Hello Hell Day

One Week In:

It’s Hell Day Eve and obviously all I can think about is what lies ahead of us tomorrow. Today was also significant because it marked my 1 week anniversary in Flagstaff…damn it went by fast.  Last night was one of my better nights of sleep and I apparently didn’t want it to end because I must’ve turned off my alarm and kept sleeping.  What is that…your biological clock(?) that subconsciously knows it’s time to get up…well it kicked in when it needed to…just in time.  We scrambled to get out the door, again I heard German coming out of Nick’s mouth when he was trying to prep me for the quiz, and I decided I was going to park in the campus lot that our instructor suggested, the giant commuter lot.

Today nearly became WFR Bummer #4.  We were scheduled to get out at 12 and Nick & I were going to hit up Buffalo Wild Wings & watch some football but we found out the day before that the earliest we might get out was 4…just 1 hour earlier. I’ll leave you hanging a little bit before I fill you in on what happened. Today was the day that we handed in our final homework and would take our final quiz.  Once again, didn’t really study, looked at the quiz and thought…you know…I really don’t have to hand this in, I’ll just skip this one and study for the Mass Causality Mock Scenario.  I paused for a moment and remembered my last blog post…I end doing well on these quizzes even when I think I’m gonna bomb them.  Whoa Mama I Did It!  I finally got a perfect 5/5 on a quiz…and another 10/10 on the homework...but the quiz cracks me up because I completely made up the final answer about differentiating between the symptoms of the two different toxins of snake bites and I got it right! The post quiz routine was shaken up a little bit today. It was the last day of presentations so Matt tried to get them out of the way first, nice change up.

Our presentation on fever was easily the funniest one of the class…I was still getting compliments about it the next day.  Ours was funny on purpose but the one that Nicole, the Jersey Girl, & Eric, the firefighter guy I talked about in my previous post, had a slip up that was so funny that I almost pissed my pants.  Their presentation was on hemorrhoids and some of the pictures they showed were so gross that even I had to look away after awhile.  One of the know-it-alls interrupted the presentation to announce that you shouldn’t drink some kind of something if you have hemorrhoids because it’s a diuretic and gives you diarrhea.  Nicole, most likely surprised by the disturbance…I don’t know why she would be at this point because it happens every day,  responded with “I don’t think it matters if you drink diarrhea” and the class exploded.  She was embarrassed but took it like a champ.

It turns out that Matt wanted to get the presentations out the way so he could teach without having to make time for them to get in…his reason in doing so…so we could get out early!  He beat the remaining topics from our text into our skulls and did a funny little exercise to see if we could get out early.  It was almost lunch time and he only had one topic left.  He told us he only had 1 thing left to get through, would break us into our MCMS groups and then we could go.  To make sure that was okay, he made us close our eyes and asked if anybody had anywhere to go at noon to raise their hands….so nobody would get pissed at them for roadblocking our early dismissal.  Dig it?

The groups were written up on the board, mine consisted of 4 future rangers I’ve previously discussed (Nick, Laura, Brad, & myself) and the one Nick & I have dubbed Q2 (Question Queen).  I don’t know how but I knew I’d end up having to work with this girl eventually.  Once we saw our groups, Nick & I looked around to see where everybody was and I saw Q2 look at us, cover her mouth with her notebook and whisper something to Laura.  I’m assuming it was something nasty…because she is not an NFL coach…and I assume she did that because she must’ve heard one of the many times I’ve whispered to Nick “Shut the F Up!!!” during her numerous pointless stories and unrelated questions.  My hypothesis was supported a little further when Nick & I went over to introduce ourselves to her and she shook Nick’s hand then she quickly jumped out of her seat to hold court in pre-Mock Scenario group meeting. Adding to my culture shock, after our little meeting, Q2 announced that she running from class to go skiing.  That’s pretty cool.  It’s like going to the mall for the people out here.

