People I respect

[cjsmith]

I respect EMTs and paramedics. Seriously. I respect the hell outta people who do that work.

For years I've had an itch to get more and better crisis-response medical training. First aid, First Responder, paramedic, EMT... I don't even know all the designations, but I've wanted the training. People who do this work save lives. It's not only useful, it's vital, in the root sense of that word.

Naturally these thoughts of mine are in sharper focus lately.

Me, I probably couldn't be an emergency medical responder full-time. I have more than one chronic pain condition that could disable me just enough to keep me out of that line of work completely. My Bay Area mortgage also pushes for a high-tech job. So OK, not full-time, not unless a lot changes.

There's still quite a bit I can do. I could refresh my medic first aid training, keep my CPR training up to date, look at first responder courses, organize a workplace emergency response team... Stuff. Y'know. Stuff that could be useful. Stuff that could, for someone I happen across some day, be vital.

Comments

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

*nod* I too have had an employer pay to train me (I was on the emergency response team at my previous company). I've never used it, though. What was the situation, if I may ask?

[quasigeostrophy.livejournal.com]

The situation wherein I used my skills? Interestingly enough, it was my first and so far only visit to Yosemite in May, 2002. I was working out of $FormerEmployer's Mountain View office; I'd come out there for what I thought was a two-day kick-off meeting trip for our new Customer Service DB project. Turned out they needed me out there for two weeks to help get everything rolling. Anyway, I had nothing to do over the weekend and since I wasn't on LJ yet, didn't know the number of people in the area I do now, so I decided to go see Yosemite. I made a hotel reservation in Mariposa for the Saturday night. I had no photography equipment and no hiking gear with me. I stopped at Wal-Mart to get 3 disposable cameras and early that Saturday morning I headed over to the park.

I took the tour bus around to various points in the park, including the hike from Happy Isles up to Vernal Fall. I'm wearing Dockers and a polo shirt - my usual work attire, and regular (non-hiking) sneakers. Since it was early May, all the falls were running heavy, including Vernal, soaking and spraying the cut granite steps that lead up the last bit to the brink. I just grinned and bore it, taking my time, being very careful how I stepped, getting very wet.

Once I turned around to come back down, going even more carefully than I went up, I was behind a woman who did appear to be equipped more appropriately for hiking. On one of the granite steps, though, she missed her footing a bit, and used her left arm to stop herself against the side of the hill to the left of the trail. Over the spray of the falls, I swear I thought I heard a CRACK. She yelped and slumped against the side of the trail/hillside and I could tell she was favoring her left wrist. The guy in front of her, not with her, but also better equipped to be hiking, stopped as well, and I asked him to head down to Happy Isles as quickly as he could to contact help.

In a sudden creative inspiration, I took the woman's backpack apart (it was a framed one), and used the nylon straps and one of the frame poles as a splint and sling and helped her very carefully come down the trail. By the time we got to the bottom of that (I think it's about a mile?) trail, the other guy was there with a park ambulance. One of the EMTs thought I did pretty well with the improvised sling and splint.

Sorry about the long story, but I'm still amused at how I really had no business on that trail equipped as I was, and still ended up being able to help someone. :-)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

That's pretty cool! Ability to improvise is very useful when you're a ways away from normal supplies such as splints.