Crash at Deer Creak 4/10/10

[Robb]

RaeLynn is working a water stop for the Mulholland challange today and called to say a helecopter just took a paraglider pilot to the hospital on a backboard. She thought the wing that crashed was orange or red on top, and the other pilot landed safely. No further info on injuries or who the pilot was.
Robb

[bilsalak]

That was me.

I was being pretty lame that day and was chasing lift that I was wishing would be there rather than flying conservative and keeping my clearance. In retrospect all the signs were there to tell me I should be giving a little more room than usual but I was too eager to work the lift to listen to EVERYTHING the conditions were saying. I was only paying attention to half the information. I tried to follow some fast moving lift by tucking in closer to the hill but ended up finding a big pocket of sink when the lift bubble let go of me. My turn away from the hill only partially completed before I got dropped into the side of the mountain on my ass. It dropped me out too fast for me to realize my flight was over until I was on the ground.

Helicopter got me off the slope and to an ambulance waiting on launch. I didn't feel that bad so I refused the ride and Deermaster took me home in my car. My wife got me to the ER from there and I spent the weekend in CCU.

Turns out I have a busted up L1. Other than some soreness I feel fine. I chose to be in bed for 3 months rather than going with the option of installing hardware. If nothing moves over the next 30 days I should be ok.

Everybody like to speculate after an accident so let me be clear about this. I knew better and got hurt because I made a bad choice against everything I've learned about flying safe. 100% pilot stupidity.

Best,
Bill

[Robb]

Bill,
Thanks for the incident report. I'm a bit perplexed by one thing; you were busted up enough to require CCU and 3 months bed rest, but didn't take the ambulance. Did you not perceve any damage, so you decided to tough it out? What made you change your mind later?

I've heard stories of injured people being paralized because of wrong movement. I've also heard of pilots with broken backs hiking hours back to the road. I guess I'm wondering how do we determine when to ride the backboard to the emergency room, and when to go home and apply ice.

Glad you're still in the game,
Robb

[bilsalak]

I don't know that there is a way to make a safe call that you're alright for anyone who might be in that position in the future. I only know that at the time I was hurting but able to move all my parts and nothing was numb or tingling. If I hadn't been too sore to scramble up 200 ft of loose dirt on the side of the mountain I would have refused the helicopter ride.

By time I got to the ambulance I had made my decision that things weren't so bad and I was going to go home and let things heal up. By the time I got home my thinking had taken a more responsible turn and I figured it would be worth knowing nothing was seriously wrong instead of assuming. At that point my wife took me to the ER.

The ER staff kinda took it as lightly as I did because of how easy it was for me to move around until the xrays came back. At that point everyone was talking about surgery and they told me I had an unstable fracture, bone fragments floating around, blah, blah.

I talked to a neurosurgeon and told him I wanted to consider any non-surgical options that were available to me. He was very skeptical and said he didn't think I had any. Because I wasn't in any real pain they ordered an MRI but didn't put a rush on it. I was put into CCU at that point because of the perceived potential for things to get worse. They wanted to watch me very closely. I got an MRI the next day.

The neurosurgeon told me I was right on the edge of needing surgery and that 10 out of 10 of his colleagues would say to do it. We talked about the risk of surgery vs. the risk of staying still and letting the fractures heal up on their own and we both decided bed rest was the better option for me. I think we both thought that with the amount of moving around I had already done both outside and inside of the hospital that if something was going to move it probably would have by that point. I also wasn't in any significant pain and the doc and I shared our personal knowledge about how painful and debilitating the recovery from that type of surgery would be.

I got lucky all along the way. I put myself at greater risk by moving around and given that I was - and am - feeling pretty close to normal I gotta think that going by how you feel is not necessarily the best gauge. I have a fractured L1 with a piece of bone sticking into my spinal canal that is up against but not touching my spinal cord. If it had hit it - or does hit it - I will very likely lose some bodily functions that are very important to me.

As a last piece of info, the Ventura County Search and Rescue helicopter ride is free. The private ambulances are not. This weighed on my decisions at the time because I don't have insurance. I don't think it's worth taking the risk that I did to save a few bucks now that I know what I was risking. I could only go by how I felt at the time and as I found out later that was misleading.

[redfly]

I guess I'm wondering how do we determine when to ride the backboard to the emergency room, and when to go home and apply ice.

my take on this: if there is a risk of back injury, assume the worst. and assume it might get much worse by moving. call the professionals for rescue and have it checked out.

if you arrive on an accident scene: it sometimes takes some convincing by the first responders to keep the injured from moving around. insist on it. as for calling 911, just do it and don't listen to objections. as bill's account shows the patient might be misjudging their own state quite a bit.

i know that around here money can be an issue when it comes to search and rescue, but then you still have the option of organizing a back-board and a team somewhere while the patient is keeping quiet - it just takes longer, but at least you minimize the risk of making things seriously worse.