The group decided it’d be a good idea to go to Fratelli’s, the same pizza place that Nick & I went to on Saturday Night but on the other side of town, because that’s where Q2 works.  I immediately remembered how packed the joint was the night before and I thought…there’s no way in hell we’re going to be able to study in there. As usual, I was right.  Nick & I got home from school and I immediately started photocopying the checklists that follow each chapter of symptoms & treatments for various conditions covered in the text.  There are so many that it took almost the entire time between class and our meeting to get it done then Nick & I were on our way.  We got lost getting there but good thing we did because we were there easily 10-15 minutes before the other group members, which was long enough to see the Eagles blow yet another postseason burst.  Strangely enough, those watching the game were actually upset the Eagles lost.  Weird.  The other group members slowly file in and Q2 arrives late with her BF thanks to the skiing but made up for it with free pizza & breadsticks.  We were completely lost as to where to start preparing for this scenario so we went to page one of our work/notebook thing Matt gave us and worked from there.  As expected, the group kept getting off track & talking about irrelevant stuff and I tried to get everyone’s heads back in the game.  All-in-all, we got about a half hour of review done and I left not knowing anything more than I did before I got there. This little meeting was also the place where I received the interesting news that my Laura would be moving in with her good friend Monte.

Initially I was shocked, among other things, at the news, but I couldn’t talk to her about it yet because I felt that we might’ve made some progress in our group session. I knew all the reasons she was looking to make this move and it honestly couldn’t be a better situation for her…as long as the dogs get along.  I picked her brain about the whole process, expressed a few things that upset me about it, but congratulated her and hopefully got off the phone with her knowing that I think what she’s doing is great…even though I’m very upset that I won’t be there to help her take this very important step in her life…she really needs this and I hope it works out for her.

Feeling mentally overwhelmed I threw in one of my failsafe movies to kinda get my brain into chill mode…STEP BROTHERS!  I watched almost the entire movie while organizing my super cool trail pack for Hell Day.  Extra sets of clothes, socks, hand warmers, extra hats, gloves, headlamps, flashlights, and places to store food.  Surprise Surprise, I over packed once again.  After I got that all squared away it was time for a shower.  Following the shower, I read over a correspondence sent out by my boy Chris Rath about his wedding coming up in July…which I’ll be the BEST MAN! Then I decided that since I needed to apply to the seasonal Ranger job in Sandy Hook before the 12^th and that I’d be way too tired from this scenario & studying for the tests on Tuesday & Wednesday, that I would apply right then.  Well as my life story goes, the job opening expired on December 23^rd (it’ll be opened again by the time I leave here in April) not the 12^th.  That ruins my perfect plan of working a season at Sandy Hook before picking up the full time job in Philly.  Now Philly is the only national park that’s close to home so I basically have to throw all of my eggs into that basket….DAMN IT!  Even though the closing date isn’t until October 5^th, I began the application process immediately…until I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore.  

Could you imagine a better birthday present?

“Sometimes It Pays to Be Big & Dumb”

Hell Day has finally arrived, but let me refresh your memory for a second.  I only call it “Hell Day” because of the comparison I deemed appropriate for this class in that it’s like a sorority or fraternity in the sense that you get beat up while pledging as a means of being broken down and then brought back up. These organizations typically have a “Hell Week” to symbolize the end of their run and to test their camaraderie & bonds they’ve built before being recognized as one of their peers.  In my case, I’ll be recognized as a Wilderness First Responder. 

I woke up a little later than I wanted to which is funny because I woke up before my alarm.  I was adding on my layers when Nick knocked on my door to see if I was awake…he didn’t hear my rooster.  Poor Nick was all ready to go and I still had to pack up a lunch and grab some other snacks for the 14 hour day ahead of us and we were off.  The class met in a parking lot outside the gym so we could load up all of our supplies into 2 of the trucks and we would then parade over to the scenario sight.  I had on all of these layers and these nut jobs were wearing just long sleeve Under Armor or jeans in a sweatshirt in most cases.  Some students were late but we eventually got our way and somehow my group of 5, which I named Dream Team because we were listed as Team D but somehow we just started calling ourselves Double Ds…which made no sense so I told everybody it stood for Dumb & Dumber, all fit into Brad’s Wrangler. On the way there we got on the topic of suicide for some reason and you could just feel the mood in the car drop…I was nervous as it was heading into the whole ordeal and then we were talking about this crap.

Three cool things I saw on the ride to the site.

