Rescue on the Mountain. How Noah Ohlsen Helped Save a Life
What happened?
On Saturday, approximately four miles into the Ultimate Hawaiian Trail Run near the summit, a runner started to experience severe fatigue, cramping, nausea and chills.
Fellow racers noticed this runner in distress and notified the medical team down at the bottom.
And along comes Noah Ohlsen…
Running up the trail right after the “stairway to heaven” (translation: a really steep climb up), Noah spotted a guy leaning up against a tree with another concerned runner next to him.
“Right away I could tell that he wasn’t [OK],” Ohlsen told us. “He was pale dizzy and delirious. He said he needed to sit down and then pretty much passed out.”
At one point he stopped breathing for about 10 seconds.
“We started pounding his chest and yelling at him to stay with us and I really considered that this dude might die in my arms,” Ohlsen said.
Meanwhile 1.5 miles down the stairway to heaven…
The med staff was at the bottom receiving the news that someone was in serious trouble. So up they went and 20 minutes later they found Noah Ohlsen and Lee Soares, coach at CFTC CrossFit, caring for the runner.
“The patient was suffering from a true medical emergency,” said Cameron Bucek, a national registered paramedic, former firefighter and lead of medical team. Med staff believe he had rhabdo. He also had a history of rhabdo.
For about 10 minutes they carried him down the mountain in their arms until more med staff arrived and were able to strap him to a backboard and wrap him in a foil blanket to avoid hypothermia. They setup a belay station to a tree and began to hoist him down where an ATV was waiting to take him to an ambulance and onto the hospital. Noah said it was close to two hours from the time he found they got him safely down.
Talk about right place, right time.
Seriously.
Afterwards, Noah spent the day assisting the medical team with some other injuries like cramping and sprained ankles. He was one of the last guys off the trail that day and at the awards ceremony later that night he was presented with a challenge coin for his efforts.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bnx9XiVBZ0Q/?taken-by=cameron_bucek