SunnyChick
10-Apr-08, 11:11
Hey folks,
Thought some of you may be interested to hear how the SCN (Scottish Casualties Network) Northern Area, team the, "Hopefuls" did last weekend at the "SCRATCH 2008" Challenge in Rothiemurchus.
Our team of 3 ladies with fairly varied levels of first aid experience was made up to 4 with the help of a lovely young lad from Skye.
We weren't "in it to win it", but rather to learn from the whole experience, hoping that we would gel as a team, and further improve our first aid skills, and we could have a bit of a party at the same time!
The competition weekend was made up of 8 first aid challenges, 8 physical/mental challenges and a pub quiz.
Of the first aid tasks, I found the "fallen down the stairs, with suspected neck injury complete with puncture wound to the back of ribs/query punctured lung" case quite a challenge.
Ben supported and tried to immobilise her head, while the rest of ourselves busied about trying to keep her warm (she had been there for a while and was quite cold, so we also had first stage hypothermia on our hands). We treated the wound on her back, taping three sides only (incase it was as we suspected, a punctured lung). At this point she was finding it hard to breathe. It was time for a log roll onto the bad side, (to prevent blood from the bad side pooling around the good lung and constricting it).
Cue a snow blizzard. Ok, try to fit one casualty and two first aider's under a storm tent. On my count 3 of we tried to log-roll our casualty...... 1, 2, 3.... "oh shoooooot", there is a ruddy great lump of granite in the way. So casualty is now off good side, but flat on her back. Not exactly as we intended, but thank goodness the ambulance was well on it's way.
Damn, it's not easy, but the whole scenario was so true to life we had all but forgotten this was an exercise. We worked hard to obtain obs, keep our casualty conscious, immobilised and warm. (All without a spinal board or neck collar.) Lying down next to her, I tried to comfort her in a pool of mud, snow and broken glass.
I loved every minute of our adrenaline fuelled fiction, but there was still a wave of relief came over me when the "end of exercise" horn sounded, our casualty jumped to her feet and shook off the snow.
It wasn't all high octane drama though. We did particularly well in the beanbag race, (next time must remember a sports bra!), and we did not so well in the pub quiz (dotsoyevsky/sports aren't my game). But oh the fun we had!
We had a really interesting tutorial on how to use a "traction splint" for the treatment of a fractured femur (thigh bone), really great technique to achieve maximum pain relief for your casualty whilst immobilising the leg. All good.
We didn't win the competition, but by the end of the weekend we were working well as a team, having fun and learning.
What's more, we didn't go home empty handed, after winning the "Margaret Shaw Memorial Challenge", which involved us carving out a beautiful mermaid in the snow. We took home gold medals and a trophy for that!
We braved 4 inches of snow on the way home, coming out of the Rothiemurchus estate. It was a bit hairy at times, but thankfully we all got out and home in one piece.
And so that was our adventurous weekend finished. 6 months seems a long time until we get to do this again, but I know it will be worth the wait.
Thanks for reading. x x
Thought some of you may be interested to hear how the SCN (Scottish Casualties Network) Northern Area, team the, "Hopefuls" did last weekend at the "SCRATCH 2008" Challenge in Rothiemurchus.
Our team of 3 ladies with fairly varied levels of first aid experience was made up to 4 with the help of a lovely young lad from Skye.
We weren't "in it to win it", but rather to learn from the whole experience, hoping that we would gel as a team, and further improve our first aid skills, and we could have a bit of a party at the same time!
The competition weekend was made up of 8 first aid challenges, 8 physical/mental challenges and a pub quiz.
Of the first aid tasks, I found the "fallen down the stairs, with suspected neck injury complete with puncture wound to the back of ribs/query punctured lung" case quite a challenge.
Ben supported and tried to immobilise her head, while the rest of ourselves busied about trying to keep her warm (she had been there for a while and was quite cold, so we also had first stage hypothermia on our hands). We treated the wound on her back, taping three sides only (incase it was as we suspected, a punctured lung). At this point she was finding it hard to breathe. It was time for a log roll onto the bad side, (to prevent blood from the bad side pooling around the good lung and constricting it).
Cue a snow blizzard. Ok, try to fit one casualty and two first aider's under a storm tent. On my count 3 of we tried to log-roll our casualty...... 1, 2, 3.... "oh shoooooot", there is a ruddy great lump of granite in the way. So casualty is now off good side, but flat on her back. Not exactly as we intended, but thank goodness the ambulance was well on it's way.
Damn, it's not easy, but the whole scenario was so true to life we had all but forgotten this was an exercise. We worked hard to obtain obs, keep our casualty conscious, immobilised and warm. (All without a spinal board or neck collar.) Lying down next to her, I tried to comfort her in a pool of mud, snow and broken glass.
I loved every minute of our adrenaline fuelled fiction, but there was still a wave of relief came over me when the "end of exercise" horn sounded, our casualty jumped to her feet and shook off the snow.
It wasn't all high octane drama though. We did particularly well in the beanbag race, (next time must remember a sports bra!), and we did not so well in the pub quiz (dotsoyevsky/sports aren't my game). But oh the fun we had!
We had a really interesting tutorial on how to use a "traction splint" for the treatment of a fractured femur (thigh bone), really great technique to achieve maximum pain relief for your casualty whilst immobilising the leg. All good.
We didn't win the competition, but by the end of the weekend we were working well as a team, having fun and learning.
What's more, we didn't go home empty handed, after winning the "Margaret Shaw Memorial Challenge", which involved us carving out a beautiful mermaid in the snow. We took home gold medals and a trophy for that!
We braved 4 inches of snow on the way home, coming out of the Rothiemurchus estate. It was a bit hairy at times, but thankfully we all got out and home in one piece.
And so that was our adventurous weekend finished. 6 months seems a long time until we get to do this again, but I know it will be worth the wait.
Thanks for reading. x x