1.)    A bunch of 4Runners…Nick’s going to kill me if we keep carpooling because I comment on every 4Runner we see out here.  It’s like pointing out every tree in the forest they’re so popular.

2.)    It wasn’t snowing anywhere near us but if you looked up one of the many mountains along the roads, you could actually see a snow storm going on…pretty cool.

3.)    I don’t know what the building’s for but we passed a National Park Service building.

We got to Dr. Alison’s house (our host and assistant, along with her husband) and there was our little class mascot Nessy!  We unloaded the truck and Dr. Allison and her husband Dr./ Flight Nurse Dan greeted us with another dog.  A sheep dog that thinks he’s cat judging by the way he always wanted to be petted, River. I made the joke that River was a WFR because unlike Nessy, he wouldn’t come near us unless he was sure the scene was safe.  (That’s the first step in responding…scene assessment.) After meeting Dan we had to walk 400 or so yards through the snow to setup camp.  At this point we were getting some flurries but it never got worse than that. The first thing I noticed about certain members of the class were they were taking out these small rubber mats and standing on them for insulation from the cold snowy ground.  It makes sense to do that but I don’t think I’d ever think of doing that.  One of the first things that’s in our text book was something that we never went over in class, patient/victim carries, and so that was the first thing we did and I immediately knew that my years of security service in carrying unconscious crowd surfers and passed out superfans squashed against the barricade would blend beautifully with my long days and nights on the sled hill at Holmdel Park. After trying out the different carries for awhile…my favorite has always been the fireman’s carry…Matt informed us that we would be having a race and the winning team would receive an extra point on the final. Now that’s motivation! 

The rules were simple, as a team, run out about 50 yards around trees and over rocks, circle around the TA, and make it back to base.  The catch; everybody has to carry/drag somebody, everybody has to be carried or dragged, and the victims had to start out on the ground.  We devised our plan and the race was on.  Nick carried Laura the entire first stretch down to the TA (Derek) and I followed behind as a spotter.  We looped Derek and the team laid out a tarp for me to jump on so they could all drag me 10ft.  There were a couple more changes and then it was my turn to bring it home.  I threw Brad (about my size minus 40lbs) across my shoulders and took off running like he wasn’t even there.  “Holy Shit He’s Like a Bear!” I could hear Brad exclaim as I dipped into craters and leapt over logs & stumps.  Probably not the smoothest ride in his life but WE WON!!!!  Now I can get 21 questions wrong and still get my WFR Certification! Of course some of the buddies I’ve made started making excuses that we had the biggest guy & the smallest girl in the group…but the sore losers laid off when they found out Nick carried her for more than half the race & not me. “Sometimes it pays to be big & dumb” I responded to all the haters hahaha.

It was time for a break and I broke out the camera for a little bit.  If we weren’t close then, we soon would be.  Following an AM break, 2 people from each group had to stay behind while the others trekked off into the woods.  Usually the 2 would be the victims, this time they were rescuers part of a triage team.  All the remaining group members had to lay on top of each other in a “pig pile”.  The scene was ALL 23 of us were climbing the same tree and it fell, they had to come up and prioritize the patients…aka triage.  It was goofy and a big dude was having a seizure on my head, but I’m tough haha.

The camaraderie was pumping even more now.  Everybody is on the same page & nobody knowing what we’d be seeing throughout the day.  Everybody was getting along but it seemed like those in the park ranger program sorta stuck together, which is great because they are all cool & very nice people.  Today certainly mirrored Hell Week in the sense that some different acquaintances were forced to be made through the activities we were all going through. I joked around with people I hadn’t talked to all week, everybody got some digs on each other, everybody was sharing food with each other…it’s just an inexplicable feeling. At one point during our debrief, the two dudes I hadn’t talked to all week left their seats to kick it by me because I was making them laugh all day. At lunch, a bunch of us started quoting Dumb & Dumber and taking some pictures, and that’s when I decided I wasn’t going to worry anymore about what was going to happen at night…I’m never going to have a chance like this again so I’m just going to chill and have fun with it. 

