Happy Beltane!

My first day of May this year was great - not only was it Beltane, a very big holiday for us Wiccans, but it was also 69's extrication drill, a treat that does not happen as often as one would like. The weather was perfect and the sun shone in a beautiful blue sky, just as the weather should be!

I love May Day or Beltane or Walpurgis Day (take your pick). The Picts and Gaels did not see eye-to-eye on their gods (the Gaels believed that the Oak King ate children and was mostly a cruel and vicious god, missing teeth and you get the idea. The Picts did not quite subscribe to that. But that mostly was Samhain (also one of my favourite holidays) that involved blood sacrifice and the Oak King (modern Wiccans do not believe in having blood sacrifice, I might add). Beltane is a fertility holiday. The usual thing is to jump over a bonfire skyclad and then pair off with whomever you would like. Wiccans are a little more accepting of sex with others. It's said that a baby conceived during Beltane are special. Since I have no plans to ever engage in sex for anything other than recreational purposes this is a non-issue for me...

That night I had my choice of going to my squad's monthly meeting (a truly dull proposition) or going to the drill and it was not a difficult decision as to what event to go to. Meetings are boring - a statement of fact. I find these meetings difficult to sit through and it is like anything else; those running it are often politicians of a sort and really just like to hear the sounds of their voices!

So at 19:15 I walked over to Rescue & Recovery, to the surprise of my squad (they'll get over it) and became, once again, their crash test dummy. Rich and I worked up scenarios and then moved the car slated for destruction into position and then I would play patient and let them remove me from the vehicle.

Scenario #1: I'm a perfectly conscious victim and I'm stuck in a car that has been damaged in a crash. The truck comes around, they swing in behind me and all get out, swarming toward the car. I've got the doors locked and I am screaming blue murder. I started pounding on the glass of the drivers side window and I am yelling, "Get me out! Get me the fuck out NOW!" I don't stop screaming. They are asking me to unlock the door and I'm furious locking it, yelling that it is unlocked and they have to get me out! They are putting shims under each side of the car and finally someone gets out the glass punch and uses it on the far back window (good thing, because suddenly there is a good ten pounds of shatter proof glass all over that side of the car). One of the little guys crawls into to deal with me and I'm still yelling and at the same time, shying away from him. He's trying to do head stabilization but I won't let him near me. Finally they get the door open, cut away the seat belt and attempt to collar me. At this point they are ready to happily leave me or strangle me, whichever lucky happenstance might occur. It was really quite funny. I feel bad for what I put them through, but we've dealt with far worse patients than that, and didn't kill them - and since this was to train the FNGs, well, this was definitely valuable training!

The things that I pointed out were the communication issues - more often than not, no one told me that they were going to get me out, that they were putting stabilization devices under the car, that I would feel this or that or that they would be making noise and not to worry. Putting on the collar was a disaster - I didn't want it on and they were not as forceful as they needed to be about getting it on, nor did they seem to know how - and they mostly had the First Responder training that is required. This and then the Rescue guys had all sorts of things to point out, like the whole process taking over 15 minutes.

Scenario #2: Car has plowed into a tree (can you believe the older/long-term members all pushed this sucker into one of the trees?!), and there is an unconscious/unresponsive victim in the front. I'm dead weight, and I have one foot jammed under a pedal and the rest of me sliding down as though to the floor (it would be a little unusual to find a front-end collision victim in that position (more typical is up and over, rather than down and under) but they don't know that. Same thing - they all show up, swarm out of the big truck and start surrounding the car to scope out the scene. This time, there is a lot more communication and the person who crawled in behind me kept up a more steady stream of chatter. He was very good at this, from a patient standpoint, although I did need to reposition his hands on my head and tell him to really hold on. That is normal, though - I watched how many people touch patients very gingerly in EMT classes and it is not something that is easy to train people to do. You can't be afraid to touch the patients.

This time, the car was jolted quite a bit as they tore the door open and got to me. Putting the collar on was still a mess. They let my head fall over, neck bend, all the mistakes you cannot make with an injured patient. They did finally get it on although it was never on quite right. At some point they needed to untangle my foot and when maneuvering me onto the backboard (an antiquated wooden thing), they did not move me correctly (now in real life, they will rarely have to do that - we would be onscene in our rig and do the actual extrication ourselves; but they are expected to be able to do this, too), and they were a little scary when carrying me away from the vehicle. But overall, they did a much better job.

So now I had told them that I would be a para- or quadrapalegic now, as they did not use any of the proper techniques for moving a patient. They were much better about communicating and not saying anything incorrect - unconscious victims do hear a lot of things. They need to not be afraid to touch the patient, and not to take initiative in working as a team on moving the patient. Also, they need to be more confident in holding on and communicating more.

Scenario #3: One male unconscious/unresponse victim in the driver's seat, one confused patient who is pregnant in the passenger front seat. I stuffed a jacket (obviously not a turnout jacket!) under my shirt and was enormous! It was really quite funny. Franco managed to threat one leg through the steering wheel. By now it was fully dark and they were using the special lighting equipment and doing their thing with much better teamwork and using different people to do different things. They did a much better job with stabilization and communicating and asking me if I'm a Yankees fan and engaging in the small talk that most patients in this kind of predicament like to hear - it's reassuring. They really worked very, very well on this one. Jack learned again how to apply the collar the right way and they were very careful about moving me and getting me on the board. Franco took more work to extricate, as they had to sheer off the steering wheel. All-in-all, though, a fun and rewarding experience!

So I am awaiting my next stint as a victim!