Six Hundred Metres and One Bad Ankle
You are leading an eight-person team through the final stage of a selection obstacle course. Scoring stops when the last team member crosses the finish line, the team must stay together, and the whole team fails if it is not complete by the 15-minute remaining limit. Six hundred metres from the finish, one member, Cpl R, goes down on a low wall and cannot put weight on his right ankle. The ankle is swelling visibly and he is pale, but he insists he can continue and asks the team to go on without him. Two obstacles remain: a 2 m wall and a 15 m rope traverse. Carrying him is possible but will slow the team to roughly walking pace and risks further injury; leaving him means automatic team failure. The duty medic is with another team and is an estimated eight minutes away. An instructor observing the serial has said only: 'Your call, Corporal.' The team is looking at you, and two members are already arguing.
1. What do you establish in the first ninety seconds, and what options are genuinely available?
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Establish facts before choosing.
Clinical: mechanism (twist, fall, landing), whether he can bear weight on four supported steps, whether the pain is pinpoint over bone (distal fibula, base of fifth metatarsal, medial malleolus) or diffuse over ligament, swelling rate, and pulses and sensation in the foot. Pale skin plus rapid swelling is a reason to stop, not to hurry.
Rules: ask the instructor what the serial actually permits - assisted crossing versus carrying, whether a medic stoppage pauses the clock, and whether a completed serial can be re-run. Candidates routinely assume a rule that does not exist.
Time: 600 m with a casualty at walking pace is roughly 10–12 minutes, before two obstacles with a carried body. The 15-minute limit will almost certainly be missed.
Options: (1) assist him and continue, accepting a likely timeout; (2) carry him, higher risk on the 2 m wall; (3) stop, treat, accept team failure, call the medic; (4) splitting - not available, since the team must stay together.
Gathering 60 seconds of facts is cheaper than a wrong decision that lasts a career.
2. Decide and justify the trade-off between the score, the rules and the member's welfare.
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Decision rule set in advance: safety is not tradeable against a score; the score is re-testable, the ankle is not.
Applying it: if he can bear weight with support, pain is diffuse rather than pinpoint, and he can hop four steps, then assist him - his arm over two bearers' shoulders, his kit redistributed to the fittest members, slowest pace that keeps the team together. Accept that the time limit will probably be missed. Completing the serial with a casualty is worth more than abandoning him for a time.
If he cannot bear weight, or there is bony tenderness, or he is pale and clammy, then stop: elevate, cold pack, call the medic, inform the instructor. The team fails the serial. That is a reportable result with a defensible rationale, not a mistake.
Two things I would not do. I would not send him on alone; a lone casualty without a radio in a course area creates a second casualty. And I would not attempt a carried crossing of the 2 m wall - a fall from that height with two people attached converts an ankle injury into a head or spinal injury.
'Mission first' does not mean the mission outranks the person; it means the mission is achieved with the force intact.
3. How do you communicate the decision to the team, to Cpl R and to the instructor, and what do you do afterwards?
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To the team, 30 seconds, out loud, all listening: the decision, the reason in one sentence, and a task for every person - two named bearers, one pace-setter at the front, one carrying Cpl R's kit, one on the radio to the medic, one marking the route. Ambiguity is what produces the arguing, not disagreement.
To Cpl R, quietly: acknowledge that volunteering to be left behind is exactly the attitude selection is looking for, then state the call plainly - 'your judgement is noted, my decision is X'. Give him a job that keeps him inside the team: map, pace count, watching the traverse anchor. Being carried is easier if you are still contributing.
To the instructor: report the injury, the mechanism, the decision and the time, immediately and without spin. Ask for the medic and for a re-run ruling.
Afterwards: a short debrief on what happened and why, not on who was at fault; check on the two who argued and give both a role in the next serial. Document times and decisions while they are fresh, because an unsupported account of an injury on selection is worth nothing.