What happened next is just so ironic, considering I was flipping into chill mode.  We did 2 scenarios following lunch.  I was a victim in one, a skier wrapped around a tree, and my tops were too short & I got snow all over my back…so yeah I literally chilled, but our 2^nd scenario actually turned into a REAL “emergency”.  I was responding to a scene as a park ranger and the point was to just use my words to diffuse a situation between lovers but when I arrived, things seemed strange.  Brad was rolling around on the ground and Nick was about 20 minutes away.  They were having a lovers’ quarrel & I saw Nick had a knife and some fake blood on his hand. Brad told us not to step in a certain spot because there was vomit there…I figured he meant fake vomit.  Assuming the role of the ranger, I had my hand on my hip holster and ordered Nick to drop the knife…keeping him away (scene safe) from Brad while Laura & Q2 responded to him.  Everything stopped when I heard Brad say he wasn’t hurt & just felt like crap.  Staying in character, I stayed on Nick about the knife and he informed me that he put it away and he didn’t want to go on because Brad was feeling sick.  I ran & got Derek, taking the WFR approach to get help to get the victim out of the scene.  Derek talked to him about just staying cool while I sent 1 of the girls to get him water.  At one point everybody left and I stayed with Brad, following up on protocol for dehydration & Acute Mountain Sickness.

He kept saying he’d never felt anything like this before.  He was violently vomiting now and pieces of his lunch were visible.  The scenario wrapped up and the class was gathering around for a debrief, leaving us out in the woods with Matt & Derek forgetting about us.  I interrupted the debrief with a bellowing “MATT!”  I knew Brad had to be “evacuated”, especially after he was puking so hard, got weak and almost passed out into it, and said he felt like he was going to die.  I was shielding Brad’s pukefest while the rest of the class tried to get a glimpse of what was going on through the trees off in the distance.  Matt started walking Brad with me but handed him off to Nick as we walked him back to Dr. Allison’s house (faaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrr) to get him warm and get him some fluids.  When we got Brad inside he was pale as a ghost (typically olive skinned) and was hyperventilating.  We sat Brad on the couch while Dr. A was getting his vitals and Nessy provided moral support. His heart rate was over 140; in the wilderness…you evacuate anything over 120.  I took care of Brad like he was my son & I don’t even know the guy.  Had to fish his wallet out of his butt pocket so he could sit, talked to him to control his breathing, and yes…I even held a bowl while he barfed in it.  I should just get my WFR card based on that alone!  He was so embarrassed but I was so reassuring, by the end of the trip he was calling me his right hand man. 

I didn’t want to miss anymore of the practicing going on outside, despite not wanting to leave the extremely warm house and now 3 dogs (a 3^rd, Chili) so I asked if he was cool and returned to the scenarios going on….radio communication and a dry run of the night’s activities with the instructors & experienced students playing victims.  It was time for dinner. We all showed up and Brad was looking better but now he had a fever to add to his list of ailments.  Everybody had to thaw out as the temperatures on the mountain were approaching the teens prior to dinner, which Matt said was the coldest it’s ever been for Mock Scenario Night! GREAT!.  We all took off our boots and warmed them by the fire place.  The women jumped in the kitchen (where they belong hahahahhahahahahahahaha just kidding) with Dr. Allison and cut up all sorts of fruits & vegetables for finger foods and chips with salsa & guacamole were put on display but nobody seemed warm enough to eat yet. Dr. A served us some sort of chili while the victims, Matt, & Derek were getting victimized.  We had to brainstorm with our groups 1 more time and select a leader, I said it should be either Nick or Q2 because they seemed to have the best grasp of all of the symptoms & treatments. Then it came time for business.

