Found out the hard way!

Only last night I was required to attend an emergency call to an isolated cottage in a remote rural area. Turns out no one had seen the owner for a few days. Only when a District Nurse turned up and found no one in was the alarm raised. On my arrival I used my regular duty light (Surefire G2) to search the outside of the house and to peer through the double glazed windows. Fortunately the G2 was ideal for this task and far surpassed the feeble light given off by the attending police officer's 2D Maglite. Using my G2 I could see some furniture had been disturbed and was lying untidily on the floor. Because of the nature of the call a forced entry was made by breaking a door window to gain access. (BTW if anyone has ever had to break double glazed windows they will know how tough this type of glass can be!)

Once inside the occupant was quickly found lying where he had fell some 3-4 days previously. Despite the ordeal he was still alive but very poorly and had beome very hypothermic. After administering medical aid to him I had to help the ambulance crew to remove him to their vehicle. By this time my G2 was completely dead and I really needed another light. (It is times like these that you realise that you should have carried a backup light.....and embarrassingly I have been one of the people who advocates just that to others!) Anyway as soon as I got home I added another light to my duty belt so that I'll never get caught out like that again.

The good news is that the patient made it to hospital alive, which is a miracle considering how long he had been down. I am so thankful that the District Nurse was so sensible and diligent as to realise something was not right and called for me when she did.

Anyway I hope this story illustrates the importance of a backup light.

Doug /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

great story and great job, doug /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif no matter which light i carry i always have an arc AAA on my keychain. what light did you add to your belt as your backup?

sometimes it is astounfing what the human body can endure.
good work Doug !
so ... 2D Maglights saved your day after the G2 was dead then? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
bernhard

Chamenos, nice to speak again. I have added a E2e + KL1 carried in a SOE pouch to my duty belt. I've used this light a lot and IMHO it is ideal for a backup in my type of work. I should get at least 1-2 hours full output even on batteries which have only 50%life left.

Bernhard, Although it pains me to say it, the police officers trusty old 'D'size Mag was the light to save the day. My consolation was it wasn't bright enough to illuminate the inside of the cottage on the initial search.

Although Maglights do take a lot of negative comments they have their uses. For the time being I will carry the G2 and KL1 as duty lights with my Arc AAA on a neck lanyard.
Doug

Hello Doug,

Great story.

Just a technical note. The G2 gets about an hour on a set of batteries. How much more run time did you need?

Tom

Doug, thanx for the great story. Keep up the good work on you job.

Jim

You can think of the E2e + KL1 as a battery carrier. When the G2 starts to dim swap out the batteries as they will still run the E2e + KL1.

By this time my G2 was completely dead and I really needed another light.

I instead if another light, you could carry an extra set of batteries!

Why not submit this to the Surefire testimonial page? They are having a mini-sweepstakes; if you are selected you win $100 towards a surefire light.

doug: a LED light is always a good choice as a backup. i currently EDC an A2, so even if the incandescent goes, i still have the LEDs to work with /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Tom, In the UK I work in a rural area. I am based at a Dr's surgery and attend (respond) to 999 (911) emergency calls. My role is to attend any medical emergency and either treat or attempt to preserve life prior to the arrival of a conventional land or Air Ambulance. To enable me to forfil this role I am equiped with an estate car (station wagen) carrying most of the equipment on a normal UK ambulance. Apart fom a stretcher and a few pieces of lifting equipment I have most things in the car. Unfortunately I often have to carry loads of kit in various bags/holdalls some distance from the car to the patient. Obviously easy accessibility to important pieces of equipment such as personal radio's, pagers, gloves, and pouches carrying scissors etc means I have to carry such things on a duty belt. Weight is a very big factor in deciding what equipment is absolutely vital to have with you and immediately to hand. Sometimes there is no option about returning to the vehicle to get something else as there may not be enough time available.
My love and appreciation for small high performance lights has been born out of the necessity to have one immediately to hand when required and to know that it will work when needed in some extreme conditions.
Unfortunately I forgot that the I hour runtime for a G2 only applies with fresh batteries. In the situation I described at the beginning of this thread my G2 had already been used during the previous few days and so had only a relatively little runtime. The carrying of spare batteries is a good idea which I will now adopt. However the carrying of a KL1/E2e combo will allow immediate deployment of a second light in an emergency situations and provide the confidence of knowing that I will(or should) always have a source of reliable light available.

