So I'm going to Wyoming...

Tomorrow! That's right, my NOLS Wilderness EMT course kicks off tomorrow in the lovely town of Lander, WY. I will be learning how to deal with all SORTS of crazy fucked up illnesses/injuries so that I can save lives. Then we can all go camping and if one of you gets a sucking chest wound, I can be like "Oh hey, let me fix that up for ya".

...How does one acquire a "sucking chest wound?"

Vampires

But yeah it's basically when you get a puncture wound in the chest. The sucking you hear is air in the chest cavity. Fun times.

Woah.


Do you have to burp the air out before you can stitch it up?

We'll all be counting on you to save our lives from unforeseen circumstances!

One of my friends was rock climbing once and saw someone fall down the cliff. And he ended up saving her life! I went out and got my first aid training after he came back from that trip, ahaha.

Jessie wrote:

Woah.


Do you have to burp the air out before you can stitch it up?

Doesn't work quite like that lol. Basically you tape over/seal the wound, then the patient can breathe a bit more normally again.

And Jess, yeah it's always good to take a CPR course, etc. Never know!

Hrm. That's not nearly as exciting then.

Very cool Cam!!

Oh thank GOD. I get sucking chest wounds all the time!

Cam is going to be our own personal internet superhero.

Someone should draw him in spandex.

Or Cam, you should start wearing spandex.

Clear spandex.

No spandex.

Cam... thats awesome!

Have fun Cam!! We all live vicariously through you wrestling grizzly bears and grabbing trout with your bare teeth.

First official day of class done. Kind of bored because we're reviewing stuff that I already know. I want to get into the scenarios and new material! But that will be a while.

Getting to know new people, that's always fun. No homos, or none that the old 'dar has picked up. Boo to that, but plenty of fun people and personalities around.

Doug, you might need a change of lifestyle if you are constantly getting things impaled in your chest. Just a though. You know...staying away from bar fights, angry ice climbers, etc.

Mo, I didn't bring my spandex, sadly. But I would love to see a drawing of me as a hero. It would surely be full of lols.

DJ, it's funny you say that. I actually wrestled a bear AS he was trying to grab a trout. I won, and did indeed grab the trout with my teeth. It was epic. Trout for dinner tonight.

Oh, and I have no sheets for my bed because apparently we were supposed to bring those. But the cabin is hot as balls so it's really ok. Might get sheets soon though so I don't look like a hobo. But half the people here look like hobos anyway, so that might be ok too.

End of week 2 of my WEMT class here in Wyoming. I was a patient in our Mass Casualty Incident scenario! I got to have an open femur fracture with a pump that squirted blood! It was awesome and I got a good shot in before they covered up the wound (blood sailing through the air! whee!!).

I've had two rough quizzes (we have 8 and have to average an 80%, or we don't get to take the national registry exam to become a certified EMT), but over this weekend we have a take-home quiz (easy 100% hopefully), and it's open-book/notes. I was SUPER stressed this past week because of my grades (below average), but I'm doing really well with my skills (such as splinting bones/joints).

Psyched for week 3, because it's going to be even more intense! I'm hoping for really intense scenarios. I want to prove that I know this, and am a really good EMT

YAY! GO CAM GO!!!

In the midst of week 4 of my WEMT course here in the wonderful town of Lander, Wyoming! We've had more scenarios, including another mass casualty incident in which 8 people were hurt in a plane crash. It was very reminiscent of Lost, and I thought I was going to see people from my past showing up in the woods. But yeah I ended up performing CPR on an infant that we found, but after 2 mins of rescue efforts, he (she?) died. <Cue dead baby jokes> The funniest part was that I had to carry the dead baby down to the command post in my backpack so no other patients saw it because they may have freaked out. My next patient was a guy that had a mid-shaft femur fracture. We had to create an improvised traction splint for him and then backboard and litter carry him down to the command post. Other notable patients (that I didn't personally work on) were amputated hand guy, girl with sage brush through her arm, and guy that threw up on rescuer when approached.

We just finished up 2 final tests today. I know I passed the first one, and am pretty sure I passed the second. First was our final EMT test, the second was our final wilderness test. Both written, and 100 questions each! Barf! But multiple choice, as they've always been, so yay.

Tomorrow is our Practicals test, where we have to do a bunch of different skills stations such as Oxygen, AED, trauma assessments (with backboarding), medical assessments (i.e. here's how you use your inhaler, dumbass!), splinting, and some other stuff. Then Friday is our National Registry test. If we pass tomorrow/friday, we're EMT's!

Wootsauce.

All of that sounds so horrifying!!!!!!!!!

Also good news!!! I'm glad you're doing well.

Thanks Mo <3

Passed my practicals, though they were stressful! My partner and I failed 2 stations and had to re-test on them at the end of the day. But we rocked out with our cocks out.

National Registry exam was today, and I think it went pretty well. Won't find out until later tonight if I passed it or not. *crosses fingers*

I'll cross mine too

Back home now. Still waiting on my testing results for my National Registry. Gonna be job hunting and trying to plan my life out for a while