Long story! But I'll type it up anyways!
We were running the Trifecta with a fairly large group of guys. We'd just finished getting a Toyota's rear driveshaft out after it had broke a number of studs holding the 3rd member in and lost all it's gear lube at about the 1/2 way point. We hooked it up to the ORD tube buggy and had just got started rolling when the trail guide's passenger called out on the CB that there was an injury roll over. We had the trail guide up front, Chris Perry from California second, then the buggy / Toyota with myself in the Tahoe right behind. I could see the buggy still, and since the trail guide rig had called it, I immediately thought that it was Chris who'd rolled and got hurt.
I parked my truck, jumped out and ran up to the front to see what had happened and if there was anything I could do to help. As I rounded the top of the hill, I saw Chris' rig intact and on all fours and was a bit confused. Shortly there after was a heavily modified Jeep and then the rolled RZR down at the bottom of a hill climb.
When the side by side rolled, dude's wife / passenger stuck her arm out to try and stop the RZR and got her arm crushed by the roll cage on the way over. She had a very nasty wound just above her elbow on her forearm that lead me to believe that she had a compound fracture that had exited her skin and been sucked back inside her arm.
Between the bunch of us, we got her arm into a splint and wrapped it up. We offered to put her in my Tahoe for the ride back home, but she initially refused. We were not willing to let him try to run his side by side back out to the trail head alone, so the trail guide and myself split off from the rest of the group and escorted him out.
Unfortunately, the guy was driving like an absolute tool and his wife was not doing very well at all inside that goofy little side by side. She was pale as all get out, and was just kinda whimpering every time we stopped for a few minutes. The best thing that could have happened did when dude grenaded the front end of his RZR. I immediately capitalized on the situation and relocated his wife to my Tahoe where she would be way more comfortable due to the soft seat and smoother / quieter ride, not to mention out of the sun and with free access to as much water as I could get her to drink.
Since dude didn't want to leave either his wife or his rig behind, we had to come up with a way to get the side by side's front end disengaged. We looked it over and quickly came to the conclusion that it simply wasn't feasible. If the rear axle turned, then the grenaded front end had to turn as well. The front end disconnect is in the front axle, not in the transfer case / transmission. The front end disconnect was still working properly, so the only way we could make it work was to lift the back axle off the ground and drag it on the front end.
So, we backed the first gen K5 up to a rock shelf that was just high enough to back the RZR up to it and used a pair of tie down straps to pair the two vehicles up. To help with steering in the back, we put my displaced passenger / spotter into the side by side to steer the side by side while dragging it along.
Once we got under way, the gal I had with me started to come out of shock and started talking a little bit. I tried to keep her busy with conversation to keep her mind off her injuries. Seemed to work pretty well, as towards the end she was chattering right away about how she was going to deal with not being able to go to work as a custodian at a Wyoming secondary school, her home country, family etc.
Once we got to the last big rock face that we had to climb, we unhooked the side by side and winched it up. We then discovered that the front end wasn't making noise anymore (possibly overheated the fluid) and dude drove it out in 2wd the rest of the way. I kept his wife with me in the Tahoe on her request though.
We were a bit worried that dude wasn't gonna take her into the hospital at first, but I left my number with her in case she wasn't going to get the care she needed so I could step up. Fortunately, dude did take her straight to the hospital. I stopped by to make sure and his truck / trailer and rig were in the ER parking lot.
