Training abandoned for life saving triage
A rugby squad can sometimes make a tremendous difference beyond winning or losing on the pitch and recently Trowbridge women’s team, with their manager and three coaches, proved that by their actions which their local police force said: “undoubtedly saved lives.”
The team were training when a car left the road and overturned on farmland nearby. Its driver and three passengers, one only 16, received injuries of varying severity. When the team heard the crash and then the car radio playing and people crying out, the players instantly took off, getting over barbed wire fencing and running through nettles and bushes. One ran to ring emergency services.
Manager Emma Santer is an emergency department sister at the Royal United Hospital, Bath, and her husband and head coach Jonathan, and fellow coaches Robert Wilcox and Alex Baker, have all completed the RFU’s Headcase and concussion awareness training, so there was plenty of expertise on hand and a great deal of caution when getting the victims out of the car.
Could have been fatal
A police report described how 18 players ran to “triage casualties”. One had a catastrophic bleed to the arm, and the team applied a makeshift tourniquet to staunch the blood, fashioned from rugby bootlaces and shirts which was replaced once emergency services arrived at the scene.
Two casualties had their heads supported in case of spinal injury and players gave reassurance and cut off clothes to apply emergency bandages and lay the casualties on a duvet from the car and foot mats for warmth. Meanwhile, another four players acted as spotters on the road to direct the emergency services.
Once ambulance crews arrived, the players held torches and IV lines. PC Ben Agate said: “The degree of the injures were dramatic and life threatening. Without the players’ assistance this could very easily have been fatal.
“It was a fantastic effort, and humbling seeing members of the public come together in order to help out fellow citizens.”
Emma Santer, who is also head of women’s rugby for Dorset & Wiltshire said: “We were literally packing up with a final run through and one last try. Five minutes later and we would have been in the bar and wouldn’t have heard the crash. We were so glad to hear later that all the crash casualties were stable.”
From crash victim to triage team leader
Emma herself was involved in a near fatal car crash 18 months ago, suffering multiple fractures and a brain haemorrhage. She was in hospital for three months and said: “Rushing through the nettles that night was the first time I have run since the accident. Yes, we did manage a tourniquet on one casualty with bootlaces, shirts and a stick. The stick was important.
“We are quite a new women’s squad and have gone from 10 to 46 in just over a year, but we very much promote physical and mental wellbeing and have a wellbeing officer who is a former paramedic. After players helped the crash victims, the wellbeing officer held a debrief the next day. People had been covered in blood and it’s a big thing, especially if you haven’t encountered traumatic events like that before.
“We put players in touch with local mental health providers for free sessions. When we created the team, we allocated funds for four wellbeing sessions a year and one extra for any emergency situation. However, we don’t have all the equipment we would like as we haven’t been going that long. Shirts were lost in the incident that night, and I was a bit gutted!”
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