30 kilometres south of Toronto, Ontario. The catch to this operation for me was that I undertook this outdoor course without any hearing. The frustrating reality of rope and air rescue is the failure of those in charge to communicate effectively with health professional volunteers. As a deaf chiropractor, I have had to learn how to live with a hearing loss which constantly fl uctuates every pass- ing year. For fi ve to six months, I would hear with my hearing aids perfectly. For the remainder of the year, my hearing would drop to nil, which forced me to rely on lip-reading and body language for communication. What I really enjoyed most about this training experience was the fact that my rescue teammates used hand signals to communicate with me, and that I was able to incorporate chiropractic care into their daily training regimes. CASE STUDIES: THE VALUE OF CHIROPRACTIC IN SEARCH-AND-RESCUE A team of six rescuers practises belaying, rapelling, tying a harness on a patient, and lowering a patient from the second fl oor of a four-storey building. sledge from the ground level. The aver- age trainee is young and active – some have climbed the Rocky Mountains – self-reliant, as well as having a ruth- less determination to achieve success, having spent immeasurable amount of time mastering patient packaging, me- chanical systems, hand signals, and ty- ing rope knots correctly. To protect their back, trainees must learn to avoid lifting with the low back fl exed. Trainees are strongly advised to lightly contract the stabilizing abdominal musculature to reduce the risk of back injury (McGill, 2002).(2) Also, miscommunication between team members could be significantly re- duced by making oral and sign language www.canadianchiropractor.ca mandatory. For instance, one trainee is belaying for a lead climber and a second trainee is watching the leader climb down the wall of a 400 foot cliff. The second trainee must provide the leader instruc- tions via voice and hand signals to over- come poor hearing circumstances due to large climbing distances. The first trainee (a.k.a., belayer for the leader) must al- ways watch and listen to the instructions coming from the second trainee who is observing the leader climb down the side of the cliff. PERSONAL CHALLENGES My previous rescue training experiences have included learning the basics of rope rescue at Rattlesnake Point, a cliff located This article describes two clinical cases of how valuable chiropractic can be in search-and-rescue. Case 1: A 37-year-old-male (medi- cal technician) had complained of acute low-back pain. Orthopaedic testing indicated a positive Gaeslen Test and Posterior Sacral Iliac Compression Test. The condition was diagnosed as bilateral sacral iliac joint dysfunction. His pain was resolved with chiropractic in two visits. Case 2: A 42-year-old male (rescue technician) had reduced neck mobility with right forearm and hand numbness. Several trigger points were found in the anterior scalenes, triceps and brachio- radialis muscles on the right side. Mild degeneration was noted in the cervical spine at C5 and C6 level. The condition was related to an upper extremity nerve entrapment. His neck pain and hand numbness resolved with three chiro- practic visits. CANADIAN CHIROPRACTOR | APRIL 2008 • 21
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