (must be able to resist the urge to chase a moving skier and called to from a distance. Ugh)
- Heel (either near or behind you)
- Come
- On by (go past something/ignore it)
- Side of the trail command (get off the trail, stay to the side)
No comments:
Post a Comment