If, during an AMC activity, an accident or incident occurs that requires any medical attention, evacuation, or outside assistance from a first aid & rescue service, fire department, police, ambulance, or similar service, or if any participant received medical care (to the knowledge of the leader) or refused the offer of such care, an accident report must be written and submitted to the AMC-DV Chapter.
In simple terms, if you had to give any real first aid (beyond band-aids and mole skin), if you had to evacuate someone from a trip, or if someone needed to get outside help to deal with an injury they received on your trip, you should report it.
In dealing with an accident on the trail, it’s probably best to err on the side of being too cautious. Not sure if the injury is bad enough to take someone to a hospital? Get it checked out. Not sure if you should report an incident or not? Report it. In reporting the incident, try to be totally objective and include useful facts (names, addresses, ages of anyone involved, time, place, etc.).
If someone is injured on your trip, you should treat them to the level of your training. You should try to be aware of any co-leader or participant with training so that you can ask them to treat a victim if their training is more advanced than your own. If the situation is a real medical emergency, you should try to document any treatment you or others are providing. It’s also a good idea to follow up, if possible. If someone thinks they need to go to the hospital to get something checked out, offer to go with them; if someone doesn’t need to go to a hospital but twisted an ankle or something like that, give them a call a day or two later to see how they’re doing, etc. Your care and consideration will be most helpful in this situation.
Please complete the accident form as soon as possible, and follow the instruction at the bottom of the form for submitting. Download the accident form below.
If outside agencies were involved such as National Park Service, medivac helicopter etc. and/or if the press has contacted you, the chapter individuals listed below must be contacted within 24 hours so that they can promptly file the report with AMC headquarters. Please email the report to all three, plus make phone contact (not voice mail) with at least one of these chapter individuals:
Chair: Karla Geissler, dvchair@amcdv.org, 610-761-6211
Vice Chair: George Cagle, vicechair@amcdv.org, 610-942-3046
Communication and Paddling Chair: Eric Pavlak, paddling@amcdv.org, 610-650-8926