The Mass Casualty Mock Scenario:

We were WFRers at a training facility.  A group was off camping in the woods when we get a report of a lightning strike at the camp sight.  We got in trouble for jumping the gun and already being all dressed to go outside but whatever.  We got all our layers on, fresh socks, and we’ve added our headlamps and we shoot out the front door.  Paul, 1 of the more experienced students who is actually a river guide around AZ, was designated “in charge”.  As soon as I heard that I immediately burst out into song to the tune of the Charles in Charge theme song, “Paul’s in charge” to which I got a hardy group laugh…my sense of humor is universal I guess. “I like having the theme song”, he chuckled towards me.  Double Ds geared up and headed up the mountain.  HOLY CRAP!!! They were sooooo far away!!!!!!!!!! The victims were over a half mile away…I thought I was going to crap out just getting to them.  All of those layers and just eating dinner…not a good combo.  I made it about a 200ft before I had to take my face covering off.  I stayed at the entrance of the campsite to make sure everybody was okay after that hike. Laura looked beat but toughed it out.  Then the mass casualty scenario turned into the mass chaos scenario.  There were no more groups…just people being pulled in different directions to help all the other subgroups.  In our defense, there were more victims than groups so we had to. We walked up on a female who was face down next to a camp fire.  Q2 began her assessment while maintaining C-Spine and I immediately had to jump in to check the victim’s spine before we turned her over to open her airway and continue with the assessment.  We turned her over and goodness gracious! They went all out on making these people look like victims.  The girl had all the indications of severe head trauma, hypothermia, internal bleeding, and had gone unresponsive…making her…EVAC victim priority #1. I’m so glad it was my victim!

Amongst all the chaos, Q2 let go of C-Spine to get supplies and somebody from another group took over…poorly. I was jotting down the notes for our EVAC when I saw the new guy had the victims head/neck at a horrible angle…aka piss poor C-Spine support and the victim called him out on it later. Fortunately he realized he was screwing up & asked me to take over.  As usual…I REGULATED that junk.  We had already gotten the victim, Mercedes, on a backboard and were fine tuning the strap-in situation.  Since I was at the head it was my show. 

“Anybody not ready?”

“On my count we’re going up. 1..2..3 UP!  Everybody still okay?”

“Okay turn around this way and feet guide us home”

I had to lead communication with my team, not only checking on them…giving commands whenever somebody needed a break…but I also had to keep them updated on any changes with the victim. The group needed a quick break to adjust their grip, at which point we gave the victim’s vitals to the triage team who was on a radio with Incident Control.  That’s when we found out how far we backboard the victim….ALLLLL the way to Dr. Allison’s house.  After everybody readjusted their grip and we told triage where we stood with the victim, we were up again but only for a short while as the victim whose breathing rate had gotten much faster was now not breathing at all.  We had to put her down and perform CPR. I maintained C-Spine while Q2 broke out a face shield for rescue breaths…while she was doing that I told McWane to ready for compressions and I sent Pat out to find our drop off point (which was unknown to us before that), so seeing how far that was I had him find our triage guy to see if there was any way to get a faster EVAC.  McWane must’ve gotten sooo amped up in the realness of everything that he actually started giving hard chest compressions…immediately I was like “whoa easy easy easy, mock scenario buddy.”  He was probably taking his cue from Q2 who was actually performing rescue breaths on the victim…until she asked her to stop hahahahahaha. When lightning’s involved you keep doing CPR…so we did….for 15 minutes real time.  Apparently Mercedes was the victim that was going to die regardless of what we did.  We needed the backboard so we kept her bundled up in her sleeping bags & slid her off the side.  The human thing to do would make sure she was “foreelz” (whenever a victim is in real distress) so I made sure we left her enough sleeping bags & I was being called up the mountain to help with another transport, but I figured she would’ve gotten up and gone to Dr. A’s to warm up.  Nope, I found her where were left her an hour and a half later…”dead”.  She stayed outside for the entire 2 hour scenario plus however long it took for them to get ready. I did check to see how we did and she said we were perfect but she was going to die either way. 

