Medical Training?
I've been reading the captain's blog from Earthrace regarding their tragic
collision in Guatemala. http://www.earthrace.net
They had an eight hour run to shore, with no help in sight, and a badly
injured fisherman who was quickly losing blood pressure. Luckily, they had a
medic onboard who was able to set up a saline IV and save the guys life.
I've been through the CPR and First Aid courses (twice) but have no where
near the training required for dealing with such a situation. I did some
searching to see if there is a course that is the next step up in first aid
training and haven't found anything. I've looked at several training
programs for EMTs and paramedics, but all are year-long courses. I'd like to
find an intensive one-week course, preferably offered on the west coast.
Has anyone taken, or know of, a course they can recommend? We're planning to
circumnavigate, and I expect we'll be plenty of places where some degree of
medical training is a necessity.
-Ken Williams
Nordhavn68.com
Wilderness medicine training is what you're after. Here's one link:
http://www.wildmed.com/
I'm sure you can Google up more.
Keith
"I think that's how Chicago got started. Bunch of people in New York said,
'Gee, I'm enjoying the crime and the poverty, but it just isn't cold enough.
Let's go west.'" --Richard Jeni
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ken Williams" kenw@seanet.com
Has anyone taken, or know of, a course they can recommend? We're planning
to
circumnavigate, and I expect we'll be plenty of places where some degree
of
medical training is a necessity.
Keith:
Thank you. That's exactly what I was looking for...
-Ken W
-----Original Message-----
From: passagemaking-under-power-bounces@lists.samurai.com
[mailto:passagemaking-under-power-bounces@lists.samurai.com] On Behalf Of
Keith
Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2007 8:48 AM
To: Passagemaking Under Power List
Subject: Re: [PUP] Medical Training?
Wilderness medicine training is what you're after. Here's one link:
http://www.wildmed.com/
I'm sure you can Google up more.
Keith
Ken, your question is the perfect opening for something I wanted to discuss.
Often you hear "he didn't have the necessary experience" when discussing
some event after the fact. Or, you need more experience to deal with these
conditions.
Well, how do you get experience? You DO it. Twelve foot seas, never been
in them, well the only way I know to say I have experience in 12 foot seas
is to BE in 12 foot seas. You can either have them come up when your at sea
or go to sea when the conditions exist. Then the press release will say "he
was out in conditions beyond his experience". It's a paradox?
I have some experience with gaining experience. 30 years (and 50lbs) ago I
flew Hang gliders. There is a procedure called a "Wire Launch" where three
people hold the wires of the Hang glider because the wind is so powerful it
will launch you before your ready. The pilot tells the wire launchers when
to release and then he or she launches, communication happens from both the
pilot and the wiremen. You gain experience by starting when you really
don't need wiremen and progressing in increasing winds until you are ready
for the big stuff, which we called an "Elevator Ride", when they release the
wires you explode off the hill straight into the sky, quite fun really. Ok
enough reminiscing.
So for boating, there are many things I want my wife and I to gain
experience in that I would think others would benefit from. I'd like to
take my Nordhavn 40 and my Camano 31 out on Lake Washington on a windy day
and practice Man Overboard Recoveries. This is a potentially dangerous
activity and would benefit by having support personal to assist (and also
learn). I'm not aware of any class I can take where I will gain this
experience first hand? Bob Austin referred me to a sailing resource where
they tested MOB recovery systems. West Marine paid some money and they
evaluated a number of different products. I have no interest in evaluating
different products, but rather gaining the experience. So I'm going to
contact the authors of the story and see if they will share their process
and procedures with me so I can benefit from their experience and lessons
learned. Then I'm going to solicit names of people that would like to
participate in a day long series of recovery attempts and see if we can put
together a collection of people that share the goal of doing this. I'll
contact the USCG and see if any special approval is required. If anyone has
done anything like this in the past, please share your experience so we can
benefit.
The second thing I want to do is deploy my sea anchor. Ideally this is
something best done in big winds, but like the wirelaunch, just doing it in
controlled conditions will be very helpful. So, after we get the MOB event
done, I'll see if we can do another version for the sea anchor.
Anyone interested please contact me off list at scottebulger@comcast.net
If you would like to share ideas on this please feel free to do so. Oh, in
case your thinking this should be on the T&T list, here is why I think it's
appropriate for here - We are talking about the kinds of things you need to
do to prepare for passagemaking. As a coastal boater should I have this
experience, absolutely! But as a passagemaking boater, the importance of
this procedure is heightened by the fact there are only two people on the
boat and if someone goes in the water, there is likely on one else to help,
so we will use that scenario as the premise for the exercise. So, it's
decidedly appropriate for PUP! At least in my opinion!
Scott Bulger, Alanui N40II, Seattle WA
Hi Ken,
I do share your thoughts and fears.
I too did the CPR and basic First Aid course twice but have this horrible
feeling that if one day I will need to put even those simples courses in
practice, my brain will go into a 'jelly' mode and I will not be able to
function.
We have on board various good First Aid books and a defibrillator, which is
not a cheep piece of equipment but it keeps a peace of mind and I am sure
that if we need to use it some day to save a life, it will be worthy every
penny.
