Get Back on That Horse

I never was very good at horsemanship....

Physics over the summer, an ass ton of callouts (four, FOUR on one day) and my research have taken priority over this blog. I missed it though, so I'm back (thanks, AlbinoBlackBear for awakening me from my slumber).
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I've decided to apply for MD/PhD programs. That's how much I've been liking my research as of lately. The key will be finding a program where I can keep doing what I love and still fund me. Its an interesting mix of exercise science and medicine. Really, its exercise as a specific treatment for chronic pain. I think I'm going to get a masters first, especially if I get the big mutha' of a grant I just applied for.
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Rescues have been lacking as of late now that there's just a little bit of snow on the ground. Not enough white stuff to play in or slide, just enough to make it muddy. The few rescues we have had we're impressively fun.

This weekend entailed a full on alpine rescue. First, in the dark then into the next morning and afternoon. Granite covered in Rhine ice, a little snow, some really stuck kids, it made for a challenging rescue.

Highlights: A helicopter offload at 8,000 feet with one skid on a wee small granite fin, stepping out onto snow and with full packs on; beautiful alpine rock and ice; everyone surviving (I didn't think we were going to make it there in time); getting to watch my good friend and roomate lead his first rescue team in to support our helo team; getting hoisted off the mountain- I always feel like I'm flying hanging beneath the rotors of that beautiful bird.

It cannot be stressed enough: no matter how many times I get to play with the helicopters they still give me a giant woodie.

Lowlights: Getting hit in the chin as the helicopter peeled off the mountain in a wind gust; wondering all night if these kids were going to die because I couldn't get to them till the morning (and not sleeping one wink because of it); having to tell a patient that they were "just going to have to hold on till daylight" for the first time because my team couldn't climb to them in the dark; having to tell a new team member to take his comments off facebook because of the poor things they said about our patients- and the attitude I got back from it.

I'll try to upload some video we shot during the rescue but until then enjoy the poor quality pics I grabbed off the news:

A Probie's First Callout- Part 2

"Jason, you have your pack ready?"
"Yes maam"
"Good, follow Kenny, you're chief medical, don't fuck up"

You
Have
Got
to be
Kidding
Me

That was, word for word, what went through my head. I shoved the trauma kit and an extra pig rig into my pack as it was thrown at me (memo to self, bring a bigger pack next time), an extra liter of water, and resisted the urge to piss and vomit.

We started up the "trail" in two teams that quickly caught each other. Trail is really a loose term for a deer path up some quasi scree. After a wrong turn, Kenny and I found ourselves at the front of the group and were able to stretch our legs out a little.

I would like to digress for a second into one of the reasons I really liked this rescue (and hopefully rescues in the future). I've always had an aptitude for endurance sports. I was an elite cyclist, I ran in high school, I've always been able to hump the heavy pack really fast for a long time. This was, however, the first time that it actually meant something. Whatever genetics I was born with or hard work I've put into my heart, legs, and lungs finally was able to do something other than just cross a white line in the middle of nowhere....

Because there was no helicopter in the air it was hard for us to know exactly where our patient (victim?) was. We had a general idea from the team members in the helicopter who had dropped a survival bag to him but the perspective from the air and from the ground are vastly different. The survival bag contained glow sticks but they were all but worthless in the deep scrub oak we were fighting.

Kenny and I found ourselves in deeper vegetation and on a steep side hill fighting the branches that obstructed our way, and periodically yelling but never getting a response. In the 45min it took us to hike the 1800 vertical feet in there were a lot of thoughts in my head. Was our patient still conscious? Still alive? Are we in the right draw? Did we pass him? I had no frame of reference with which to base anything on and we kept pushing.

Bright yellow green is not a color that belongs in the woods, but visualizing the glow sticks from the survival bag made my bag feel lighter and upped our pace. Kenny had not been able to find them but trusted me and we plowed oh so ungracefully through the woods towards it, cliffing ourselves out twice, and finally descending to the patient.

