Eating Dirt: Adventures and Yarns from New Zealand's Action Man by Gurney Steve

Author:Gurney, Steve [Steve Gurney]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781869799687
Publisher: Random House New Zealand
Published: 2012-08-10T16:00:00+00:00

25 November

In the morning Moffatt was hobbling even worse. Gavin, Scotty, Hugh and Sandy, all experienced mountaineers, simultaneously suspected frostbite. I felt terrible that I’d not taken more notice last night. What a mean bastard I was, dismissing the poor bugger as if he were a small child and hoping any annoyance would be gone by morning. Adventure mates look out for each other’s backs — and toes. I’d betrayed the trust we’d built between us, and I despaired that I’d never get it back.

Moffatt was a tough old boot. He’d not complained once during the trip out, even though his toes must’ve been giving him serious gyp on those rocks. Frostbite is a serious problem that needs to be respected. In freezing conditions, blood vessels close to the skin constrict, and blood flow is reserved for essential organs, thus potentially killing the tissue at extremities of the body where there has been little or no blood flow. There are four degrees of frostbite. The first degree is called frostnip and this only affects the surface skin, which is frozen. If freezing continues, it becomes second degree, where the skin may freeze and harden, but the deep tissues are not affected. The skin generally blisters one to two days after becoming frozen.

If the area freezes further, you get third- and fourth-degree frostbite where the muscles, tendons, blood vessels and nerves all freeze. The skin is marked by areas of blood-filled purplish blisters that turn black. Nerves are damaged and extreme frostbite can necessitate amputation of fingers and toes if the area becomes infected with gangrene. In untreated frostbite, they may even fall off.

Suddenly the remainder of the trip was in doubt. This could be the end of our expedition. We would look foolish, foolhardy even, naive at the very least, not to have taken more care. It was a black mark on my professionalism as an adventurer. Our Hermitage hotel room transformed into a makeshift field hospital as we strapped yet more bandages onto Moffatt. Collectively and unanimously we decided to get expert medical opinion. Hugh and Sandy knew of the perfect doctor for the job, Dick Price, also a respected mountaineer and a world expert on frostbite. However, it was unlikely he would be available as he’s usually off on expeditions as the medical expert. It would have been perfect, too, because his practice was just two hours down the road in Timaru. We made a phone call just in case he happened to be there and we were in luck.

Dr Price has undertaken first ascents of peaks in New Zealand and Tibet, as well a successful ascent of Mt Everest in 1997. He’s had a key medical role on many expeditions, instruction courses, searches, and alpine and cliff rescues, including the 14-day search and rescue operation when mountaineers Mark Inglis and Phil Doole became trapped on Aoraki Mt Cook in 1982, and subsequently lost their lower legs to frostbite. He’s the medical adviser to the New Zealand Naval

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.