[ethanbond]

Lack of easy transportation can quickly turn a merely inconvenient or uncomfortable situation into an extremely dangerous one.

Break a leg in front of the hospital? Super minor.

Break a leg 40 miles from the nearest road? Extremely serious.

Mud, especially with huge numbers of people, has a way of turning the former situation into the latter situation rather quickly.

Also who’s being breathless? The article didn’t mention FEMA.

[jeremyt]

You are not 40 miles from the nearest road at Burning Man. You are a couple of miles from the nearest road.

[ethanbond]

Don’t worry buddy I don’t think mud physically moves roads further away.

A couple miles of hard-to-navigate terrain and a bit of hubris is plenty to kill someone.

[rcme]

Breaking a leg isn't serious if medical transportation is available, and it sounds like it is.

[ethanbond]

Sure hope so! You know what can change that though? More mud.

No one is asking to fly in the military here or something. People are observing: “oh, that seems like a risky situation that could go very south very quickly.”

[rolph]

breaking a leg or arm can be lethal due to immediate complications or emergent complications due to lack of prompt evaluation and treatment.

[lazide]

Sure, but that is not the common situation.

One advantage of everything being deep intractable mud - mud is soft! So less chance of compound fractures from a fall at least.

Though vehicle recovery is going to be epic. And that is a good way to break/kill people if not done very carefully.

I’ve seen (very expensive) vehicles end up completely destroyed and abandoned when someone wandered a bit too far out into a surprisingly wet/soft lakebed (around Ballarat/Trona - I can still see it on Google Maps, and it got stuck well over 20 years ago!), so I imagine we’ll have plenty of stories of drama to snack on popcorn over when this is all said and done.

[rolph]

>>Sure, but that is not the common situation. <<

-- when prompt attention is available.

falls are not the only cause of bone fracture.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2700578/

[lazide]

Nope. As noted in the paper, they are rare except for in severe trauma without prompt attention.

Otherwise us humans would have a MUCH lower survival rate than we already do out in the wild.

Or as the paper notes “The etiology may be traumatic or, rarely, nontraumatic.”

Non-compound fractures can still cause serious issues if complicated somehow, or even long term loss of function of course if they aren’t set correctly, among other less than ideal chronic issues, which should be done ASAP.

But it’s not like someone is likely to die (or even suffer serious long term issues) from an uncomplicated ulnar fracture if they don’t get to the ER within a few days, for instance.

The amount of water I’m seeing come down in the Truckee area right now sure is epic though, so no question they are in for a ride!

[rolph]

>> without prompt attention <<

nope. there is no prompt attention in the current situation

as noted in the paper incidence of fat embolism approaches 30%

many undiagnosed incidence are discovered post mortem.

you are attempting to minimize a dangerous situation.

===========

>> EPIDEMIOLOGY

The incidence of FES ranges from < 1 to 29% in different studies. It varies considerably according to the cause. The actual incidence of FES is not known, as mild cases often go unnoticed.

Bulger et al.,[3] in their retrospective study, reported an incidence of < 1%, while Fabian et al. in their prospective study, reported an incidence of 11–29%.[4] Surprisingly, the incidence was 0.9% when only clinical criteria were used to diagnose FES, whereas with the aid of postmortem examination the incidence was as high as 20%.[2] <<

2. Georgopoulos D, Bouros D. Fat embolism syndrome clinical examination is still the preferable diagnostic method. Chest. 2003;123:982–3.

3. Bulger EM, Smith DG, Maier RV, Jurkovich GJ. Fat embolism syndrome: A 10 years review. Arch Surg. 1997;132:435–9.

4. Fabian TC, Hoots AV, Stanford DS, Patterson CR, Mangiante EC. Fat embolism syndrome, prospective evaluation in 92 fractured patients. Crit Care Med. 1990;18:42–6.