Does this really happen and if yes what are you supposed to do?!

[cheeseandworcestershireontoast]

Have any of you watched One of Us? I’m on the first episode, a man flips his car and is very injured in the middle of the night. It’s in the Scottish Highlands and there’s a huge storm so the air ambulance can’t come and the ambulance will take hours to get there.

I’m probably (definitely ) going to sound very stupid and naive but what on earth are you meant to do if something like this actually happens? I’ve always lived near to big cities so hadn’t even considered this...

Are there any of you who live very remotely and would care to share what you have to do in a medical emergency?

I live in semi-rural Australia so this sort of thing is a possibility you're always aware of.

Especially during bush fire season when the emergency services are pressed for vehicles.

We've got an escape plan in case of bush fire...we also know how to deal with a snake bite...what to do if that happens I mean.

I know how to do basic first aid but that's all. In the event of a big injury where someone was losing a lot of blood, you might be buggered.

I mean...I could crack out my sewing box...

You do the best you can with the knowledge, people and supplies you have available!

I suppose you just wait. If you’re very injured what else can you do?

Yes - this does happen and you don't have to be very far outside a city or major town.

I live in a small village about 5 miles outside Reading - not what anyone would call remote. Two instances in the last 2 years, all pre-covid. Biker collision, knocked out, nasty shoulder injury. Ambulance advised us not to move him. Ambulance 3 hours to arrive, after a call from passing police car (we don't see these too often either) to chase them up.

second one, neighbour slipped on ice, fell and hit her head, again knocked out. Ambulance service again advised not to move her. After 3 hours, we got her in a car to A&E. She was starting to get confused and sleepy - didn't know if it was the head injury or hypothermia. Fortunately it was hypothermia.

We have a service called 'Rapid Responders' - basically a group of volunteers trained in first aid plus a bit. They have 4x4 car equipped with various bits of kit. They are organised through the Ambulance /999 services but they weren't called on by the Ambulance is either case.

It's just another example of how life between town/ city and countryside is very different.

A relative lives in a remote part of Scotland. When he broke his ankle it took 14 hours for treatment.

In some areas there are voluntary groups for search and rescue (generally used to search for missing persons etc) that have first aider and sometimes a first responder or someone with more casualty care experience that would be contacted by the police to assist in the meantime.

I had a friend (in wheelchair) & this scenario is how he ended up as a wheelchair user. He said he was just grateful to have been found & survived, his accident happened on a remote desert highway. He doesn't remember waking up in the car, only in hospital.

In the example you give in the OP - mountain rescue teams and the RAF search and rescue helicopter?

I think you just wait and hope that your injuries aren't so serious that you won't survive for several hours before getting treatment.

Actually came across such an accident last year. Scottish highlands (central, not very remote), motorbike crashed into a car, motorcyclist trapped under bike (conscious and groaning in pain), small fire. Well-used road so people on hand to call the emergency services immediately. We drove past (not my decision) and kept an eye out for emergency vehicles heading towards the crash.

We had driven for 20 minutes when a fire engine went past. 35 minutes and a paramedic car. 50 minutes and an ambulance. Assuming they were all heading to the same accident, and assuming they would take about the same time to reach the scene as we taken to drive away, the ambulance might have arrived 1hr 40 minutes after the accident. Add on time for treatment at scene and transfer to hospital, and you're looking at several hours before arriving at hospital.

I think it would make an effective warning campaign against speeding - put up signs saying "Average time for an ambulance to reach this location: 1.5 hours".

I think us townies are so used to expecting emergency services to turn up within a few minutes that we don't realise that much (most?) of the country is not so quickly accessible. And the increase in response time isn't just ten or twenty minutes, it can be more than an hour.

I live in the Highlands of Scotland

First, some local passer by would stop to offer assistance, routine in rural communities here..

In an emergency we dial 999 and ask for the appropriate service. Police, Fire and Rescue, Ambulance, or Coastguard.

Every community has a team of first-aid trained volunteers called "First Responders" with their own transport and access to the nearest defibrillator. They may be the first arrivals at a remote rural incident. Emergency services can arrive by road or by helicopter (or boat, Coastguard) and patients evacuated to hospital by helicopter. In remote areas all the emergency services work in tandem and spend a lot of time practising co-ordinated response.

I watched the Highland Midwife, one lady who had quick labours was advised to make her way to hospital at her first contraction as it would take ages to get to hospital or for a midwife to get to her.
She gave birth on the roadside in the end an ambulance had to meet them halfway.

@Plumpcious

I think it would make an effective warning campaign against speeding - put up signs saying "Average time for an ambulance to reach this location: 1.5 hours".

What a brilliant idea!

@2bazookas

I live in the Highlands of Scotland

First, some local passer by would stop to offer assistance, routine in rural communities here..

