Will Stanhope

MPwrote:

Fair point.
Counterpoint would be-- if I were his (grieving) belayer, would I really tell people "I let my partner lead a 5.11 trad climb in the rain drunk?" Like, that's a pretty heavy thing to verbalize, and the sort detail that no one really has an incentive to share.

Pretty sad of you to put guilt on anyone 

https://www.climbing.com/news/will-stanhope-dies-in-accident-squamish/

Article about the accident from the perspective of his climbing partner at the time

Judging by the partner's account, SAR really screwed this one up. His partner clearly knew what she was doing and diagnosed what way the situation was heading long before SAR did. 

It's ironic that after all the speculation on this thread (climbing drunk, etc) that it's the rescuers that appear to be the most at fault.

I hope this becomes a case study for first responders and SAR teams for when dealing with head injuries. Dropping him off at the parking lot rather than the hospital after his condition was clearly deteriorating is next level negligence/cheapness. 

That’s a bit harsh dude. The SÁR team didn’t head up slabby 5.11 in the rain with no helmets, if you’re trying to hand out a ‘most at fault’ award. 

The article did a great job clarifying online speculations. Leon, the partner, offered an honest account from what I can tell. She could have conveniently skipped over her own contribution to the decision making and no one would know. And she relived the traumatic event to give what she can to the community. Respect!

Unrelated. https://www.removepaywall.com/

Alexey Zelditchwrote:

Only mountainproject can make the list of bastards, who talk shit about recently deceased human in climbing accident

Discussing a disease is not talking shit. Substance abuse is a disease and we should not consider someone suffering from that disease to be a bad or somehow flawed person. 

By an alcoholic's late 30's the disease is in full bloom.  While calling a sick person a "drunk" is equally insensitive, discussing to probability that his disease played a part in the accident is completely appropriate to this thread.

>  Dropping him off at the parking lot rather than the hospital after his condition was clearly deteriorating is next level negligence/cheapness.

Not all helicopters provide ALS, and not all helicopters can land at hospitals. Usually those that do can't do a wilderness rescue. So it is fairly often that you would transfer a patient from a hoist capable helicopter to an ambulance or medical helicopter, depending on what's available. Availability of helicopters is a whole other issue, particularly on a stormy day.

Thank you for the links. I often climb without a helmet and this article is sure to make me reconsider this approach.

The article documents a slew of bad decision-making giving good cause for all parties to reflect on what led to this tragedy.

Basically, it seems everyone involved made errors that in cumulative effect probably had significant consequences.

However, it is just as true, that no one can point to any single error, other than the judgment to climb that route, that day, as definitively the cause of Will's death as he tragically passed away some days after surgery.

For those responding to a scene of an accident if you have a head injured individual that is either comatose or is experiencing a worsening mental alertness, then they need to be evacuated to the nearest medical facility as soon as possible (one that can provide emergency surgery to relieve intracranial pressure). Insist that this be done as you may be saving their life.

Demand that (if the option exists) that the patient be safely medevacked by air to that nearest receiving facility or whatever means is the fastest possible. Time before treatment would have been a very significant component to the severity of the ultimate degree of brain injury incurred if Will had survived. I am well aware of the pressures all involved would be under to not waste resources etc but I am also well aware of the consequences such decisions can make when dealing with a closed head injury. Do not delay evaluation and treatment by those with real training and experience. Do not care if anyone thinks you are being overdramatic demanding all means be utilized to affect a rapid evacuation

You can limp out all kinds of extremity injuries. But time is essential in treating the Trauma Patient that has received blunt trauma to abdomen, chest or head as anyone familiar with the "Golden Hour" well knows. Don't let anyone downstream of a Neurosurgeon decide whether a head injured patient that is deteriorating should be medevacked by the quickest possible means or not. I can tell you 100% that any NS would demand that his patient be brought to him/her as soon as humanly possible in this situation as it has been presented. A survivor's ability to regain normal function (if at all) hangs in the balance as well as their life.

