This is only a drill...

As I've been stumbling through the stressful/fun/crazy world that is EMS, I've had a few chances to do some pretty cool things I never thought I would. So far, I have a brief list:

• Ride on an ambulance in a non-patient capacity
• Witness tearful reunions between people who should be dead, and the crews who brought them back to life
• Participate as a 'patient' in a mass-casualty search & rescue operation

It's this last one that I've been meaning to write about.

Several months ago, a friend of mine at the agency asked me to come take photos of the class they were attending. For the non-EMS people, it's basically a class that teaches paramedics to pick through rubble and triage victims in the event of something catastrophic like a building collapse (think 9/11).

I agreed to not only take photos for them, but also participate in their final test -- as a victim.

So, naturally, it rained relentlessly the day before. The guys all took the class in the rain -- I participated the next day as a victim -- in the mud. I found myself crawling in very claustrophobic space, wearing a helmet, gloves and trying to protect my department's only operating camera.

Viewing the pediatric scenario.

I may appear a girlie girl in the office when I'm playing the role of "carpetwalker" every day at work, but I really love getting dirt under my fingernails and getting muddy. So this was right up my alley. So after crawling around in the various scenarios I watched my friends and co-workers run theirs.

They had to crawl into a dark, black maze that was filled with smoke and package and pull a patient (a real person-- not a dummy) out of the maze blind.

Ok, so I am frankly amazed on a daily basis at the skills of my co-workers. But that day was especially cool. I poked my head inside that black box and couldn't see a damn thing. These guys had to work as a team-- a blind team-- to strap the victim to the backboard and drag him out. It was really fascinating.

The guys.

So-- after their scenario, we went to grab food and wait for it to get dark (and give me a chance to have a giant margarita to prepare myself for tight spaces).

There were approximately a dozen 'victims'-- including myself. After we were given our 'injuries' and doused in fake blood and made up with bruises, we were given our assignments. (sidenote: Yes, fake blood does come out of t-shirts and khakis-- but NOT lingerie)

Only one other person there worked at the Agency with me-- and we met for the very first time, then dove into a tiny spider hole together. It was so damn cold and muddy. He and I were laying on a yoga mat underneath a concrete overpass (that was barely 3 inches from our faces) in the mud, and I started shivering -- violently. So, about 25 minutes after I met my new co-worker, I was getting very friendly with him, stealing his body heat. It was quite a moment.

Fortunately for me, I was the first one dragged out of my hidey hole.

This is fortunate for several reasons:

1. I was freezing.
2. My co-workers-- the ones taking the course-- threatened to cut off my clothes to do a "thorough search" for injuries if they were the ones that found me. They weren't.
1. sidenote: I've been told several times since I started this job almost a year ago that I'd better never get in a wreck in our county-- the clothes will go even if it's a fractured finger. It's a paramedic threat... they all think it's a hilarious joke. :)

Anyway, I was the first pulled out-- so I got a firsthand look at all the other rescues-- and got myself a warm blanket and some lysol wipes to clean off the fake blood (there was a TON of it). The class leaders turned on loudspeakers to add noise. This wasn't just any noise-- it was noise that you would hear at the site of a building collapse: sirens, jackhammers, screams, large equipment being moved, etc. It was deafening. I don't know how they managed to work through it-- but they all did. They never stopped.

I tried to stay out of the way of the crews as they were working, but I was so completely fascinated by everything that was going on I couldn't help it.

I enjoyed the hell out of it.