Broken leg

M6WOW (David Holman) has broken his leg near his ankle and knee whilst descending from an activation of GW-MW-027 Moel y Golfa.
If you contacted him he would be MW6WOW on the hill. This was near the border of Wales. Please do not try to call him until further notice.
Thomas Holman

Hello Thomas,

Thank you for the information, that is bad news.

I hope the break is not too serious & David is up & about again very soon.

Please pass on my best regards.

73,

Mark G0VOF

In reply to M6WOW:
That is really bad luck, please pass on our best wishes.

73

Brian G8ADD

In reply to M6WOW:

Speedy recovery to David !!!

73

Tony

Hi David,

Hope your leg gets better. I’m sorry to hear that you broke your leg.

Jimmy M3EYP

In reply to M6WOW: Very sorry to hear about your broken leg, just when you’d got the HF antenna adjusted. Won’t prevent you from trying G4FON, though. Hope it doesn’t take too long to mend.

Best Regards, Dave, G6DTN/M0DFA

In reply to M6WOW:

Hello David and Thomas,

I hope the break is not too bad, a speedy recovery.

73
Luc ON6DSL

In reply to M6WOW:
Hi Thomas

Best wishes to David for a speedy recovery, hope to hear you back on the air soon.

In reply to M6WOW:
Thank you for your kind words SOTA people. I have been discharged from the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital today on crutches with ghastly coloured fluids oozing from the surgery wounds on my right leg. I’m cheerful, out of pain and resigned to three to six months of recovery. My scrap metal value in titanium alloy terms has increased a great deal!!
I did have a successful and pleasant activation of Moel Y Golfa [see later] until being ten minutes walk from my car parked in Middletown on the A458.
Moel y Golfa is a very steep hill clad in deciduous woodland, the floor of which along the course of the footpath is covered with deep leaf mould, leaf litter, twigs and loose stones. It rained whilst I was operating so the footpath was a moveable feast. I slipped, fell and heard my own leg bones snap. I arranged myself on the ground and made a 999 call successfully to get the ambulance and resolved myself to remain conscious for a long wait. I gave the correct grid ref for my location but the ambulance service operator didn’t understand what this meant [I remain angry about this] and had to recall the name of the cottage at the start of the footpath [Shalom]. She found the post code and the ambulance men were seen arriving 15 mins later at the foot of the hill. They phoned me to ask where I was. The cottager turned out to be a friendly off-duty policeman and acted as guide. I employed full baritone voice and was found. Getting me off the hill involved sheer grunt from Welshpool fire brigade. When I was loaded onto the shovel stretcher for the descent was the first time that other walkers passed by. Extraction to the ambulance took over an hour from dialling 999. Gents - you were all magnificent - thank you. Incidentally I could still hear some 2m FM stations from my sitting position in the wood but what is radio procedure for HELP!!! ?
I was admitted to A&E Shrewsbury 90 mins after calling 999, managed to save my Paramo trousers from the scissors and discovered how hot is an emergency plaster cast! My lower, right leg had broken in three places. I had an operation on Sunday of 2.5 hours duration but made a hash of the recovery by biting the tube down my throat whilst barely conscious and giving myself a pulmonary edema. Total time unconscious c. 28 hours. The poor anaethetist still looked distressed about this event on Thursday. Nursing care in intensive care, intermediate care and on the orthopaedic ward was exemplary, leading to today’s discharge from hospital.

The summit has an intriguing memorial to an unbeaten bare knuckle prizefighter and figurehead of the Romany people. The spearpoint railings around this memorial are good for fastening antennae. I spoke with 9 or so stations. Thanks to Roger 2E0BMO for the spot and a chance to explain that I couldn’t reply to his second call on Loughrigg fell the previous week 'cos the antenna fell down and Dad and I closed the station down after we’d straightened the elements. This time I was having a chat on 433.500 MHz on my VX-7 with John GW4BVE [1st QSO on 70cms] when he came back to continue. I made a botch of correct radio procedure for hang on -I’ll be with you in a moment. Sorry Roger. I had a very fine S2S QSO with Eleri on GW/MW-019 which we conducted mostly in Welsh. I’ve remembered to look up signal report which is adroddiad arwyddol [pump a naw, Eleri]. Radio Welsh is a whole new vocabulary to me. Diolch yn fawr am y sgwrs.

Anyway thanks for your concerns and I hope the above is useful and not too gruesome. I do not to intend to climb Moel y Golfa again. Please check for a phone signal on the outward journey if you’re working solo or devise some alternative arrangement in advance. Are there any compensation points for serious injury sustained in the course of SOTA activation I inquire cheekily?