That is not to say at all that SAR was at fault for the ultimate outcome, just that their procedures/use of resources during this emergency (under tremendous pressure) could use review, imo. Other factors beyond anyone's control ultimately decided Will's fate. Better decisions at the start of the day (where have ambitious climbers heard that before?) would have likely led to a safe day on the crags. But ultimately, the decision to "be totally safe" would leave us on the couch, wouldn't it?

It's just a plain tragedy all around. Hopefully we can learn from this and honor Will by doing so.

John Tuttlewrote:

That is not to say that SAR was at fault for the ultimate outcome. Other factors beyond anyone's control ultimately decided Will's fate. Better decisions at the start of the day (where have ambitious climbers heard that before?) would have likely led to a safe day on the crags. But ultimately, the decision to "be safe" would leave us on the couch, wouldn't it?

It's just a plain tragedy all around. Hopefully we can learn from this and honor Will by doing so.

Totally agree with this. Judging by what's available in the article, it seems that SAR may have made a series of bad decisions. But those were downstream of the bad decisions made by the climbing party itself. 

Gregory right points out all helos don't provide ALS or can land on hospitals, and bureaucracy on these things can be byzantine, but it's still bad either way as they almost certainly could have at least bent the rules to have arranged for an ambulance pickup closer to the hospital. It's also very bad for a local SAR team to take an hour to figure out that they need a helo evac *after* having reached the victim. If you're the the SAR team leader, you should know immediately upon assessing the injured whether you'd need to call in air support, as you *just ascended the approach.* Moreover, the climbing partner made clear to the emergency responders that Will's condition was rapidly deteriorating and it was due to a blow to the head.

I have the greatest respect for SAR teams, but they aren't infallible as this instance makes clear. Self-reflection is called for all involved. 

The transfer to the ambulance is SOP for some of the helicopters. They don't all have life supporting  gear and personel on board. Sounds like the initial response was slow. Not wearing a lid and climbing in the rain..   it's super easy to be complacent when roped up on a route you have soloed... it's also pretty easy to get dead by being complacent..

Rescue time flow, edited  from the linked article -

Ten minutes after the fall, the two climbers were at the base of Rutabaga, where Leon called 911. 

As Leon communicated with emergency services, Stanhope grew increasingly disoriented. Around 20 minutes after his fall, he began messing with his ear, as though he was trying to pop it or dig out an earplug. “I started to get really concerned about brain pressure and internal bleeding,” Leon said. 

The first responders asked Leon if she could carry Stanhope down to the parking lot on her own, which she said would be impossible. “They were having a hard time understanding the trails to get to us,” she said. “But he’s six foot, I’m five-three. There was no way.” 

 The approach hike is only 15 minutes long, Leon said, but is fairly technical. Given Stanhope’s condition, a ground retrieval wasn’t a good idea. “I said to the girl, ‘Look, I can’t get him out,’” she recalled. “‘I’m holding him still and
I need to keep him in one place. I also have a clear view of the sky for heli-access. This needs to be a heli evac.’”

Fifty minutes after the fall, first responders and search and rescue professionals arrived at the crag on foot. Stanhope’s cranial swelling began to worsen. He remained conscious, but grew increasingly disoriented. 

First responders initially wanted to carry Stanhope down in a litter, but soon after they arrived, his vital signs began decreasing. So they switched their plan and called for a helicopter. “From the time he fell until the helicopter arrived, it was about three hours,” Leon said. 

This helicopter, however, did not take Stanhope directly to the hospital. Instead, it dropped him off in the parking lot. Then responders loaded him into an ambulance and drove him to the hospital, which took another hour. “It was a four-hour window before he was in surgery,” Leon explained. 

It’s unclear why first responders didn’t call a helicopter sooner, or didn’t take Stanhope directly to the hospital in the helicopter once it arrived. “Their excuse was that they called the heli after deciding the trail was too technical,” Leon said. “But, anybody could have hiked up and known in 10 minutes if the trail was too technical to carry him down. It took them an hour to process that, and then it took another hour to get the heli out."

