May 26-June 2, 2011
My Dearest Family and Friends,
I’m in
a much better space than the last time I wrote, both mentally and
emotionally, so clichés in responses are now welcome. Physically, I
wouldn’t mind still unzipping the tent window to mist lifting off the
lake as we rise together toward being one with air and sun, but my stone
was sprouting moss fuzz, so I had to keep rolling.
I’m officially
a “WoFeR” (Wilderness First Responder) now and have some sort of
permission to give initial care to medical emergencies in the wild. I’m
hoping to never have to attend to more than a skinned knee or bee sting.
The dislocated shoulders and compound fractures kinda grossed me out.
Overall, taking the WFR course was an injection. A week in the woods did
me much good. Peeing outdoors, sleeping with the stars in view and not
running a grooming utensil through my hair for 7 days put me back in
touch with my essense. It’s all so freeing, especially neglecting the
scalp and what grows from its follicles, because it allows the brain
cells to rest and recharge. Ever notice Einstein’s hair?
As for
sleeping in a tent, if you recall from the last log, just to prove I
could, I weathered out an electrical storm in mine. We studied the
chapter on lightening the very next day and I had made a textbook choice
of one of the most likely sites to get struck--near water, on a hill,
in an open field, under a tall tree. Not one of my brighter decisions.
Aside from not getting fried, I consider my greatest accomplishment of the week avoiding the like virus that was running rampant amongst the whippersnappers. In case you don’t know much about it, like virus is highly contagious and seems to target the under 25 population. While not fatal, it is
excruciatingly
painful, not for the infirmed, who is oblivious to having it (which is
one of the primary symptoms), but to the listener.
“Like, I was like hiking up this trail when like I totally didn’t like see this snake and so I like almost stepped on it. I mean like nothing really happened because it wasn’t like even a real snake. It was a rope, about like this long and purple, pink and chartreuse, but still…..it like scared the shit out of me.”
The
only known cure for it is electroshock therapy. A dog collar of the
type that keeps Fido in the front yard is placed around the neck of the
sick person and anytime they use “like” as anything except a verb, a
jolt reminds them of their abusive behavior. It has a 92% success rate.
The only thing more effective and that seems to work on the resistant
strain is to confiscate the patient’s texting device--each like overage equals one hour without texts. Most prefer the shock collar.
So,
the week of training went like this: the instructor gave us a lecture
on the anatomy and physiology of a specific body area and explained the
signs, symptoms and treatment of injuries to it that we might encounter
in the back country. Then we would do a mock rescue. For the first five
days I got stuck walking out the broken arms and sprained ankles, which
meant that I got no practice for the important stuff like chest wounds
and broken pelvises. They require lashing together a stretcher out of
whatever is at hand to carry out the patient and that’s the fun part. I
know they assigned me wimp duty because of my size. Was tenting out an
electrical storm not enough to prove myself? It’s mind over muscle, you
know.
At first the teacher told the victims what injuries and
illnesses to fake, but after a while he let the students come up with
their own ill fates. We learned as much about each other as we did
wilderness medicine.
For example, Adam. I come across him on the
side of the trail, playing the victim, face-down, with the front of his
feet hung over a log. A liquid mix of Kayro syrup and red food coloring
is running down his shins and smeared across his forehead, indicating,
obviously, that the fallen tree up and tripped him. There is a small
puddle of a gooey, yellow substance beside his mouth.
He tells me he is unconscious and not breathing.
At
that moment all we had learned goes in the blender for me. Do a jaw
thrust first? No, check for a pulse. No, no, there is something before
that. Vitals? No, that comes later. Check the spine? Hold the head
still? Yell for help? Run for help? Pass out myself?.... so I can be a
victim too and not have to deal with this stress of not knowing what to
do?!
Now I remember! Gloves on! BSI-body substance isolation or in
layman’s terms, protect yourself from human cooty juice. Maybe I should
do CPR. Is it 3 compressions and 4 breathes or the other way around? Or
is it 2:1? No, that’s water to rice. Hell, I don’t know. I decide to
take his pulse, and he’s got one, much to his benefit. The book says
the chest must indent 2 inches and then recoil after each compression. I
don’t have the arm strength for that (obviously, if I can’t help with
the stretcher) and thus, would have to make lofty jumps on his torso
with both feet, as if it were a trampoline.
