Category: Life

We left this morning from camp at 8 am for the Blount County Sheriff’s Department to learn about different types of weapons, entrance and exit injuries and tracks.  Those instructing us in the various firearms took aim as the pig heads with 4 or 5 different firearms.  After demonstrating the effects on the pig heads we progressed to the human simulate to see the actual tracts through something with the consistency of flesh.  Yeah, sorta morbid but necessary in wilderness medicine.

After the demonstrations, we were given the opportunity to try our hands at the firearms.  Yep, it was really great to have the opportunity to fire the different rifles and handguns.  After everyone had a chance to fire the weapons, we learned how to extract ourselves or someone else from a vehicle.  There were really cools stories as to breaking into vehicles and extractions.  We also saw a really useful device everyone should have in their car.  It is called ResQMe.  I’m gonna be getting one for my car, never know when it could come in handy and it came with very high recommendations from the Assistant Chief of the Blount County Sheriff’s Department.

The instructors were so generous with their time and resources.  It was a cold and dreary day.  Snow was falling off and on.  The wind was bitting and the ground was soggy.  The job of the instructors almost seem thankless except for our smiles, excitement and hearty handshakes when we were done.  Here is a special thank you to those who were willing to give their Sat. morning to us and let us experience something few are able.

After returning to the lodge for lunch, we had an emergency medicine doc give us lectures throughout the afternoon on various topics including “Leave No Trace,” “Flight Medicine” and “Fire.”  Soon the lectures were over and we were done for the week, done to enjoy a day of rest and then the Superbowl.  Yeah, it was a good day and week all around…

Again thanks to Gabe and John for the pictures.

Well, we are back from our day off and are starting up with Search and Rescue.  We have Jeff Wadley presenting today and are going to “skim the surface” of this topic.  Also just found out that our first night scenario is next Monday.  Gotta start hitting the trails and make sure we know the area to keep the night a bit shorter.

As to Days 5 & 6, they were days full of multiple and varied experiences as are becoming common here at the WMS Elective.  Each and every experience has broadened my perspective on Wilderness Medicine.  Not all have been as glamorous and exciting as my posted highlights, but all have served to increase my appreciation for the wilderness.

Thursday was a first for the WMS Elective in terms of education.  We spent the morning at the Heritage Museum here in Townsend, TN.  In the morning we had the privilege to hear about the discovery of equipment from an old iron mill.  It was in a river and was only discovered after an earthen dam failed and all the silt was washed away.  A former park ranger was hiking up the river when he noticed a “square rock” after noting, “God doesn’t make stones that way.”  Dwight McCarter was the presenter with a classic East Tennessee story telling style.  As for the story, it wasn’t the point of our visit but the cultural aspect and how it relates to wilderness medicine. 

After the presentation a tour of the museum was in order.  It turns out that the federal government decided to expand the road outside the museum.  While one of the bulldozer operators was working to prepare the roadbed, he noticed some bones.  The bones turned out to be from an old Cherokee settlement.  The University of Tennessee excavated the area and the Heritage museum was created as an agreement with the Cherokee to allow the road construction.

About ½ of the museum presented the history of the Cherokee in the area.  I learned several interested bits of information about the Cherokee, their social structure and a little about the medicine.  The other half of the museum presented the history of Cades Cove through buildings, equipment and vehicles moved to the area. One of the more unique stories we told was the story of a moonshine operation lasting for > 80 years without detection.  It lasted through prohibition all the way to the donation of the 500-gallon still to the museum.  

As part of the presentation, some of us stayed behind to try throwing an Atlatl (pronounced at•lat•tel).  It was a very surprising and neat experience to try throwing it.  Easier then I expected but still challenging as evidenced by the videos and pictures.

The remainder of our day (after dinner) consisted of a series of infectious disease lectures by Dr. Mark Rasnake from UT Medical Center.

What about day 4?  I’m glad you would ask.  Today started of student presentations.  Each of us is required to give a presentation on a certain topic related to wilderness medicine.  Today we had about 10 individuals give their presentations.  All were quite refreshing without power points.  I’m trying to figure out how to give mine without any slides.

