Guy got lucky. (And check the pics!)Looks like the pole pierced his skin, skated around his ribs, and came out the other side. And then, this brass-balled mofo walks ten miles out of the boonies because he doesn’t wanna pay for a helicopter.
If something unpleasant happens to me at the Beta SIte the absolute best I can hope for is a 40-minute truck ride to the interstate and then another 45 minutes to town. However, there’s a spot just big enough for a helicopter to land about a mile away from the property. As it turns out, you can buy ‘airlift insurance’ since most insurance plans don’t cover the $15k+ that it costs to get LifeFlighted outta the sticks. For $85 a year, it seemed like a good idea.
However, depending on the nature of the injury, I’d probably bundle myself into the truck and do my best to drive out.
Put here, lots of people have life flight insurance, I should really get it.
There are two companies (that I know of) in the area and I’m not sure which to go with.
Our local hospital is only for minor things, but at least we have one – county supported; there is a line on our property taxes for it.
+1 on Medivac insurance. I don’t know the cost in my area now. A few years ago, it was 10k as soon as they were airborne and it escalated quickly from there.
Oddly, I border a national park; and a local National Guard helicopter unit does the medivacs out of the park. I’m not sure they charge for that. Their birds are equipped to winch Stokes baskets out of areas where they can’t land and they have a medic on board.
They’re great as long as the wind isn’t blowing, or other climate issues don’t complicate things.
Seems like the next time you rent some equipment, you may consider clearing a flat spot to land a helicopter that is a bit less than a mile hike. That is, if you’re going to pay the money for the helicopter coverage option on your insurance.
So you have a super awesome medical supply kit Everything you could possibly need for anything short of a life flight and trauma surgeon is in your pack.
Congratulations. Now practice getting to the pack and using it with one arm, one hand, one leg, uphill or downhill, through brush, at night, in cold temps, or blazing heat.
You have anywhere from one minute to one hour.
Begin.
Exactly.
I also recommend buying something like a Garmin InReach and paying for the subscription annually. Press two buttons and help is on the way – you can settle the bill later if you live, or blow it off otherwise.
If you have a T-mobile carrier Iphone you might have similar capabilities with Starlink, but it requires more fine motor skills. Because of that my goto GPS unit is a Garmin 710i, the ‘i’ is for InReach.
And it sits right next to my IFAK, with hopefully suitable equipment and drugs for any eventuality that might be needed. And it’s carried on my centerline, in front, accessible by either hand
Even if you have, but not recently. But especially if you haven’t; enroll in a course at StopTheBleed.org.
They do offer online courses. I haven’t tried an online course and my personal preference is in person.
Highly recommend STB courses, for everyone. Far more practical in todays world than a CPR course.
Beware flight insurance. It is NOT insurance. It is not regulated by any government agency. And it only covers flight on their member companies. I stupidly bought a 5 year plan some years back, only to find that my local hospital used a different company and the “insurance” (really just a sales contract) would not have paid a cent if local EMS had called for a life flight.
Such a better story than getting rescued by the helicopter.
Gotta say, having a selfie of yourself walking around looking like an extra from “300” with a spear through you…….pretty cool.
A distinction that is better in the telling, than the doing, I bet.
Beware of stabby things – I’ve carried people off of mountains that stabbed themselves with branches, ski poles, and a few ice axes.
I’ve set up LZ’s for CASEVAC here in my home state. There are actually some pretty informative classes for First Responders on how to do it right (it’s not a 9-line!).
One of the things I learned was if you call it in and they send Life Flight or another commercial lifter, it start at 10 grand and then goes up from there. However, if the send the State Police helicopter, the charge is around $200.
As to when you send a helicopter….it varies. The Incident Commander usually can make the call. However, certain calls -automatically- trigger a flight unless waived off by the IC. Anything involving entrapment, helicopter. Motorcycle v. car/truck, helicopter.
When I tangled with a car while on my motorcycle I called it in from the shoulder of the road I was lying on and the second thing I said to dispatch (after my location) was “don’t send a helicopter!”.
NurseDaddy
My son got helivac’d (heat exhaustion) and for some reason the Sheriff’s office didn’t charge him. Then my nephew got airlifted after snapping his leg pretty badly snow skiing and the ride was $46k! We had a $750 max out of pocket with company insurance, so they had to eat it and they were not happy.
I would get MedJet for $100 for 7 days coverage on cross country motorcycle rides. Seemed like a good idea and knock on wood never had to use it.
MedJet Assist and GlobalRescue seem to be the big names in the business. I have no criteria to recommend one or the other, however a student of mine in the Caribbean (40-ish nurse attending medical school) needed it when she developed appendiceal cancer and needed to be evac’d back to California.
For around a buck a day (now) it seemed a deal – she had to be helicoptered to the big island, then medevacked to California for right around a quarter-million dollars.
Glad she was able to get through it, pretty harsh wake up call. The yearly cost is pretty low. One also has to consider the out of network costs, depending on the health care plan, those can get pretty steep pretty fast.
Anymore I hardly leave the house, but if I ever do go out of state it seems like cheap insurance.
They also seem to have short-term plans, too
I know someone, about 3 years ago, had a fall. Fractured pelvis. Helicopter ride of about 100 miles.
Bill for that ride? $80,000. No feces.
A few years ago I was back ‘home’ in Los Angeles, and got T-boned by some kid (100% his fault).
Ride to the hospital via a LA (city) fire department BLS ambulance? $1990. Approximately 1.4 miles away. Insurance covered the entire bill except for a $90 emergency room copay, what with radiographs and CT-scan, and the two damned ibuprofen they gave me, came to a tidy sum of around $10k
Any ambulance is an expensive way to travel. And an emergency room is the most expensive medical care available
…if you are going to pay for it…
(not that I’m thinking of Our Diversity, or anything like that…)
When I was practicing clinical medicine approximately 1/3 of my patients refused to pay – which cost me more money since I had to pretend to try and recover, with collections agents, factoring, etc… It varied year to year, but would range between 28 and 35% non payment, with no real distinction between the big cities and small towns.
And it was like a game for far too many of them. Even with government programs to pay (medicaid, for example) some patients just liked putting it over on the man and not paying. Of course most of their problems were at least exacerbated by their own actions, if not caused (smoking, alcohol, bad diet and sedentary lifestyles, drugs, etc)
Well, guess what? Somebody pays….