Field preparedness and safety
At the beginning of every season, our team works hard to plan and prepare for any situation that the field crew might experience. This is extremely important for us because we work in a rather remote area, where the nearest hospital is a few hours away and there is little to no cell reception to call for help. This month we put our planning and prepping to the test as we experienced some car trouble.
Early on at the beginning of the month, one of the trucks got a flat tire. Luckily we were prepared and made sure that each vehicle has their own spare tire! Not so luckily, the spare tire was also flat... Thanks to COVID-19, everybody is driving separately in their own vehicles, so we were able to hop in the other truck and drive into town to the tire shop and get a new tire. It put us a little behind schedule, but we were able to fix it on our own.
After we got the flat tire taken care of, the other truck had its own issue a few weeks later. But this time it was not such an easy fix that could be taken care of in the field. While the crew was on their way back to town from the end of their field week, the truck’s alternator went out. This caused the battery to die and we were Found On Road Dead in the middle of the canyon with absolutely no cell service.
Luckily, we recently purchased fancy Garmin GPSs that can send texts when there’s no service so we could send for help. Sort of. Turns out, the canyon is too narrow with steep walls that actually block the satellites for long periods of time before they move into a position to receive and send messages. This also only works if the people on the other end have cell service to receive texts. However, this is a well traveled canyon with thousands of people driving through it daily and some very kind Jeeps stopped to help. We had to get creative after jump starting the truck because the battery was not charged enough to drive on its own. Fortunately, our crew is prepared with a jump starter battery pack that acted as the truck’s battery just enough to get us down the canyon and safe at home where the alternator could be replaced.
We heard bad things come in 3s, so we are just waiting for the next mishap with our field vehicles. We have done our best to be prepared for any situation, but we wanted to share what these experiences taught us!
Know how to change a tire.
Make sure your spare tire has air.
Have all of the necessary tools on hand to fix a flat.
When you can’t help yourself, have a way to get help from others by getting a satellite phone of some sort.
A jump starter battery pack is well worth the money!
We have been very fortunate to have never had any medical emergencies in the field (knock on wood), but we also made sure we are prepared for those too. We have a fully stocked med kit that could get us by until more professional help could get to us. Some of our crew members are also WFR certified so they have the training to get basic treatment done before the crew can get professional help. We also stocked vehicles with directions and numbers for the nearest health center or hospital in case of an emergency.
We are so grateful that our crew has always been safe, and a little car trouble here and there is no big deal. But we always want to make sure that our crew is fully prepared for any emergency situation, or even just a crappy one. COVID-19 has thrown us a safety protocol curveball, but it has made us step up our safety protocol game. We tried to think out every possible scenario at the beginning of field season, and practiced with the crew what to do if something bad happened. And even with all of that preparation and training, we still experienced some hiccups. But that’s ok because we learned how we can do better for next time!