Sonaia Hermida
On 3/31/07, Ken Williams kenw@seanet.com wrote:
I've been reading the captain's blog from Earthrace regarding their tragic
collision in Guatemala. http://www.earthrace.net
They had an eight hour run to shore, with no help in sight, and a badly
injured fisherman who was quickly losing blood pressure. Luckily, they had
a
medic onboard who was able to set up a saline IV and save the guys life.
I've been through the CPR and First Aid courses (twice) but have no where
near the training required for dealing with such a situation. I did some
searching to see if there is a course that is the next step up in first
aid
training and haven't found anything. I've looked at several training
programs for EMTs and paramedics, but all are year-long courses. I'd like
to
find an intensive one-week course, preferably offered on the west coast.
Has anyone taken, or know of, a course they can recommend? We're planning
to
circumnavigate, and I expect we'll be plenty of places where some degree
of
medical training is a necessity.
-Ken Williams
Nordhavn68.com
Passagemaking Under Power and PUP are trademarks of Water World
Productions, formerly known as Trawler World Productions.
To be removed from the PUP list send an email with the
subject "unsubscribe" (no quotes) to the link below:
mailto:passagemaking-under-power-request@lists.samurai.com
Passagemaking-Under-Power Mailing List
Hi Scott,
Just the idea of having a situation of MOB with only two on board of a 50
tones and 20 meters long boat and one of them is in the water, makes my
stomach goes around in fear, pain and panic.
If I lived near you I would be happy to be a volunteer for your
experiment,but I don't.
I wish you good luck with it and PLEASE let me know the results/lessons
learned because as it stands in my head at the moment, in a situation like
that and specially if it happens in a agitated sea at night for instance,
it will be most likely a 'kiss good bye' to the other, unfortunately.
Sonaia Hermida
NH5729
On 3/31/07, Scott E. Bulger scottebulger@comcast.net wrote:
Ken, your question is the perfect opening for something I wanted to
discuss.
Often you hear "he didn't have the necessary experience" when discussing
some event after the fact. Or, you need more experience to deal with
these
conditions.
Well, how do you get experience? You DO it. Twelve foot seas, never been
in them, well the only way I know to say I have experience in 12 foot seas
is to BE in 12 foot seas. You can either have them come up when your at
sea
or go to sea when the conditions exist. Then the press release will say
"he
was out in conditions beyond his experience". It's a paradox?
I have some experience with gaining experience. 30 years (and 50lbs) ago
I
flew Hang gliders. There is a procedure called a "Wire Launch" where
three
people hold the wires of the Hang glider because the wind is so powerful
it
will launch you before your ready. The pilot tells the wire launchers
when
to release and then he or she launches, communication happens from both
the
pilot and the wiremen. You gain experience by starting when you really
don't need wiremen and progressing in increasing winds until you are ready
for the big stuff, which we called an "Elevator Ride", when they release
the
wires you explode off the hill straight into the sky, quite fun
really. Ok
enough reminiscing.
So for boating, there are many things I want my wife and I to gain
experience in that I would think others would benefit from. I'd like to
take my Nordhavn 40 and my Camano 31 out on Lake Washington on a windy day
and practice Man Overboard Recoveries. This is a potentially dangerous
activity and would benefit by having support personal to assist (and also
learn). I'm not aware of any class I can take where I will gain this
experience first hand? Bob Austin referred me to a sailing resource where
they tested MOB recovery systems. West Marine paid some money and they
evaluated a number of different products. I have no interest in
evaluating
different products, but rather gaining the experience. So I'm going to
contact the authors of the story and see if they will share their process
and procedures with me so I can benefit from their experience and lessons
learned. Then I'm going to solicit names of people that would like to
participate in a day long series of recovery attempts and see if we can
put
together a collection of people that share the goal of doing this. I'll
contact the USCG and see if any special approval is required. If anyone
has
done anything like this in the past, please share your experience so we
can
benefit.
The second thing I want to do is deploy my sea anchor. Ideally this is
something best done in big winds, but like the wirelaunch, just doing it
in
controlled conditions will be very helpful. So, after we get the MOB
event
done, I'll see if we can do another version for the sea anchor.
Anyone interested please contact me off list at scottebulger@comcast.net
If you would like to share ideas on this please feel free to do so. Oh,
in
case your thinking this should be on the T&T list, here is why I think
it's
appropriate for here - We are talking about the kinds of things you need
to
do to prepare for passagemaking. As a coastal boater should I have this
experience, absolutely! But as a passagemaking boater, the importance of
this procedure is heightened by the fact there are only two people on the
boat and if someone goes in the water, there is likely on one else to
help,
so we will use that scenario as the premise for the exercise. So, it's
decidedly appropriate for PUP! At least in my opinion!
Scott Bulger, Alanui N40II, Seattle WA
Passagemaking Under Power and PUP are trademarks of Water World
Productions, formerly known as Trawler World Productions.
To be removed from the PUP list send an email with the
subject "unsubscribe" (no quotes) to the link below:
mailto:passagemaking-under-power-request@lists.samurai.com
Passagemaking-Under-Power Mailing List