HANDS-ON SAILOR97november/december 2016cruisingworld.coma Gulf Stream chin laceration
that required 12 sutures from
Wisch — each stitch timed
between waves.
Cruisers also explore exotic
and primitive places. Daniel
Nord, director of medical
services for the Divers Alert
Network, which reviews 5,000
calls for help a year, lists three
pieces of advice: 1) Don’t rent
a motor scooter, 2) don’t pet
the monkey, and 3) don’t ride
the elephant! He’s half-joking,
of course, but there’s a lesson
in there, too. Common sense
can go a long way toward pre-
venting mishaps.
Two people have died in
30 years of the Atlantic Rally
for Cruisers, both after being
struck in the head by a boom.
But the most common inju-
ries have been galley cooking
burns, followed by rope burns
(some down to the bone), cuts,
punctures from fi shhooks
and knives, and many blunt
traumas — bruises, bumps
and broken bones — caused
by falling around the boat,
says Jeremy Wyatt, World
Cruising’s director.
There are many easily
learned fi rst-aid techniques
that cruising sailors can
master: taking vital signs,
treating burns, making
splints and stopping bleeding.
“First-aid training has pre-
vented a bad situation from
becoming worse,” says Wyatt.
“Eight years ago, one sailor
broke his arm and suf ered a
puncture wound. The crew had
the perfect dressing and splint,
and thought about where to
put the sailor, in a bunk where
he couldn’t move. That was a
well-prepared crew.”
The vast majority of the
2,613 injuries and 626 deaths
reported by the Coast Guard
in 2015 were preventable.
Drinking alcohol and not
wearing a PFD were often
contributing factors. “The
fi rst thing that goes onto a
boat is a full cooler,” says Vann
Burgess, the Coast Guard’s
senior recreational-boating
safety specialist. “People never
expect to enter the water. Any
sailor should be wearing a life
jacket. It will keep you alive.”
Most problems can be pre-
vented or treated with some
training and common-sense
forethought: simple stuf
like hygiene, hydration, ade-
quate sleep, seasickness pills,
wearing shoes and gloves, and
wearing a clipped-in PFD.
First-aid kits should contain
supplies that a crew can use.
A suture or IV kit is useless
without training. But you can
use suture strips, and knowing
just a little anatomy will help
describe symptoms when you
call for help.
As much as I pride myself on
CPR and defi brillator training,
I have learned that of shore,
it might help in a drowning or
shock but would not likely save
a cardiac arrest, because of the
need for follow-up meds. The
$2,000 spent on an automatic
external defi brillator “could
be better spent on fi rst-aid
training,” says Wisch.
“Sailors think about
doomsday scenarios on their
boats,” says Hayes, “but
appendicitis can happen
to anyone, and that’s life-
threatening. They need to be
prepared for anything. The
statistics say anything can and
will happen.”
Miles Poor tells his of -
shore classes: “In an hour,
I’m not going to try to make
you a doctor. But I want to
make you realize that if you
ask questions and can relay
symptoms, you can go safely
of shore, never have an issue,
and have a good time.”Transatlantic veteran Jim
Carrier is a former award-
winning journalist for The
Denver Post and the author
of The Ship and the Storm,
a riveting account of the loss of
the 282-foot schooner Fantome
during Hurricane Mitch in 1998.MEDICAL TIP
Most problems can
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