In an emergency we dial 999 and ask for the appropriate service. Police, Fire and Rescue, Ambulance, or Coastguard.

Every community has a team of first-aid trained volunteers called "First Responders" with their own transport and access to the nearest defibrillator. They may be the first arrivals at a remote rural incident. Emergency services can arrive by road or by helicopter (or boat, Coastguard) and patients evacuated to hospital by helicopter. In remote areas all the emergency services work in tandem and spend a lot of time practising co-ordinated response.

^ This.

I’m a first responder - called on a couple of times a year. I used to volunteer with Mountain Rescue too.

Thanks for the responses everybody, really interesting to hear about how it works.

and for @Worst for being one of the wonderful volunteers who helps to keep those living rurally safe. How did you end up getting involved, do you have a medical background or were you just interested in helping out?

Also agree that the speeding sign would be a good deterrent! Can’t imagine how terrifying it would be lying there knowing medical help may not reach you for such a long time.

@FortunesFave your sewing box comment - I was thinking along those lines when I made this thread! I was pondering if I was in a very remote place and someone had an injury that would likely kill them before anybody arrived, would I have a bloody clue how I could try and alleviate it?

Thinking about it has made me want to do a first aid course.

My experience of rural communities is that they are quite good at helping each other in an emergency. I agree that anyone passing would stop. If you could get to a farm or something I would ask for help there.

Our local doctors surgery will provide emergency help, they will organise helicopter or air ambulance to take serious cases to hospital, often we have a better service than some experience on the mainland, plane can get you to hospital in just under an hour, some folk in cities have to wait longer for ambulance to arrive! We do have to leave at 38 weeks pregnant and find accommodation on mainland to wait for baby as they really don't want an emergency labour evacuation by plane/helicopter.

We’re also pretty rural - it really hadn’t occurred to me until we moved out here that the air ambulance don’t fly at night🙈. The ambulance service do however have responders (on motorbikes & in 4x4s) dotted around the County on standby....Luckily we have a few nurses and a doctor who live nearby so I’d def get one of them over if needs be and when I did have to call for help in a emergency the ambulance only took 20mins which was a huge relief in the circs....though I had to station a waving child at the end of the drive so they could find us...

Thats part of the balance isn't it? We live in boring suburbia in a little box with almost no garden and huge local schools but there are 2 major hospitals with A&E departments within a 20mins drive.

In the US most fire departments have trained EMTs and are often the first responders to incidents like this. In more urban settings EMTs are often a separate organization and provide prehospital care in communication with A&E staff.

There are some parts of the US that are so remote that the only emergency medical response is by helicopter.

I would add that it’s very mundane and not at all dramatic most of the time. I’m not at all brave, and it’s just a thing people do. I started volunteering with St John’s Ambulance in my teens after doing a first aid course, moved on to mountain rescue in my 20s, them by default became a first responder in my 30s. The local defibrillator is in the side of my house 😅

Honestly most of the time it is really basic first aid, situation control, and relaying information clearly to the dispatcher (those people are epic). You do get a rush of adrenaline after you’ve handed off to the proper emergency services, but mostly it’s quite matter of fact. Emergency services though....those guys do amazing things day in and day out. (And I should add my mountain rescue role was supporting and fairly minor. ome of it is pretty hardcore, particularly depending on the area you are in. I certainly wouldn’t want to minimise what some folks do just because I didn’t IYSWIM).

I’d also agree with the comments about ambulances in cities. In fact the most dramatic responses I’ve had have been when travelling for work. I had to give CPR for ages in the centre of London, solo extract a casualty through the boot of a petrol covered inverted car on the edge of Edinburgh (ES were delayed 1hr plus due to multiple issues), and deal with initial response for multiple casualties in a pile up on the motorway near Manchester. By contrast, first response tends to be shaken up people with bumps and grazes, and mountain rescue was mostly dealing with people who were just lost and tired, hypothermia, broken collar bones and ankles, and the occasional relatively minor heart attack.

I'm rural aus
For our town of 1000, we have 1 ambulance that services a good few hundred km radius so if you need it, better hope your the only one. If it's bad they will send out the helicopter to get you to city. 2 weeks ago it took 3 hours to get the ambo to a town 40 mins away.

We know how to at very least stabilise say a bad cut, suspected broken bone, keep them still, in a recovery position type stuff. As a young kid I held the pressure on my younger brothers head while my dad drove him to hospital a couple towns away, he had split it falling of the roof. Several tea towels lost to blood that day.
We have a few first aid kits around, house, on our boat, smaller car one
Most farms round here have their own fire trucks, like an old farm truck with huge water tank. Schools have bushfire plans. 2 years ago dd school was evacuated to town oval cos of a bushfire.

Some parts of aus there is only the flying Dr. Literally a plane, you gotta get to air strip and on stations they have their own, back of a Ute is ambulance