Live data from Hacker News

'Wild West' mentality lingers in modern populations of US mountain regions

phys.org

151–160 of 307 posts

Re: 'Wild West' mentality lingers in modern populations of US mountain regions

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although the story and your account are United States centric, I live pretty remote British Columbia, Canada and the same mentality, personalty types exists here as well. As the crow flies, I am less then 300KM to downtown Vancouver yet a trip to the closest town center for supplies is a 10 hour round trip in the truck and that is on a good day. I do not leave the house without chainsaw, firearm and various other sun…

How do you use the internet? Do you have a phone signal?

I would guess satellite. I've lived in remote places before (but it was only 20 minutes to a big city mall, so not nearly as remote as described) and that is what I used. It was okay for most things, but the 600ms ping time to anything else sometimes was noticeable.

Re: 'Wild West' mentality lingers in modern populations of US mountain regions

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much the same, I can re-wire a house (factory actually though it's been a long time since I trained as an industrial sparks), plaster, do basic joinery, plumbing, tiling, engine/motorcycle maintenance (I do my motorcycle and rebuilt scramblers when I was a kid), weld (not done it for a long time but it'd come back), sheet metal work etc all to a reasonable or better standard. I've never lived out in the countr…

It's not always a matter of willingness. Many people didn't have opportunities early in life to learn these skills, and as older adults they probably don't have the free time.

True plus modern urban living means people don't have sheds/garages both of which I had access to growing up with a lot of the tools as well.

Re: 'Wild West' mentality lingers in modern populations of US mountain regions

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much the same, I can re-wire a house (factory actually though it's been a long time since I trained as an industrial sparks), plaster, do basic joinery, plumbing, tiling, engine/motorcycle maintenance (I do my motorcycle and rebuilt scramblers when I was a kid), weld (not done it for a long time but it'd come back), sheet metal work etc all to a reasonable or better standard. I've never lived out in the countr…

>80% of anything is been willing to give it a go, the other 20% is been willing to learn from fucking it up the first time. Them's the old rules. New rules: 45% of it is being willing to give it a go, 65% of it is knowing how to find the right YouTube video to watch so you don't fuck it up. :)

The first 10% is knowing what is dangerous enough that you need to look up how to do is safely first. I've worked on high voltage electronics - I'm still here because I knew to figure out safety first.

Re: 'Wild West' mentality lingers in modern populations of US mountain regions

#154

In many parts of the United States when you call 911, you're lucky if anyone shows up within an hour. It's a couple hours to get to a Wal-Mart or a store. It's difficult to get anyone to drive 40 minutes outside the nearest town and navigate unmarked dirt roads to do basic plumbing or home repairs. As a result, people have to learn to repair things, make things, use a gun, do first aid, lay shingles, hang drywall, po…

Last night I was on my way home on a relatively remote stretch in eastern Idaho that's 30 minutes from the nearest EMS and came upon a head on collision that just happened. Several others not involved surrounded the scene pretty quickly and started assessing the injured. I literally finished my Wilderness First Aid certification Saturday afternoon.

Highly recommend you keep going with it when time allows. I got my wEMT license a few years back and although it's lapsed now it was a really fun and educating experience. For those who don't have one near them I recommend SOLO school in new england -> https://soloschools.com/

Re: 'Wild West' mentality lingers in modern populations of US mountain regions

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 30 minutes from the nearest EMS In even the most developed inner cities of the US, a 30-minute response time is not unusual. A car crash with injuries, blood on the street, would certainly be top of the 911 priority list other factors like traffic often mean delays. "In July 2019, it took the NYPD more than 20 minutes on average to respond to all of its 911 calls. This July, it was about 18 minutes." https://www.n…

That's a bit misleading: FDNY's average end-to-end response time for something like a vehicle accident is just about nine minutes based on recent data. That's from the moment you finish dialing 911 until the point where the fire truck/ambulance arrives, and includes the time that you spend talking to the 911 operator etc.

problem is after some accidents seconds are counting. In some cases they have less than a minute from the time of the accident (not finish dialing 911) to get a transfusion started. Such cases currently all die, but the medical knowledge of how to save them exists just not a means to apply it in time.

Re: 'Wild West' mentality lingers in modern populations of US mountain regions

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>80% of anything is been willing to give it a go, the other 20% is been willing to learn from fucking it up the first time. Them's the old rules. New rules: 45% of it is being willing to give it a go, 65% of it is knowing how to find the right YouTube video to watch so you don't fuck it up. :)

The first 10% is knowing what is dangerous enough that you need to look up how to do is safely first. I've worked on high voltage electronics - I'm still here because I knew to figure out safety first.

Same with gas (not petrol), it's the one thing in my house I absolutely would not under any circumstances touch.

