The most vivid image of a place that I possess is that of the Beartooth highway five years ago. I loved camping. I loved the intimacy of the experience, the silliness above all else. But I fell in love with mountains on July 16th of 2001, the final day of the road trip.
As the clouds begin to break, shafts of golden light pierce through the rain clouds to the West. Rain still falls in patches but as the sun's light ebbs through various spectrums it transforms from a dull grey to deep blue, to a pastel purple and then a brilliant pink. The once shadowed mountains erupt into a radiant red speckled by mossy greens and browns. The snowfields emanate pinks and violets in turn. The beauty of the moment is too much. The sky melts into the hills with its patchy rain cloud kisses. The lakes, now completely calm, reflect the scene all around them on their mirrored surfaces.
When I saw this for the first time at 17, I got a lump in my throat for the first time in a couple of years. Seeing it again at 22, I realized that I had fallen in love with mountains at the tender age of 17. Examining my life since then, I could see how I had inadvertently shaped my life around being in mountains. The love never left me, because I never really let myself leave the mountains. Every place I went to had mountains or would give me access to mountains.
Being there again as the leader of a group of 17 year olds was a powerful experience. The scene took their breath away just as it had mine. At first there were a series of "holy shit"s and "oh my fucking-God"s to be heard in the van. But eventually all that non-sense was set aside for the awed silence deserved by the scene. It took our breath away but who needs breathe when there are no words?
This time around we dropped our mouths as a double rainbow appeared around a bend in the road. Shortly after, a red-tailed hawk soared 20 feet in front of us. When we stopped to watch the sun dip below the horizon from a nearby peak one of Ella's girls asked, "Is this what being in love feels like?" It definitely is. It almost started to get a little over the top. The sur-reality did not last long.
Just after dark our collective euphoria shattered as we were flagged down by a desperate-looking woman. She told us that a car had rolled into a ditch and a man was inside. Ella and I sprung into action though remained calm. We grabbed the FAK (first aid kit) in the van and I donned latex gloves. The car had rolled down a scree/grassy slope of 50 degrees or more and was resting on its wheels some 30 feet below the roadway. We proceeded carefully down the treacherous slope to the accident. There a man with a bandana was holding the patient's head to the passenger seat of an old Oldsmobile while applying some pressure to a gash above the eye. Another man was drunk and trying to reassure the patient and be useful. The injured man lay moaning, breathing quickly and laboriously. He repeated "my back" in a most pitiful voice again and again. He asked constantly to be moved, for us to adjust his hips, legs or feet.
At first I took his head and immobilized it. Ella took over for me so I could do an initial assessment. He had no major bleeding so I continued on to the secondary assessment. His pulse was high (124) and weaker than one would like but clearly discernable. The respirations were likewise rapid (34) and uneasy. He seemed on the brink of gasping for air. He had not movement or sensation below the waist.
At this point we simply tried to reassure him and find busy work away from the scene for his well-intention but intoxicated friends. After 15 minutes or so the local town's EMT arrived with an assistant. We told her we were WFRs and gave her all of the information we had gathered up to that point. She had oxygen for the man. There was little else that we could do until more man power and a backboard arrived. Ella calmed him and worked with him to get him to breath from the O2 mask. I kept taking vital. They remained largely steady though far from healthy. Ella and I alternated holding his head stable. We put a C-collar on him.
After a while (perhaps an hour or two, I couldn't really judge) more people and then finally an ambulance arrived. We put the backboard through the rear windshield and down the passenger seat as we lifted the 250 lb man in spine-stable position. Once he was fixed onto the backboard we were able to get him out of the car through the rear-driver-side door.
At this time we asked the 11 campers to help get him up the hill. They simplified and expedited the process immensely. It was hard to walk so we simply made a human chain (like a bucket brigade) up the slope. This was abrupt for the campers as the transition from concerned spectator to active rescuer six inches from a faintly moaning man on a back board with a large deep gash above the eye was sudden.
Once he was loaded into the ambulance the EMT thanked us profusely for our help in the rescue. After 1am we found a campsite and slept and exhausted sleep. A discussion I had with the EMT during our resupply revealed that the victim had sustained the following trauma: laceration to the face, significant bite to the tongue, concussion with regressive memory loss, a punctured lung with several cracked ribs, fractured T-10 and 11 with severe cord damage. He will likely never walk again.
We were all proud of one another for the role we played in getting the job done. The man responded to Ella's voice and practically no other. Without a van full of strong and capable 17 year olds on the scene, it would have been near impossible to move such a large man without dropping him. It made me think a lot about choices like drunk driving and about further instruction in emergency medicine. Had I been powerless in that situation, I would have had a hard time living with myself in the following days. As it was I feel that we made the best of a terrible situation. Become Wilderness First Responders and Don't Drink and Drive. It’s nice when life offers you the chance to make decisions you will never regret.
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