To: prepare@Sun.COM, survive@Sun.COM
Subject: Emergency medicine course review.


    This Saturday & Sunday I attended the two-day course presented
    by Earthbound Medical Rescue (run by Greg Dilley, who's on this
    list) on Wilderness Medicine.  The class ran from 9-5'ish both
    days, and cost $80.00.  The course was presented in a wilderness
    situation, at Alum Rock Park in San Jose.  This is a capsule review.

    The first day covered the basics: ABCs of first aid, patient
    assessment, dealing with altitude sickness, dehydration, etc.,
    as well as viewing a videotape on Limes disease (a potentially
    lethal tick-borne disease).  We practiced several scenarios
    in which it's assumed we come across a victim in the wilderness
    and we have to figure out what's wrong with them from what we've
    learned. Initially this seemed somewhat funny, but after you get
    into it, you forget that it's a scenario.  We also learned how
    to isolate the cervical part of the spine, which might be damaged
    in a fall, or even an auto accident, and how to roll over an
    injured person, and lift in injured person, if necessary.

    The second day covered more detailed and advanced material such
    as assessing, cleaning, splinting, and if necessary straightening,
    breaks, dealing with sprains and strains, dealing with allergic
    reactions, snakebite, etc.  We were run through more scenarios,
    including two realistic ones.  We saw a video on dealing with
    hypothermia, which gave me pause in considering going out for
    even a casual hike, say, on vacation, without having at least
    the 10 basic essentials on my person.  A highpoint of the 2nd
    day was the presentation of information on dealing with breaks,
    strains, sprains, and dislocations, by a chiropractor.  This
    was very useful.

    I'd not had any real formal training in first aid before
    this class, although I've read a lot on my own and have been
    associated with people who knew a bit about medicine.  For me this
    class was a way of getting two days of hands on training with
    real people, and to learn the latest methods of dealing with
    everyday injuries such as damaged ankles/knees, cuts, abrasions,
    broken bones, etc.  Obviously you are not going to come out of
    a 2 day course as a Dr., or even an EMT.  But I now have a
    formalized methodology which I can apply in an emergency situation,
    rather than the haphazard collection of info I had before.  And
    I have a REAL good idea about just how bad it would be if I and
    just a couple of other people had to move an injured person around.
    You haven't lived until you've had to move a 200 lbs. person who's
    just laying there or worse, screaming and spasming.

    In closing, I was surprised that I didn't see more than one other
    person from Sun at the class.  Either everyone on this list is
    a certified EMT, or people don't figure they need to learn
    "wilderness medicine".  But if you think about it, we all need
    to learn wilderness medicine.  If you drive to Lake Tahoe in
    winter, you can get stuck on the roadside overnight.  If you
    get sent back-East on a business trip and you hit some weather,
    are you Californians going to know how to deal with extremes
    of cold?  Do you know how to dress warmly?  Do you know how
    to recognize deydration?  Even a day trip in the Bay Area
    can turn nasty if you get dehydrated, and we're not talking
    death-valley days here.  Cold is just as bad: A couple of years
    ago I was at a paintball field just a mile or two off of Skyline
    Blvd when it started raining.  Before we could get out, the road in
    had become impassable to all but 4WD vehicles, which we didn't
    have, and it was getting cold fast.  We all ended up walking
    out, in our relatively lightweight camoflauge game clothing.
    It was a long walk, in wet cloths, in the cold.  We finally
    did make it out, but it took my feet a couple of hours to
    get warm again, literally.  Given that I'm normally warm
    all the time, I figure that I was a good candidate for hypo-
    thermia if I hadn't kept moving.  If I'd slipped in the
    mud and twisted my ankle, there was no one out there who
    had any more dry warm clothing than I did, and none of us
    had the means to start a fire either.

    Another example: as a motorcyclist I figure the odds of me,
    or someone I know, being injured from a fall, are great 
    enough that this course makes good insurance.  And again,
    life being the way it is, I figure the odds of something
    bad happening are greatest when help is the furthest away.

    Just because you don't go to the wilderness doesn't mean
    you won't benefit from wilderness medicine.  In a situation
    like a day hike in a local wilderness park, or in a natural
    disaster, or even a manmade disaster, the wilderness can
    come to you.  I recommend this class as a good reality check
    for gaining confidence, and most importantly, a methodology,
    as to how to deal with a serious medical problem.  In an
    8.0+ earthquake, calling 911 probably won't even get you
    a dialtone, let alone medical help.

    Robert