Please may I have some help getting on the air for international SOTA weekend from easy 1 point summit like nearby Walton Hill or one that is 10 metres from the car park? I’m looking forward to building my Emtech ATU and the intriguing Cumbria designs Microcode Morse code decoder during the convalescence and getting the family to put up the dipoles in the garden that Dave Crake M0DFA helped me to tune. Thank you very much for helping me Dave and the G4FON Koch program is good. I am also learning Morse with Ford per article in PW March 2009 edition. My fellow patients wondered what all the dit and dah muttering was about!

David Holman M6WOW
Wolverhampton

In reply to M6WOW:

Hi Dave

You’ve not had a good experience on the hills :o( but I wish you a good recovery and hope to hear you out and about when all is healed.

It’s not good that you had an operator who had no idea about grid references it could’ve meant a much longer wait for them to find you if you hadn’t remembered the name of the cottage :o(

As for calling for help I would hope that totally correct radio procedure would be relaxed (but would be more along the lines of precise information and a friendly voice) in the case of an accident while out on a hill and that who ever I had contacted would be good enough to contact the emergency services on my behalf.

Take care

Carolyn

In reply to M6WOW:

Hi David,

What an amazing sense of mind to take stock, sort yourself out and then call 999. I just wonder how many of us would keep as calm under such circumstances. Pleased to learn that you are now on the road to recovery and that your enthusiasm is undiminished, as is evidenced by providing a report on the activation, not just on the accident.

73, Gerald

In reply to M6WOW:

Oh Dear David maybe your call sign should have been M6OWW! I hope you recover quickly.

Incidentally I could still hear some 2m FM stations from my sitting position in the wood but what is radio procedure for HELP!!! ?

From previous experience usually simply calling for help is best. The KISS method (Keep It Simple Stupid)is always a good idea.

Not long after I was licensed I heard a radio amateur on S20 calling “Assistance RTA”. At that time we did not have mobile phones and I didn’t have a clue what an RTA was. Eventually someone went back to him and asked what the heck he was going on about. He explained there had been a “Road Traffic Accident” and he needed someone to call the emergency services. If he had simply called for someone to dial 999 he would have had a response a lot quicker.

With regard to the ambulance service operator - More training is obviously required. I think a few letters of complaint should be made here.

Regards Steve GW7AAV

In reply to GW7AAV:

From previous experience usually simply calling for help is best.

MAYDAY

Sorry to hear about your leg, get well soon.

Andy
MM0FMF

In reply to GW7AAV:

With regard to the ambulance service operator - More training is
obviously required.

I suspect it’s more a matter of the software they have in front of them. The AA/RAC are the same. They don’t have real maps, so if the console they are working at can’t accept a grid reference there is nothing they can do.

In reply to M6WOW:
Very sorry to hear about your broken leg and I wish you a speedy recovery.
As regards your qoute below

"Incidentally I could still hear some 2m FM stations from my sitting position in the wood but what is radio procedure for HELP!!! "

In the back of my mind I think it is ZZZ, perhaps others can correct me on this and I suspect like yourself a good many do not know of it, if I am correct.

Once again a speedy recovery

73 Graham G4JZF

In reply to G4OIG:

I must agree with Gerald, for a young man to be so calm during such a stressfull sitiuation is a BraveHeart indeed, David should be commended for it. It also teaches us a lesson in what could have been much worse.

It reminds us that no matter which summit and no matter how easy we think the ascent/descent is we must not be complacent with our Health & Safety.

Once Again,well done David and a speedy recovery to you!! you have my upmost respect!!

73

Tony

In reply to M1MAJ:

In reply to GW7AAV:

With regard to the ambulance service operator - More training is
obviously required.

I suspect it’s more a matter of the software they have in front of
them. The AA/RAC are the same. They don’t have real maps, so if the
console they are working at can’t accept a grid reference there is
nothing they can do.

That then is due to the ignorance of their superiors who put these systems in place. If you call mountain rescue or air sea rescue they know what a grid reference is and it could save hours of wasted man power, not to mention lives. These days when every other vehicle has a sat nav and every other walker a GPS it has got to be common place for someone to call in a grid reference, longitude/latitude, etc. We need to complain to those in charge so that they know there is a problem with the way they do things, after all the nearest postcode could be two hours walk away. Simple banging the locator in to Google would work or doesn’t anyone have internet access in these places?

Regards Steve GW7AAV