As for the “P” part of
CPR, I make the executive decision to skip that all together. I am not
doing mouth to mouth on a set of chops oozing yellow pusy- looking shit.
About that time he comes to and I do a LOC check (level of conscience).
The book says to ask the person their name, the date and where they
are. That seems way too easy of a test to me. So I change the questions a
bit. The first one that comes to mind is, do you think pedophilia is
grounds for the death penalty? I second guess that one since it’s yes or
no and he might just be shaking his head to get a gnat off his nose and
I would mistake it for a gesture of negation and write in my medical
report that the patient shows signs of being conscientious when really
he’s not.
I rack my brain for a good one while he continues to
groan and bleed toward death. Then I come up with a short essay
question, “What would you do if you got your 14-year-old, very catholic
girlfriend pregnant?” His face wrinkles which means he responds to
verbal stimuli and is thus A&O X 1. I write that down in my
notebook. He opens his eyes, rolls over and gestures that he is choking.
Oh great. I haven’t cleared his spine, which means I can’t just jerk
him up and do the Heimlich thingy, so I’ll have to stick my finger in
his mouth and clear the airway. I know I have gloves on, but still……
I stall hoping he will swallow the blockage.
“Are you choking?” I ask.
He nods yes.
“Are you sure?”
Another nod.
“Double Dutch sure? Have you tried looking up at the light and swallowing? That always does the trick for hiccups.”
A
glob of yellow oral snot comes hurling out of his mouth and onto me. He
begins to gasp, “My friend fell in the water. He, he, he can’t swim. I,
I, I was running for help and, and choked on the banana I was eating
and tripped over a log.”
Say what? Did I hear him right? Has this
kid got attachment issues or what? Didn’t his mama teach him not to run
with bananas? Like, dude, drop the ‘naner. The ants and dirt will wash
off. I question the wattage of his bulb. He’s one of those who would
probably set up his tent beside the only tree in an open field under
rumbling skies.
Another get-to-know opportunity: On day 7, slender
and fair Mary Elizabeth had her turn at creating a scenario. I arrive
first on the scene and find her skinny butt in nothing but flip-flops,
running shorts and a sports bra sprawled out in a bed of poison ivy
thick as Dorothy’s field of poppies. I kid you not. She invented that
she and her friends were out in the woods doing ‘shrooms and cutting
down trees. (In that attire???????) Somehow the tree she was cutting
fell on her (Did she throw herself under it as it started down?????????)
and broke her pelvis.
Finally, I have a chance to be a big girl
WoFeR and my victim has to throw herself down in one of the few things I
am highly allergic to. The past two times I got poison ivy I ended up
in the doctor’s office. I stand there for a minute surveying the scene
and thinking about the fact that I have no health insurance. Maybe I
should let her scrawny ass pass on to the next life. No, can’t do that.
I’ve invested too much money in this course to fail and without it I
won’t get a job, which means I can never afford health insurance. I try
to pick out the least PI infested path to her and mumble to myself,
“Dumbass.” I pull up my socks as high as they will go, pull down my
shorts ‘til my crack is showing and hopscotch out to her.
Since
I’m there first, my job is to stabilize the head until we know she has
no spinal injury, unless I break her neck first. I should wipe the sweat
off her face with some of these leaves, I think to myself as I plunge
my hands into the sea of green to cup her skull. For her LOC check I
ask her if she knows she is lying in poison ivy. That question brought
her out of her role-played fungal stupor very fast.
“Like, Oh My God! Really?”
“Like, OMG, yes.”
Another
dim bulb who would probably weather out a lightning storm in a tent,
near a lake shore, under a solitary pine, in an open field. The world
is full of them.
I could tell more tales from the WoFeR week at
Camp Pennicle, NC, but I must pack. I’m off to the VA coast now to
spend an indefinite amount of time (i.e. until I find a job) with my
best friend and cousin, who to my good fortune, is the same person.
Saves on stamps and the phone bill to not have two people to keep up
with.
Hope you are all well.
Much love, G
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