Rural medics who rescued rancher Jim Lutter after he was gored by a bison didn’t have much experience handling such severe wounds. Lutter and his wife, Cindy, are among the 12 residents of Gann Valley, a town just east of the Missouri River in central South Dakota. They operate a hunting lodge and ranch, where they raise more than 1,000 bison.
Lutter went to check on a sick bison calf. The animal was in the same pen as Bill, a 3-year-old bull that was like a family pet.
The bison hooked Lutter with his horns, repeatedly tossed him in the air, and then gored him in the groin. Lutter thought he was going to die but somehow escaped the pen and found himself on the ground, bleeding heavily.
Medics arrived as quickly as they could and fortunately did have a doctor looking over their shoulders inside the ambulance as they rushed Lutter to a hospital.
The emergency medicine physician sat 140 miles away in a Sioux Falls, South Dakota, office building. She participated in the treatment via a video system recently installed in the ambulance.
The ambulance service received its video system through an initiative from the South Dakota Department of Health. The project, Telemedicine in Motion, helps medics across the state, especially in rural areas.
Telehealth became commonplace in clinics and patients’ homes during the COVID-19 pandemic emergency, and the technology is starting to spread to ambulances. Similar programs recently launched in regions of Texas and Minnesota, but South Dakota officials say their partnership with Avel eCare — a Sioux Falls-based telehealth company — appears to be the nation’s only statewide effort.
