I Pushed SOS and Got Rescued: Lessons Learned

[CodeMonkey]

I once displaced my lowest "floating rib" doing jiu jitsu. I felt it "pop out", huge pain, literally fell flat on the mats when it happened. Then I kind of squirmed around and pushed on it until it "popped back", then stupidly decided to keep rolling. Then it happened again, and I had to stop training for 6 weeks. It never popped out again, but I could feel it really strongly and had to take it super easy. Any deep breaths or coughing really hurt. This happened to another friend in BJJ, his never popped back in, and it's now just permanently jutting out at the bottom of his rib cage, and he still occasionally feels pain from it. Anyway, only injury I've personally experienced that sounds remotely like what happened to you. Glad you made it out ok!

You know, I just got out of the shower and noticed that my left side is more "flared out" at the second to last rib vs. my right side. I'm not going to post shirtless pics on Rokslide to illustrate the issue, but will bring this up with my primary care tomorrow AM.

Rokslide medical mystery team, so far aortic dissection has been ruled out after another date with the CT machine. No super powers yet despite being blasted twice. No tumors seen either and blood work shows all the important organs working correctly.

 

[mtnbound]

Replaying the day in my head...

I normally leave my InReach powered off in the top pocket of my pack and turn it on as I'm putting my pack on. I remember forgetting to turn it on before I started hiking in.

Will edit my original post with this information. User error to blame.

As a 20-year SAR guy who has responded to numerous of these emergency beacon calls, there is a common issue with emergency locators like InReach, Spot, etc., that they take precious time to get a good signal. It's best to get into the habit of turning on your device and doing a test message before you leave home. Also, keeping these in easy-to-access locations is the next common problem. Glad you are ok.

 

[JustinNC]

Glad they got you out.

I hate to play armchair doctor, and it may sound trivial, but did they rule out gall bladder? The way it happened in similar physical fashions casts a doubt, also as easy as that is to rule out, but the symptoms sound extremely familiar to how it was for me. Low pain gradually ramping up to feeling like an elephant was standing right below the rib-line on extreme upper abdominal area, eventually wading away. Leaves soreness after it's gone.

Thank you for sharing your experiences with us, and in the unfortunate case one of the readers find themselves in a similar position, can take comfort in knowing the system works...with some simple guidelines to follow.

 

[darcytribe]

Great reminder as I am preparing to head out in a few weeks. Glad you are doing better. It is frustrating when you have intermittent symptoms that are that significant and the cause is a mystery.
Because it appears to be specific activity related it would seem likely there may be some sort of structural issue. Orthopedic and connective tissue possibilities have already been mentioned above. You might also consider a circulatory issue in that area. I just had a coworker who was having intermittent extreme abdominal pain that after much investigation it was discovered there is a blood clot and aneurism in some blood vessels of the abdomen. The impeded blood flow was causing extreme cramping type pain in a few organs.

Edit- should have read the whole thread- looks like they ruled out the circ. system. Gall bladder ias mentioned above and below would definitely want to be ruled-out..

 

[Sooner]

I had this same pain last year and thought I was going to kill over in the deer blind. Turns out I had 1 Gal Stone that would roll and block my duct in my gallbladder. The pain was almost unbearable. Thankfully I had that thing removed in December.

 

[mtnbound]

You don't need to power the unit on in an emergency. Even if the unit is off, pushing the SOS button powers the unit on and sends the SOS. Just FYI.

You are correct it forces it to power up but it cannot send the message and location until it has satellite lock and that can take several minutes for this to happen. Often the first location sent is not very accurate and for the next 10 minutes updated locations are sent every minute along with any communication between the subject and the Ops center, but often these updates are not effectively transmitted to the first responders. Best practice is to power the unit up before you need it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Ralphie]

Glad you are ok and home. Hoping you find out what is going on. The not knowing part is almost the worst.

Not sure if you meant it to be but thank you for the reminder to always leave on good terms. (I’m not saying that well) with your loved ones. You never know when it’ll be the last time.

What treatment or help did the SAR guys do to get you out of there?

 

[dylanvb]

Curious about OPs condition. I had 2 hernias when I was younger and honestly didn't know I even had them. Both were in the lower groin area and one was "popping" out of my abdominal wall. It never kept me from working or lifting.

 

[CodeMonkey]

It's been a week.

Lots of doctor's appointments and had the pain come back yesterday (Thursday).

The good news is that the pain is now somewhat repeatable and I'm leaning towards something muscular/skeletal. If I lean forward and flex my abs, pain comes back.

The bad news is that I've now been nuked on three separate occasions (different tests) and apparently I've received as much radiation over a few weeks as is the maximum allowed for a nuclear plant worker.

I distinctly remember the second CT tech telling me something about it being like having a few flights cross country. I did the math, and I'd have to be in the air for 40 weeks straight to match how much they blasted me with.

The good news though is a bunch more stuff has been ruled out. I have follow ups with both GI and cardiology that appear to be unnecessary at this point.

 

[Mtandrew]

Take care and get healed up. At least you had your secondary life line even though you had that tiny bit of cell service

 

[Silver Wings]

You know, I just got out of the shower and noticed that my left side is more "flared out" at the second to last rib vs. my right side. I'm not going to post shirtless pics on Rokslide to illustrate the issue, but will bring this up with my primary care tomorrow AM.

Rokslide medical mystery team, so far aortic dissection has been ruled out after another date with the CT machine. No super powers yet despite being blasted twice. No tumors seen either and blood work shows all the important organs working correctly.