I once was the first person to respond to a partner who decked while trying to aid solo a new line. Similar to the above, the responding ambulance crew refused to even descend the short 5 minute approach trail to see if they could carry him out on their litter. My mistake was to, truthfully, say he had no apparent head injury. As a result, 5 ambulance guys sat up by their vehicle smoking cigarettes for several hours as I walked up and down begging them to check him out - they refused to ever walk down, just repeating that as there was no head injury, they would not respond as it would be an unacceptable risk to their staff to walk an unpaved trail. When I asked whether internal bleeding wasn't a reason to try to do anything, they still wouldn't walk down to look at him. It took about 3 hours for the local search and rescue team to reach him, and another 2-3 to get him out on a litter. This was all within 100 yards, as the crow flies, of a major state highway. The lesson: always say a head injury is involved.

This whole tale is sad and frightening.

Mike Larsonwrote:

Totally agree with this. Judging by what's available in the article, SAR made a series of bad decisions. But those were downstream of the bad decisions made by the climbing party itself. 

Gregory right points out all helos don't provide ALS or can land on hospitals, and bureaucracy on these things can be byzantine, but it's still bad either way as they almost certainly could have at least bent the rules to have arranged for an ambulance pickup closer to the hospital. It's also very bad for a local SAR team to take an hour to figure out that they need a helo evac *after* having reached the victim. If you're the the SAR team leader, you should know immediately upon assessing the injured whether you'd need to call in air support, as you *just ascended the approach.* Moreover, the climbing partner made clear to the emergency responders that Will's condition was rapidly deteriorating and it was due to a blow to the head.

I have the greatest respect for SAR teams, but they aren't infallible as this instance makes clear. Self-reflection is called for all involved. 

Mike, do you work on a a rescue helicopter of some kind? You're making a lot of assertions that appear to be assumptions from how I'm reading your posts, but maybe you have different experience than I do? 

I work on a life flight helicopter in the US. I'm sure there are some differences between here and Canada but I bet the majority of things are the same. I can see a whole bunch of plausible reasons why the heli-ops side of this went the way it did and can share that "bending the rules" is absolutely not an option in any regard when it comes to helicopters and rescues. Breaking from protocols kills people, it's not even arguable. There's a whole history of accidents that have resulted from breaking protocol in HEMS and as such, you follow the protocol, period, even if it means the patient dies. It's an uncomfortable business to live in a lot of times.

EDIT TO ADD: A very BIG and unanswered question regarding the whole thing is "What was the weather and the skies like?" We know the accident happened due to rain. Helicopters and rain clouds tend not to mix well in rescue situations. The SAR crew may have been making decisions based on weather and knowing the current availability of an air asset, the helicopter crew would be making their own and completely separate risk assessment. This information has likely been relayed poorly as details in the aftermath because they aren't concerned with how people are going to break down their response on Mountain Project. 

This whole finger pointing at SAR based on the few details that we who were not there have, is a bit much. There's a LOT you don't know if you weren't on the operation and a lot you'll never know if you weren't there in real time. Trying to critique from afar is largely pointless unless you're speaking directly with the responders and incident commander. All other information will be lacking and leave you to jump to improper conclusions. 

"Mike, do you work on a a rescue helicopter of some kind? You're making a lot of assertions that appear to be assumptions from how I'm reading your posts, but maybe you have different experience than I do?"  But the somewhat disgruntled climbing partner who was interviewed by Climbing regarding the rescue operation is a certified "life coach".

Dow Williamswrote:

But the somewhat disgruntled climbing partner who was interviewed by Climbing regarding the rescue operation is a certified "life coach".

Yes, agreed. Truamatized accident victims are always the most accurate source of information regarding the intricacies of SAR actions that were happening around them at the time. *sarcasm

NateCwrote:

EDIT TO ADD: A very BIG and unanswered question regarding the whole thing is "What was the weather and the skies like?" We know the accident happened due to rain. Helicopters and rain clouds tend not to mix well in rescue situations. The SAR crew may have been making decisions based on weather and knowing the current availability of an air asset, the helicopter crew would be making their own and completely separate risk assessment. This information has likely been relayed poorly as details in the aftermath because they aren't concerned with how people are going to break down their response on Mountain Project. 