I have one illustration I’d really like to show for my topic.  It is a poster showing the spectrum of light – from infrared to ultraviolet and everything between.  It really gives a good idea of how the bandwidth is partitioned and where our electronics are functioning.  The other problem I have is I don’t have my visual aids (i.e. Radio and license.) 

After the morning round of presentations, we were given about 2 hours off to explore the camp and prepare ourselves for the coming scenarios.  All our instruction is done whatever the weather, just like any rescue.  No, it isn’t fun in the rain, ice, snow or water but it must be done.  A person’s life is at stake and a rescue doesn’t wait on good weather. 

After taking my GPS, marking several trail heads and tracking the trails I hiked, we had lunch.  Once I download the trails I might upload them into my computer.  However, I can say is we hiked from about ~1100 ft to ~1700 ft on our max ascent, covered 3.13 miles and circled ~0.25 acres.  It had great vistas and also had cell reception on the ridge-tops. Once back, we ate lunch, had a long PowerPoint lecture and then had a great afternoon. 

The afternoon consisted of a ropes course with a challenge and a giant swing.  The challenge was crossing a suspended ~24 ft wire ~30 ft in the air.  A parallel wire was suspended above crossing wire with ropes dangling from it at increasing intervals (each was further apart).  The objective was simple, ascend the tree, cross the wire and descend the opposing tree to the “v-swing.”  Once at the v-swing we were sent swinging.

After all this we ate a filling supper of Spaghetti and completed the night with 5 more student presentations.  All in all a great day I’m sure to be followed by many others.

Hat-tip to John, Gabriel and David for the pictures.

More pre-hospital medicine & pseudo simulations

Tuesday brought another day of learning and many really interesting stories.  Of all our instructors almost are all volunteers and this day our teachers were from Roan State Community College, an assistant chief of the Knoxville Fire Department and a Park Ranger Smokey Mountain National Park.  Each was great and really taught us many useful tools for survival and rescue. 

Our day started out with learning intubation techniques and airway management in both urban and wilderness pre-hospital settings.  I guess now would be a good time to ensure everyone knows what “pre-hospital” means.  I wondered the first time I heard it and the answer is the most obvious answer – it is pre-hospital care.  Yep, so obvious it almost hit me in the face.

But back to day 3.  The morning consisted of learning multiple techniques in securing the airway be it using a bag-mask, endotracheal tube, esophageal tube, double lumen tube, LMA or a needle decompression.  We discussed various situations in airway management and practiced the techniques.  The esophageal tubes were a really ingenious idea for pre-hospital intubation. Also the S.A.L.T. was a great idea for providing a bite block and guidance of the intubation tube right through the vocal cords.  How cool is that.  In fact, it would have been great for a patient I remember in the trauma bay.

The afternoon consisted of learning to secure the c-spine and spine for mobilization to the hospital (i.e. packaging up the patient for the hospital.)  We learned several different methods of stabilization for extraction.  We practiced the techniques on each other.  The photos you see of me demonstrated how to remove someone not lying on the ground.  It was developed by NASCAR for the extraction of drivers but works great for other uses.  

After this, we had a short simulation to cement a little of what we learned through four of us acting as victims and the rest as the first responders.  We managed the scenes and brought back all the patients.  We only made a few errors covered up by the proximity to the base camp.  All in all though, no patients were dropped (but one was close), all were successfully immobilized and transported. 

We ended the day with a talk by National Park Ranger Hester.  His stories of the wildlife, people and hikes were all inspiring.  Many hilarious stories of practical jokes Park Rangers play on each other and “green” campers or illegal campers (ones without a permit).  Sufficed to say, make sure you have a permit. 🙂  Ranger Hester is a great speaker and I look forward to him returning in the next couple of weeks.

I finished the night with a hike to “David’s Bald” trail head and the Blue Berry trail head before heading to bed after doing some reading.