From the Department of Emergency Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver (D.J.A.B.), and the Department of Emergency Medicine, Mineral Springs Hospital, Banff, AB (J.B.) — both in Canada; the Institute of Mountain Emergency Medicine, European Academy of Bolzano, Bolzano, Italy (H.B.); and the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, Innsbruck Medical University, Innsbruck, Austria (P.P.).
Address reprint requests to Dr. Brown at the Department of Emergency Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver General Hospital, 855 W. 12th Ave., Vancouver, BC V5Z 1M9, Canada, or at [email protected].
No potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.
Disclosure forms provided by the authors are available with the full text of this article at NEJM.org.
We thank Bruce Brink, Ross Brown, Gordon Giesbrecht, Peter Mair, Ken Zafren, and the members of the International Commission for Alpine Rescue for contributing to the conception of the project; and Emily Procter of the EURAC Institute of Mountain Emergency Medicine, European Academy of Bolzano, for editing an earlier draft of the manuscript, as well as providing technical and artistic assistance.