Doug

You may also want to consider a little Arc AAA on your car keys, its so small that its kinda unnoticable till you need it. Else get an Infinity Ultra (or Ultra G) or a Arc AA and have that on a lanyard around your neck. That should give you plenty of light as a backup for your backup light! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif Great job and nice story, by the way! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif

Hello Doug,

Thanks for the information.

The reason for my query was that my son is a fire fighter in a big city that also responds to aid calls. Their response time is in minutes and each call out is usually completed in under 30 minutes.

I seemed to remember that you are in a more rural setting, but did not know for sure. During my son's training, he was in a rural setting where response time was 20-30 minutes. He was part of a two man response team. Both carried flashlights and they always had a couple of extra flashlights in the vehicle. No mention of extra batteries, but it sounds like they had things under control. He seemed to remember situations were things took a lot longer than he is currently used to.

This brings up an interesting question:

How do you know how much run time is left on your batteries?

It sounds like you have this worked out for now, but I may spend some time thinking on this. I know that I have about an hour when I grab my TigerLight off of the charger, but I have no idea how much time is left on my G2. I guess extra batteries, extra lamp assembly, and/or an extra light make sense.

Tom

There is very simple way of always knowing that your flashlight is ready for use. Change to fresh batteries after every use. I know that some firearms units will do this but then they don't have to pay for batteries. Kinda like they go into a situation with all magazines loaded!

Another thing I read that people do is have one flashlight that is the poop-hits-the-fan light that always has fresh batteries in it. They have another that they use for general or non-shtf moments.

I can usually tell within a day or so when my EDC will need new batteries. These are regulated lights. I just get to know how much I've used it.

Al

Our squad is volunteer based and is also in a rural area. Our response times for the rescue squad are anywhere from 10 to 20 mins from the time of the 911 call to to first rig arriving on scene.

The amount of remaining battery life will always be a problem with non-rechargables. For emergency situations at night where light can be critical, it's important not only to have a backup light but extras batteries as well.

I wonder if it is practical or indeed possible for Lithium battery cells to have a battery indicator strip on them like Duracells do? I dont know if Duracell has patented this concept but in theory it might be one way of knowing how much juice is left in each cell?

Doug

Tom, just seen your query on how long I was on scene. From my arrival to the time I left scene was about 40 minutes. UK
response times for ambulances to arrive at life threatening emergencies are for 75% of vehicles to arrive within 8 minutes regardless of geographic location. This will be reduced further by April this year. In my case from activation to arrival at scene was slightly less than 5 minutes. Back up ambulances are automatically sent to any category 'A'(life threatening calls)at the time a community paramedic is activated. Because of the use of AVL (automatic vehicle location) and SatNav we are usually backed up between 5-20 minutes depending on demand. At present our Air Ambulance only operates during daylight hours. As this particular call was at nightfall that option was not available.
I suppose that I had used the G2 for about 20 minutes before it expired. This on many calls would be fine, unfortunately on this occasion it wasn't long enough.

I have in the 'light'(excuse the pun)of this experience adopted the precaution of now having a G2 for main duty light and the KL1/E2e as backup. I have caried a Arc AAA for some time on a lanyard around my neck.

As I had already stated I feel bad not to have had a backup on me as I have advocated this to other folks on many previous occasions!

Doug

This battery indicator is IMHO a very important thing yet to come, for me it would be even more important than multiple brightness levels.
Right now I am doing as Al ... meaning I replace the batts in my EDC and duty light once they have been used more than a few minutes, just to be sure. For me as a flashaholic that is not a problem ebcuase I can easily use up those batts in the lights I am playing with at home, but this is not a viable solution for others due to the cost.
bernhard

It sounds like you need one of those little 1 "123a's" Streamlight Twintask lights, or an Inova X5.
Just an idea.
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Just read your post where you already took care of it with your other Surefire. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif Sorry.



Blades

Doug,
If you have the KL1 modded with a R2H high Dome and a Fraen optic it will still have the nice long run time and will be brighter, whiter and have better throw.


Take care,
Tim