Stop press Aliy injured

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Re: Stop press Aliy injured

Postby Fool » Tue Mar 16, 2021 6:49 pm

“Her arm is dislocated and she still has 4 or 5 miles to get back to the checkpoint, so she had to do that one-armed, get them untangled on the ice,” Moore said. “I don’t know how she did that. She doesn’t know either.”


Article from ADN on Aliy's recovery: https://www.adn.com/outdoors-adventure/ ... cated-arm/
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Re: Stop press Aliy injured

Postby Moose » Wed Mar 17, 2021 5:48 am

Dangit. I've used up my allotment of articles. Can someone post a quick recap? Just the highlights. Thanks.
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Re: Stop press Aliy injured

Postby Eggs » Wed Mar 17, 2021 5:53 am

Moose wrote:Dangit. I've used up my allotment of articles. Can someone post a quick recap? Just the highlights. Thanks.
Whole thing: ‘Day by day, she’s getting better’: Iditarod musher Aliy Zirkle is mending from head injury, dislocated arm

Sheets hang over the windows to block out light at the Two Rivers home where Aliy Zirkle and Allen Moore live. Moore speaks to his wife in whispers, and Zirkle doesn’t go outside or online.

Since crashing her sled and her skull on the ice last week in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, Zirkle has avoided light and sound because of a head injury.

Tuesday was the first day she hasn’t vomited, Moore said early in the afternoon, and she still can’t lift an arm that was dislocated when she hit the ice and was dragged by her team for an unknown distance across glare ice on the Tatina River.

“It doesn’t always work out for the best, but she’s getting better,” Moore said in a phone interview. “Day by day, she’s getting better. She hasn’t been able to look at a phone or a computer yet, it just hurts her brain too much.”

Moore and Zirkle operate SP Kennel in Two Rivers and are the veterans of multiple 1,000-mile sled dog races. Before this year’s Iditarod, Zirkle, 50, announced she and Moore were retiring from racing and this would be her final race.

“It is for sure not gonna change those plans,” Moore said.

Moore said Zirkle blacked out after the crash that happened a few miles outside the Rohn checkpoint on the second day of the race, which started Sunday, March 7, at Deshka Landing. Rohn is about 160 miles into the 832-mile race.

Once Zirkle regained consciousness, she performed tasks that seem superhuman in retrospect — she sorted out her dogs after their lines got tangled, and then she led them to the checkpoint.

“Her arm is dislocated and she still has 4 or 5 miles to get back to the checkpoint, so she had to do that one-armed, get them untangled on the ice,” Moore said. “I don’t know how she did that. She doesn’t know either.”

Zirkle scratched from the race that night at 8:05 p.m., and about four hours later an HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter from the Alaska Air National Guard’s 210th Rescue Squadron flew her to Providence Alaska Medical Center. A three-time runner-up with seven top-10 finishes, Zirkle had completed 20 Iditarods before this year.

Moore was back home in Two Rivers when race officials in Rohn reached him by satellite phone last Monday. They told him Zirkle would be flown out the next day with a broken arm.

When it became clear Zirkle also had a head injury, race marshal Mark Nordman — in McGrath at the time — called for an immediate helicopter rescue. Moore got in his truck and drove to Anchorage.

“She don’t remember anything in the (emergency room),” he said. “A black hole there, and right after she hit her head, she blacked out of course and then got drug while she was blacked out.

“I’m sure she got caught on something or whatever on the river there going to Rohn. ... It’s really slick glare ice there and the wind was blowing fairly hard, so it made her sled turn sideways, a 90-degree angle from the way she wanted to go. When it does that, any rock or stab or anything that you hit, you’re going over.”

Zirkle was released from the hospital on Tuesday morning of last week. She and Moore slept for a few hours in an Anchorage hotel room before the 380-mile trip back to Two Rivers, with Moore at the wheel and Zirkle in the back seat, sleeping.

In a note posted on the SP Kennel website Monday, Zirkle made her first public remarks since the crash.

“My sled flipped and I remember a very hard impact to my head, seeing black and then severe pain on my right arm and shoulder,” she wrote. “All I remember thinking was I had to get to Rohn. I couldn’t use my arm and I began vomiting.

“I arrived at the Checkpoint and the Iditarod volunteers were a godsend. They took over the care of my dogs and me. That time is a bit hazy in my mind but I think I curled up on a bunk.”

She remembers a dog being inside the cabin with her and conversations about medications, treatments and medevacs.

“At some point, they told me a helicopter was coming to get me and then I thought maybe there hadn’t been a dog. But I think there was,” she wrote.

