Honing their skills through mock backcountry rescues is something the fire district does annually as it prepares for the summer and winter recreation seasons.
Capt. Matt Provost said the team has averaged roughly three dozen rescues each year, but the number has increased substantially more recently as more people visit the area to explore. He says that’s because the Park City area has over 500 miles of trails and more are added every year.
“This is kind of the Mecca, you know, around this area,” he said. “Every year it increases a little bit more.”
Most rescues involve bikers, hikers or the occasional horseback rider.
They went through all their usual steps during Saturday’s mock rescue, starting at a fire district station near Kimball Junction.
The exercise began with Assistant Battalion Chief Sean Briley calling the district’s dispatch center to report a fake injury, along with location coordinates. Battalion Chief Max Dosher said a phone number is automatically linked to the coordinates and he often calls the individual to get more information about the situation.
Rescue crews then plug in the coordinates to their GPS navigational devices and begin to deploy in a specific order toward the injured person.
An electric motorcycle equipped with basic medical supplies is always the first to leave, as it can get closest to the patient. Capt. Chad Kramer and engineer Tyler McAllister head out next with a side-by-side vehicle that’s equipped with more advanced medical supplies. Finally, an ambulance takes off.
As with any rescue, Dosher’s first job is to set up a command post.
“The battalion chief will set up a command post and that's where we're going to stage the ambulance,” Dosher said. “The idea is to get motorcycle there first, side-by-side second, and then ambulance ready to bring them down.”
As the side-by-side travelled on a Round Valley trail, its siren blared, alerting recreationists to move out of the way. Within 20 minutes, the motorcyclist notified the team he had reached the patient and provided any urgent medical assistance, which could be something like splinting an injury.
Kramer and McAllister then got as close to the scene as possible, unloaded a stretcher, attached a single wheel to it, and walked up to their patient.
Serving as the fake patient, Briley was then loaded onto the stretcher and secured to the side-by-side. There’s even a bicycle rack on the front of the vehicle to hold Briley’s mountain bike.
McAllister is more careful on the ride to the ambulance; it can get bumpy in the side-by-side, which he says can be hard on an injured patient.
“Typically during this it's all continuing that care,” McAllister said. “Reassessing pain, seeing that we can do more pain medications, making sure, if it's really traumatic, we're still working on those injuries, and stabilizing those as best as we can.”
He said because they provide continuing care, they can hand off the patient quickly to the ambulance. However, sometimes the side-by-side team can take a patient directly to the hospital, especially in Round Valley, as it is close to Park City Hospital.
Dosher said 70% of the time, rescuers transport the patient to the hospital and 30% of the time, the patient drives themselves.
Provost said his best advice for locals is to never think twice about calling 911.
“I can't tell you how many times we go on these calls where people, you know, they wait way too long until their conditions deteriorate a lot,” he said. “I would say, recognize that early, get us coming.”
Provost said even if the patient starts feeling better by the time the fire district crew gets them back down to the trailhead, they’d much rather have that than the opposite.