Glad to hear the aortic dissection has been ruled out. My mind went there as I was reading the thread. They can be hard to diagnose as the referred pain can lead you away from the actual problem. I lost my favorite uncle back in ‘02 to this very problem. He was on an out of state Javalina hunt and keeled over dead…this after a month of on and off “back pain”. He had a doctor appointment scheduled for when he was to return home to look at his back.
Ironically, he was a retired firefighter, hunting with other firefighters and nobody caught it.
In their defense it is not a no brainer to diagnose if you aren’t careful to look for it.

 

[nowen22]

Not sure if anyone has worked you up for a hiatal hernia, but if you’re having epigastric pain like that while carrying your backpack and bracing with your abs walking downhill, that’ll increase your intrabdominal pressure and slide the hernia out around your esophagus. Your esophageal sphincter doesn’t know what to do so it contracts repeatedly and can be painful. Barium swallow/endoscopy would be the way to diagnose that with GI. Hope you get it figured out

 

[cb2176]

Everyone is curious as to the official medical diagnosis........?

 

[CodeMonkey]

Everyone is curious as to the official medical diagnosis........?

Myself included!

This week went to see a general surgeon as my primary care recommended I get his opinion on a possible hernia. He looked me over and my imaging studies and he thinks that I don't have a hernia. In his words, where the pain and swelling is "hernias don't happen".

Between the general surgeon and my primary care, the thinking is something with my ribcage. Likely popped a rib out of place which messed up the cartilage attachment to the sternum. Current plan is six weeks of PT and light duty. I start PT on Monday.

Still have follow ups with cardiology and GI next week. Cardiology is the scary one since ER was concerned about heart issues when I showed up and some of my testing didn't exactly show a totally clean bill of health. That said, ER doesn't think I'm dying immediately so they sent me off, but recommended a follow up.

GI should also be an interesting talk since at one point blocked bile ducts were a theory. Also, I seem to have pain after eating, which might just be my stomach expanding and irritating the rib injury.

 

[solarshooter]

Myself included!

This week went to see a general surgeon as my primary care recommended I get his opinion on a possible hernia. He looked me over and my imaging studies and he thinks that I don't have a hernia. In his words, where the pain and swelling is "hernias don't happen".

Between the general surgeon and my primary care, the thinking is something with my ribcage. Likely popped a rib out of place which messed up the cartilage attachment to the sternum. Current plan is six weeks of PT and light duty. I start PT on Monday.

Still have follow ups with cardiology and GI next week. Cardiology is the scary one since ER was concerned about heart issues when I showed up and some of my testing didn't exactly show a totally clean bill of health. That said, ER doesn't think I'm dying immediately so they sent me off, but recommended a follow up.

GI should also be an interesting talk since at one point blocked bile ducts were a theory. Also, I seem to have pain after eating, which might just be my stomach expanding and irritating the rib injury.

I'll send you my billing info via DM. Just go ahead and total up everything you spent on all the different appointments and we'll call that good for my diagnosis fee

 

[Cgray97]

Glad to hear you’re doing okay and were able to get the help you needed. Can only imagine how scary it is to be miles from the truck and experience health issues.

 

[TonyDS]

Hiatal hernia is a possibility. Good to hear the SOS works as I don't know anyone who has used it. Glad to hear it worked for you. Great advice to keep it on. Curious to the results of all of this, but praise God you're ok.

 

[JakeT]

Glad you made it out and hopefully you get it all figured out.

 

[Ryoungstl]

Not exactly the same, but I also have eaten humble pie in the outdoors.

When I was 25 I went to Las Vegas with my wife; and on a lark decided I would solo hike Red Rock Canyon outside the city. I was uber fit at the time and decided I could do the trail to the top of Turtlehead in gym shoes, shorts, and a tank top- and oh - I didn't need water since it would be a quick 6 mile hike. Found the parking, wound around beyond the rocks where I could spy rock climbers like little ants belaying up the side of the 300+ foot rocks, and found what I was pretty sure was Turtle peak, and rocked it up the hill.

I made it within about 200 feet of the top in about an hour and a half and the trail turned to what looked to me needed climbing gear, so I turned around and started scrambling down. The hill flattened out and I decided walking was too slow so I decided to jog. This is fun! After about 15 minutes I looked up and realized I had no idea where I was., and no idea which way to go. This was pre-cell / GPS and I was too cool to bring a trail map.

I picked what looked like a gap in the red rocks, and wended my way for about 10 minutes, and stepped up to a 200' foot drop off. That freaked me out, and I was getting thirsty. In fact, the sun was beginining to set, and I was near full on panic at the idea of spending the night in the desert. I debated hiking behind the rocks to the highway since I knew which direction that was, and realized 7 miles in desert air at night and without water wasnt the best idea. and there might be another hidden drop off that would force me to back track.

Now about 2.5 hours in I began backtraking what I thought was the trail, and realized every single peak around me could have been Turtlehead. At that point I began shouting for help while I was walking. There wasn't a soul around until I spotted a professorial type guy with walking sticks and boots and a cammy hat making his way down the mountain. It took me about 10 minutes to meet up with him, and when I did just said "I'm lost and I'm really thirsty. Do you have some water". He pulled out a bottle and I chugged the whole thing, Then I asked if he could help me find my car. He smiled and and allowed me to follow him like a lost puppy the 1/2 mile to the parking lot. Duh. I got back to the hotel and didn't tell my wife a thing.

Never again. Now I plan for the worst. Even a 5 mile hike has me packing water, food, a small first aid kit, a fire tool, and an emergency blanket, and I gps anything that's new.




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