I approached from the uphill side and the patient's head- usually not a good idea (I don't want to startle him nor make him crane his neck) but dictated by the terrain. He looked good, in the survival bag and yelling at us. I could see about 25feet of scree that had been disrupted when he fell- the MOI for a spinal compromise was certainly there.

"Hi, my name is Jason, I'm an EMT with ________ county search and rescue, what hurts?"

"My leg.... where's the helicopter?"

"Dude (yes, I called a patient dude...oops), there's no helicopter tonight, we're carrying you out."

"Oh shit"

Oh shit is right....

A Probie's First Callout- Part 1

We had just finished a ropes rescue training session, it was 9 O'clock, dark, and slightly drizzling. There had been the usual SAR team bullshit arguing about our team standards, whether or not we should have attendance requirements, what our medical certification level should be, etc. Not surprisingly that all disappeared as everyone unconciously reached for their hip as the multitude of beeper tones and vibrations began.

The five probationary officers of my incoming class looked at each other. I'm sure it was a look akin to a combination of a deer in the headlights and a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. We'd been on the team for two weeks, had three training sessions of training under our belt and were very, very green. Hell, we barely knew how to call in 10-8 (on duty) to the dispatcher, all of just listened to radio traffic for a few minutes once we were in our cars.

The trailhead was only 15minutes away, it probably should have been twenty but most of us drove a little to fast. Of course, it didn't matter. In typical SAR fashion we stood around in the parking lot for 30min just waiting. One of the more experiences members of the team knowingly stopped and grabbed a burrito on the way over- I envied him for most of the next 10 hours.

Not much longer we had a National Parks Service helo on scene and the old, ex vietnam era military era, pilot to go with it (I say this with all due respect, it was the only helicopter we could get at night, in a slight rain). We also had the patient on a dieing cell phone but he didn't know where he was. The bird went up, the Haste team went up the trail and the search began in earest. All while the newbies sat on the bumpers of their cars.

I packed, repacked, and packed again my backpack. Then I drank a liter of gatorade, a liter of water, pissed a lot, and waited. All the while I wished I had packed more food than the package of oreos I scavenged from the floor of my car (the proverbial shit show that it is) and a cliff bar from a cycling jersey on said shit show. It didn't matter, I reasoned, there was no way I was going to be put "on the hill".

Word came back that they found the hiker and he was much farther south of where we were at. The whole shebang of private SAR cars, our mobile incident command center (a large motorhome), fire trucks, ambulances, and the rest picked up shop and moved to a closer location. I hesitate to call it a trailhead because, well, there was no trail. Again, everyone who knew how to do something did it and the probies waited. I made sure I had my pack on and clothes ready to go so I wouldn't have to strip off any layers if I got to go up...

"What about Jason, he teaches Wilderness EMT classes, let him go up" I have good ears and a curious mind and I couldn't help but overhear one of the training officers talking to a COG (crusty old guy- again, a term of incredible indeerment).
"Nah" A simple anwer accompanied by a head shake that seemed final. My hopes, what little were there, were killed.
Yet, another training officer began speaking to the COG and after 5min he nodded, very subtley, and walked away. I wouldn't let myself believe it, I had to be making things up.
"Jason, you have your pack ready?"
"Yes maam"
"Good, follow Kenny, you're chief medical, don't fuck up"

To be continued.....

Search and Rescue

I got a call from our local search and rescue team today. They want to interview me for an open position on the team. Excited does not do justice to how I feel. I love the mountains, I love EMS, this is a great combination. I realize that I won't be able to do operations like the picture above for a long time, and that most of the time there isn't much medicine involved (one member of the team impressed me with the quote "by the time we get to them they're usually either stable or they're dead) but I honestly cannot think of anything I'd rather be doing.

If I get on the team it is a huge time commitment though. I would be expected to respond to 66% of all call outs for the first 9 months and 50% of all call outs from there on out. I would also be on call 24/7/365.

My mom (a nurse practitioner) thinks this that if I get on the team it will change everything- that I won't want to go to med school, that I'll be a flight nurse or medic, etc, etc, etc. We'll see about that....