Electricity I understand and how to work safely with it, water is the same (and the outcome isn't likely to kill you) but gas, gas will blow out the walls.

It's remarkable how safe we made it actually when you think about it but all of those lessons where often learnt in blood and strife.

Re: 'Wild West' mentality lingers in modern populations of US mountain regions

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, part of that is that even when an ambulance gets there, what happens next? The nearest hospital in rural areas is guaranteed to not be even a level II trauma center. So it takes 30 minutes for an ambulance to get on-scene, then maybe it's an hour drive to a trauma center (optimistic), or they're going to need to get a helicopter, which can easily be another 40 minutes of waiting. That urban EMS crew might be shoo…

That depends on the nature of the ambulance service. In the US/Canada, ambulances cover basic stabilization and transport the nearest trauma center. We in NA have a culture whereby minimally-equipped ambulances are tasked to deliver patients to hospitals asap. That approach isn't universal, nor is it necessarily the best. In France, some ambulances bring docs with them to do things beside the road that in the US woul…

My first time through first aid training was just after princess Diana died. The trainers from the local level one hospital were convinced that if the accident had happened in the US she would have lived. They even had a local case of a very similar accident just a month before where those involved lived, in large part because it wasn't on doctor in the ambulance trying to do things it was over a dozen doctors specializing in different things working on their part at the same time.

Of course the point of all the above is call 911 (or the local emergency number) ASAP, the faster you can get experts involved the better.

Re: 'Wild West' mentality lingers in modern populations of US mountain regions

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends on the nature of the ambulance service. In the US/Canada, ambulances cover basic stabilization and transport the nearest trauma center. We in NA have a culture whereby minimally-equipped ambulances are tasked to deliver patients to hospitals asap. That approach isn't universal, nor is it necessarily the best. In France, some ambulances bring docs with them to do things beside the road that in the US woul…

My first time through first aid training was just after princess Diana died. The trainers from the local level one hospital were convinced that if the accident had happened in the US she would have lived. They even had a local case of a very similar accident just a month before where those involved lived, in large part because it wasn't on doctor in the ambulance trying to do things it was over a dozen doctors specia…

There are plenty of stories/opinions one way or the other. What occasionally comes up are situations where doctors unexpectedly arrive at accident scenes, take over, and apply procedures that the ambulance crews are totally untrained for.

"Dr. Mark Forrest knew he had to act fast to save the life of a man he watched go into cardiac arrest after a motorcycle accident — so he opened up the man's chest right there on the road and brought him back from the dead."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/doctor-who-s...

Re: 'Wild West' mentality lingers in modern populations of US mountain regions

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much the same, I can re-wire a house (factory actually though it's been a long time since I trained as an industrial sparks), plaster, do basic joinery, plumbing, tiling, engine/motorcycle maintenance (I do my motorcycle and rebuilt scramblers when I was a kid), weld (not done it for a long time but it'd come back), sheet metal work etc all to a reasonable or better standard. I've never lived out in the countr…

>80% of anything is been willing to give it a go, the other 20% is been willing to learn from fucking it up the first time. Them's the old rules. New rules: 45% of it is being willing to give it a go, 65% of it is knowing how to find the right YouTube video to watch so you don't fuck it up. :)

Oh man, YouTube is such a godsend when it comes to learning so many things but it also promotes terrible behavior for those looking to monetize information that would be better served up as plain text. Anything physical, such as learning an exercise or doing a car repair falls into the former category. On the other hand, there is a lot of very good talking head content that could be served up as plain text. Instead it’s gated in the form of video purely for YouTube monetization. I would gladly pay money for quality transcripts if that was an option.

Re: 'Wild West' mentality lingers in modern populations of US mountain regions

#160

In many parts of the United States when you call 911, you're lucky if anyone shows up within an hour. It's a couple hours to get to a Wal-Mart or a store. It's difficult to get anyone to drive 40 minutes outside the nearest town and navigate unmarked dirt roads to do basic plumbing or home repairs. As a result, people have to learn to repair things, make things, use a gun, do first aid, lay shingles, hang drywall, po…

My nephew lives in a very isolated rural area on the east coast and I think you're overselling the "people in the community learn emergency medicine" part - he has no idea how to handle much more than stopping bleeding for a cut (his answer to any size cut is to slather it with antibiotic ointment, which the doctors then have to scrub out before they can suture) or maybe stabilizing a broken leg enough to move someon…

He did romanticize the whole situation. The situation he's talking about could easily be the rural south or Appalachia. As someone from one of those areas, let me assure you, the "ruggedness" isn't beautiful, it's because there is a lack of service. And the ruggedness shows on the people and their homes.
Post reply on HN