“... Honestly, I was drugged and dazed for about 48 hours, so it’s not all clear to me.”

Moore said officials and volunteers at the Rohn checkpoint took care of Zirkle’s dogs until they could be flown to Anchorage. SP Kennel handlers picked up the dogs in Anchorage and drove them to Two Rivers, where they are in fine shape, Moore said.

In her post, Zirkle said Moore read Iditarod updates to her because it is too painful to deal with lit-up computer screens or cellphones. (”That’s a lie,” she added parenthetically. “I couldn’t help but watch the live feed of Dallas and Aaron in Skwentna” the night before Dallas Seavey and Aaron Burmeister finished first and second in the race.)

“But on the plus side, I can walk and talk and I started eating better yesterday,” she wrote. “I’d say I’m on the mend. I haven’t been outside yet. Hopefully soon.”

https://www.adn.com/outdoors-adventure/ ... cated-arm/
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Re: Stop press Aliy injured

Postby Moose » Wed Mar 17, 2021 7:20 am

Wow! Thank you, Eggs. What an ordeal. How did she ever accomplish the things she did with the injuries she sustained? We may never know. What we do know is that Aliy is amazing. This struck me as being important: She thought there was a dog in the cabin with her, but then says she's not sure. 'Buds, how much do you want to bet the dog was Quito, standing by, guarding Aliy, protecting her, encouraging her to keep the faith, to overcome. "Quito was the queen, she did it all!" [Aliy]
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Re: Stop press Aliy injured

Postby flowerpower » Wed Mar 17, 2021 7:38 am

I like the thought it was Quito, but I think it might have been Brenda Mackey's dogs getting an IV.
Edit to add-Aliy is amazing. How she managed to hang on, get the sled upright, the dogs untangled and mush into Rohn is beyond me. I'm pretty sure Quito was with her then! :shock:
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Re: Stop press Aliy injured

Postby fladogfan » Wed Mar 17, 2021 7:46 am

Moose you sure know how to make a person tear up ;)

Eggs, my thanks also for the posting.

Who mentioned to me the dog Aliy thought was there could have been Brenda Mackey's, she had a couple that were put on IVs in Rohn.

Ok found the article by Brenda. She states she and several other teams had to wait to enter the checkpoint while Aliy was loaded into the copter. So it was not her dog Aliy saw. I'm with Moose, it could very well have been Quito.

https://mackeysdistancedogs.com/news/id ... -dog-team/
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Re: Stop press Aliy injured

Postby fladogfan » Wed Mar 17, 2021 7:51 am

Good question flowerpower, HOW in the world did Aliy hang on to her sled?!!!

I agree with Mushkraut why wasn't she kept in the hospital longer, especially since she was still throwing up days later? Of course I'm sure Aliy would rather be in her own home. Thank the Lord she is on the mend but such a scary thing to happen.
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Re: Stop press Aliy injured

Postby flowerpower » Wed Mar 17, 2021 8:06 am

Good sleuthing, FDF! Put me on team Quito, because I know they don't go far when they leave! :D

She could have signed out AMA. I also wonder if they have health insurance. I know that can (sadly) be a determining factor for many folks. Where are our medical gurus? Mama?
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Re: Stop press Aliy injured

Postby Fool » Wed Mar 17, 2021 8:29 am

Concussions are tough, because there's not really much treatment for them other than rest and avoiding triggers like light and sound and screens while the brain heals. After getting a CT scan to make sure there's not a brain hemorrhage, there's not much the hospital could have done other than continue to monitor symptoms, and it would be pretty standard procedure to discharge the patient at that point.

The continued nausea is not uncommon with a more severe concussion, and hopefully it should start to clear up soon.
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Re: Stop press Aliy injured

Postby Breeze » Wed Mar 17, 2021 9:46 am

A concussion is along the lines ( as far hospital admission) as broken ribs. Docs might want you to be seen every 24-48 hours, but they really don't have a lot to offer you as a patient in a hospital bed. Going home doesn't in the least mean you are " all better now". It just means everything you could do in a hospital bed, you can do in your own bed. It also means you might not have to become best friends with everyone on the hospital's imaging staff.

Anyone who's spent time as an admission patient knows-- the food is nasty ( even if they let you have free rein on the menu ) , someone bothers you for Pulse, BP and Respirations AT LEAST every 4 hours, and if you have even a hint of dizziness you'll be on a bed alarm and have to ask for help for all bathroom needs, and it is highly doubtful anyone will help you shower or wash hair. Yuck, you'd BEG to be home !
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