The next EVAC I had to help with was a guy my size with an amputated foot and a foreelz knee brace injury.  They had done the assessment and I was just there for muscle.  We had to wait for rescuers to come back up the mountain to help us carry but they all went to one side of the backboard.  A 3-2 side mismatch with the other person on my side being the oldest lady in the class….who basically said aaahhhhh forget C-Spine and got indirectly called out on it by the victim later hahahaha. Now I’m a strong guy.  I’m also a tall guy.  The entire distribution of height and strength was very out of whack and it made for an extremely difficult time carrying our victim…who was a foot amputee.  Man this was some strong lightning! Other victims included a woman with a branch impaled in her abdomen, a severe burn victim, one of them (Matt’s fiancé) had a foreelz need to go pee so she ran off, and Derek had one of those movie style eyeballs that hung out of his face.  I don’t remember what the other victims had and I only dealt directly with 3 of them, so back to the EVAC I was on.  No matter how I gripped the backboard the handle would slip and I’d have to keep taking breaks to fix it while the other group members complained about the height difference.  It took us over a half hour to get him down but we made it.  I was pooped and needed a little break.  They were actually giving us warm water to drink upon arrival.  Again…makes sense…but not something I’d think of doing.  After a while 2 others & myself were cleared to head back up to see if anybody needed help with EVAC but walking through that snow, up & down, again & again, was tiring.  I was about to turn off my head lamp and rest up against a tree to catch my breath.  Neither were safe so it was a good thing Dr. A happened to be right there to deter me from doing so just by her presence.  I made it up the hill and was instructed to wait for a backboard to take out our dead Mercedes.  While waiting for the backboard, I looked up at the stars and it felt like I could almost touch them! Finally, the scenario was pronounced over….at an ice cold 7 degrees after about 2 hours. The group struggling to get Derek down the mountain…dragging him on a sled…had already been working at the descent for over an hour and were determined to bring him home.  They readjusted their “litter” and I walked a few yards ahead of them to light the way.

We all reached base camp and were exhausted. I brought up the stars again and some of the students were able to point out Orion’s Belt, his sword, the bull he was chasing, and some other things that I’ve never seen before in the stars.  While they were showing me this, Laura (aka Arkansas) chimes in with some sort of an “I’ve seen better stars” comment.  I of course had a sarcastic comeback mocking her…essentially making fun of NJ in her words that went one for quite a bit that it seemed like the group of guys didn’t want me to end it because they wanted to laugh so bad but didn’t want to miss anything I was saying.  “That was awesome!” they finally laughed out loud when I was done. Hahahahaha.

The 13 hour day had come to an end, we all made our ways into Dr. A’s house and the victims gave us their assessments.  There were 3 birthdays being celebrated in the class today. Guess who led the birthday song earlier in the day. Travis’s birthday was the day before and somebody else had a birthday on the first day of class.  At least 5 birthdays in this group of 29 within a week of each other! I digress. If you remember me referring to the shakey hand needle brothers…they are twins and live right across the street from Dr. A, so the Dr. got them a birthday cake to cap off the evening.

Brad drove the 5 of us back to campus…where I found a warning for parking my unregistered car in the commuter lot that my instructor instructed me to do…..BOOOOO.

When I came home I saw that I got 1 of my last 2 paychecks from the MCPS and it had my Christmas hours on it…..NNNNNNNIIIIIIIIIIIIICCCCCCCCCCCCCCEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Tomorrow we don’t have to be in until 9:30…SWEET

WFR Bummer Debummed…sort of.  We have our helicopter encounter tomorrow and although I don’t think we’ll be able to fly up in it, we’ll be able to sit in it & stuff!  WOOO HOOOO…maybe I could bribe for a ride!

So in summation, Hell Day was more like a class trip you’d go on back in middle school.  It was fun and you learned some stuff.  The way I see it right now, I couldn’t classify myself as a fully functional Wilderness First Responder.  No today didn’t live up to my fears & expectations but like I always say, prepare for the worst & hope for the best.  I thought today would be the day that gets me over that funk hump…where I’d finally feel confident in all of this.  It hasn’t shown in doing the scenarios but I knew how to act in the real life situation with my new buddy Brad…so that’s one thing I can take away from this.  Another thing or 2 is that I realize I’m a natural born leader, but this is something I don’t think I could have people follow me on.  The other, I’ve been called teddy bear before but I’ve never been called a “fucking bear” hahahahahhahaha

Two More Days!

A Flagstaff Observation:

1.)    My classmates must read my blog because they’ve started saying bless you when somebody sneezes, however, the sneezer NEVER says thank you.

Good Luck Chuck!

Got some potentially GREAT news from Mr. A-Team.  I hope it all works out on Tuesday!

Good News for Me!

We don’t have to be in tomorrow un

MOUNT UP!!!