This whole finger pointing at SAR based on the few details that we who were not there have, is a bit much. There's a LOT you don't know if you weren't on the operation and a lot you'll never know if you weren't there in real time. Trying to critique from afar is largely pointless unless you're speaking directly with the responders and incident commander. All other information will be lacking and leave you to jump to improper conclusions. 

From the Climbing article:

Climbing reached out to Squamish Search and Rescue on April 29, but has not yet received a response.

It would be great if a report by Squamish SAR was released as it would help clarify things. It is not uncommon for SAR teams in Southwest BC to post task debriefs on their social media, however, there was no account of this operation AFAIK.

NateCwrote:

Mike, do you work on a a rescue helicopter of some kind? You're making a lot of assertions that appear to be assumptions from how I'm reading your posts, but maybe you have different experience than I do? 

I work on a life flight helicopter in the US. I'm sure there are some differences between here and Canada but I bet the majority of things are the same. I can see a whole bunch of plausible reasons why the heli-ops side of this went the way it did and can share that "bending the rules" is absolutely not an option in any regard when it comes to helicopters and rescues. Breaking from protocols kills people, it's not even arguable. There's a whole history of accidents that have resulted from breaking protocol in HEMS and as such, you follow the protocol, period, even if it means the patient dies. It's an uncomfortable business to live in a lot of times.

EDIT TO ADD: A very BIG and unanswered question regarding the whole thing is "What was the weather and the skies like?" We know the accident happened due to rain. Helicopters and rain clouds tend not to mix well in rescue situations. The SAR crew may have been making decisions based on weather and knowing the current availability of an air asset, the helicopter crew would be making their own and completely separate risk assessment. This information has likely been relayed poorly as details in the aftermath because they aren't concerned with how people are going to break down their response on Mountain Project. 

This whole finger pointing at SAR based on the few details that we who were not there have, is a bit much. There's a LOT you don't know if you weren't on the operation and a lot you'll never know if you weren't there in real time. Trying to critique from afar is largely pointless unless you're speaking directly with the responders and incident commander. All other information will be lacking and leave you to jump to improper conclusions. 

Fine post Nate and I would like to second that we have no real information as to what the decision making was at the time only the impressions of Will's partner.

Weather windows opening and closing can play a huge role, capabilities of the team onsite plus that of the helo and its availability etc.

There are many helicopters that can move a basket a brief distance to a waiting critical care ambulance but that is very different than a true life flight helicopter that can bring the patient on board and provide critical care (ie airway management) on the way to the hospital. I am certain you are aware of this and that they brought the patient to a waiting ambulance was probably 100% indicated.

I'm pretty sure Yosemite is set up this way as the CHP helos cannot provide critical care, afaik, and a transfer must take place.

I want to apologize if my own posts suggested that there were errors made in this regard. I am sure a full review of the event will take place by all responders to see what could have been improved.

It does no good to transport patients that have lost control of their airway (are suffocating) in unattended baskets no matter how close the hospital seems to be. Protocol saves lives more than it harms and ultimately, we have to respect anyone that follows established guidelines under tremendous pressure. They are in place for very sound reasons that are not always apparent to those in a high emotional state.

At this point it is worth to remind what the belayer, judged to be disgruntled and not having a mountain project white old male approved profession, reported:

Accident happens
10 min later 911 call is placed. Belayer stresses head trauma, requests helo
50 min SAR gets to the incident site
Will's deteriorating condition convinces SAR to stop ground evac and call helo
~3h helo gets to the site
~4h Will is at the hospital.

Are you MP sofa experts judging her for this statement?

“Their excuse was that they called the heli after deciding the trail was too technical,” Leon said. “But, anybody could have hiked up and known in 10 minutes if the trail was too technical to carry him down. It took them an hour to process that, and then it took another hour to get the heli out. So, there was a bit of a fuck up.”