Castanet

logman wrote:I could care less if they are there or not. I don't snowboard anymore. I work in the woods and as the safety guy i just want to know where to get help. ASAP That is it! I don't care if they are there or not.I just need to know if they are i can pass the lousey situation to them.

My thought on that would be that if you are the safety guy....you should know to call 911 if there is a serious accident/injury.
No matter where stations are located or where an accident occurs, it is the responsibility of the dispatcher to get the nearest emergency services to you....the safety guy at a remote location/ski patrol at Big White....neither of you have a say in where the services are to be dispatched from.

The Big White area is certainly not the only spot in BC where logging activity occurs in remote locations...and your industry has faced the same dilemma for as long as logging has existed here.
There are many areas of our province that are a lot more remote than this....and it's simply not realistic to think that ambulances or emergency services can be stationed within an hour of everyone at any given time.

LoneWolf_53 wrote:
Might be an argument in some cases, but not where a provincial service is involved.

They pay taxes in BC and their ambulance has been moved to town.

I'll use the people who live at Sun Peaks as an example, they have been paying property taxes for years, and they get their ambulance from Kamloops, which is 55 kms away. BCAS just wants to make sure nobody is receiving special treatment, because really why should they?

bigtdawg wrote:

LoneWolf_53 wrote:
Might be an argument in some cases, but not where a provincial service is involved.

They pay taxes in BC and their ambulance has been moved to town.

I'll use the people who live at Sun Peaks as an example, they have been paying property taxes for years, and they get their ambulance from Kamloops, which is 55 kms away. BCAS just wants to make sure nobody is receiving special treatment, because really why should they?

Does Sun Peaks not also have the helicopter stationed much closer to it in Kamloops? If so not a fair comparison.

Of course call 911. I just want to know where the nearest help is . If they are not at BigWhite then so be it. I don't care. I just want to know where they are and how long will it take to meet up with them.

LoneWolf_53 wrote:
Does Sun Peaks not also have the helicopter stationed much closer to it in Kamloops? If so not a fair comparison.

Why not? Does Big White not have a helicopter stationed closer to it in Kelowna ?
According to the BCAS web site they do.

janalta wrote:

LoneWolf_53 wrote:
Does Sun Peaks not also have the helicopter stationed much closer to it in Kamloops? If so not a fair comparison.

Why not? Does Big White not have a helicopter stationed closer to it in Kelowna ?
According to the BCAS web site they do.

If so then my mistake, I was simply going by what another person had posted which indicated the helicopter would have to come from Kamloops. I may have misunderstood.

Helicopter service is out of Kamloops.

Amarow121 wrote:Helicopter service is out of Kamloops.

380 KELOWNA (Airevac) Hangar 3 – 6095 Airport Way 380B1, 380B2

That would be out of Kelowna according to BCAS

The BCAS station 380, located at the airport does NOT use helicopters from that hangar, they use fixed wing aircraft only (i.e. airplanes). The closest helicopter that would be available to service Big White (weather permitting) would be Kamloops.

hmmm not such an expert i guess

Chmmr wrote:Add to all of that that the patrollers, both paid and volunteer, are not trained to transport patients in vehicles, they are trained to transport them off the mountain and out of immediate danger into a warm patrol hut. Most vehicles (with the exception of ambulances) are not set up to effectively provide medical care to a critical patient and allow them to be monitored safely (and safely for the patroller as well) and then add to that transporting things like oxygen, patients needing pain control for transport (imagine how painful a fracture femur is to be driven down the hill with-BCAS can give pain control, patrollers can't).

So I have to point out you are wrong on several points here. I mean, blatantly wrong.

Many of Big White's Pro-Patrollers are trained in OFA 3, which includes transport. I can also guarantee you maintaining a patients condition or LOC or what have you is 20 times harder on a toboggan going down a hill than it is in an Ambulance on a stationary bed. Trust me, they are capable.

Second point I wanted to make is that all of Big Whites Pro-Patrollers are trained by Peak Emergency Training in Advanced Protocols, so yes they can actually provide pain control. (The CSPS can not) Not that pain control is really on anybodies mind in a fractured femur scenario anyways unless it is closed and clean which they rarely are. A single femur fracture can be enough to cause a patient to lose more than half the blood needed to kill you, in less than an hour. See: http://www.peakemergencytraining.com/Tr ... ramAP.aspx

They are trained and regularly tested on things like femur fractures and in fact, it's easily one of their most practiced scenarios.

This really has next to nothing to do with Big White Ski Patrol however. This has everything to do with a poor decision being made and above-all an unfortunate one that may very easily cost a life before it is rectified. Ambulance Service is not BWSR's responsibility.

Also as far as helicopter evacuations are concerned, the give-or-take ETA for a Helicopter to BWSR is about an hour and there are no guarantees one is always available.

I was suggesting that because many rich people go to big white, that they would be the ones to complain about the lack of service up there, squeaky wheel gets the grease, and they seem to do a lot of squeaking.

I have skied there since I was 3. Since I was in my early teens I saved money every year to buy my own pass and equipment. I am the furthest thing from rich, but I love skiing. Please don't pretend like it's some super luxurious activity that only the 1% can partake in. If you choose to spend all your money on cable and internet bills, booze, or cigarettes, and that makes you happy, good for you. Me, I like skiing.

theyeti wrote:hmmm not such an expert i guess

Don't recall ever stating I was an expert?
In fact, I did not state anything, but actually asked if there was not helicopter service out of Kelowna.
Their web site said AirVac....yes, I assumed that was a heli and not a fixed wing, since I don't really know exactly what good a plane is in emergency rescue. ( except for transferring patients between large centers )

According to several of the outraged posters here, the ambulance at Big White responded to hundreds of calls on a regular basis and was an essential service, without which, many lives would be lost.
According to BCAS...121 calls were dispatched to Big White last season. Of the 121 calls in Big White, 14 (12%) were urgent calls and the remaining 107 calls (88%) were not urgent.
14 people that actually required urgent medical care....not hundreds. 107 that a wait for an ambulance from another station would have been just as effective ( or transport down the hill without an ambulance )
There were also 65 calls in Kelowna and surrounding areas for which the ambulance at Big White was needed...meaning an extended response time for those patients.

The ambulance station was moved, not to penalize the people at Big White, but because numbers did not support the service.

u said 2 dollars an hr was plenty enuff said

janalta wrote:In fact, I did not state anything, but actually asked if there was not helicopter service out of Kelowna.
Their web site said AirVac....yes, I assumed that was a heli and not a fixed wing, since I don't really know exactly what good a plane is in emergency rescue. ( except for transferring patients between large centers )

Yes 380 is primarily for moving patients between facilities, and is all fixed wing.

kodadog wrote:The BCAS station 380, located at the airport does NOT use helicopters from that hangar, they use fixed wing aircraft only (i.e. airplanes). The closest helicopter that would be available to service Big White (weather permitting) would be Kamloops.

I guess I didn't misunderstand after all. Sun Peaks is in close proximity to helicopter service whereas Big White is not.