OUTDOOR EMERGENCY CARE

“Comprehensive pre-hospital care for the non urban environment”

    On 27th August 2002, 24 of us met in a room in the basement of St Anthony’s hospital in Denver to begin the first leg of our training: the OEC course. This is the same course that all patrollers take and serves as a stepping stone into your chosen patrol “career” whether you’re a pro, or like the majority of the Loveland patrol, a volunteer.

    Our OEC course began on 27th Aug and classes were held on Tuesday and Thursday nights from 6.30 till 9.30 (more like 10.30 on some nights) until 14th Nov, making a total of 80 hours classroom time. At the same time as this we were also doing practical training on the hill during the weekend from the middle of October till the second weekend of December. During this time we got to see how the patrol functions and meet everybody. We also started doing sweep and pre-sweep so we could familiarize ourselves with area procedures. A minimum of 5 weekend days was required for our course, but most people opted to do at least one day every weekend making roughly another 80 hours of training. After the course we had to take a written test and a practical test that's described in more detail later. 

    The OEC course is quite detailed and is equivalent to an EMTB qualification, with more priority given to non-urban environments and a more obvious focus on injuries that occur in ski resort settings. The course is run from the OEC book which is accompanied by a workbook and very useful website. The first part of the book is primarily concerned with the assessment of patients, basic body systems, vital signs, sample histories and ABCs. By far the most important part of this is the anatomy and assessment chapters that form the foundation for the rest of the course.

    

Airplane splints: Before	And after

    After this the book is split into 2 major sections: medical and trauma. The medical part of the course covers bleeding, shock, respiratory emergencies, cardiovascular issues, neurological problems, common medical emergencies, environmental emergencies including hypothermia and AMS, behavioral problems and OBGYN emergencies. Yes, you will learn how to deliver babies, although what a 9 month pregnant woman would be doing skiing is altogether another matter. The medical part of the book doesn’t provide much hands-on experience, for this you’ll have to wait until the trauma section of the book which covers what to do with broken bones and head injuries amongst other things. At this point in the course we finally got to get our hands on splints, bandages, and backboards. The trauma section of the book covers soft tissue injuries, eye injuries, face and throat injuries (home to some of the best/worst pictures in the book), chest, abdomen, genitalia (ouch), assessment and care of bone and joint injuries, head and spine injuries and rescue techniques (also known as jams and pretzels).

    Our course was run by Dave Ginley, ably assisted by Jack Imig and Steve Stem (all Loveland patrollers) and other Loveland patrollers taught the course itself. A supporting cast of Loveland diehards would be at the hospital every week to lie on the floor pretending to be injured so we could splint them up. You know who you are, Thanks. 
    If you’re thinking of doing the course, the major pieces of advice I can offer are to start reading as soon as you get the book, especially the anatomy chapter. The book is 900 pages long, and once the course gets going you’ll be reading 4 chapters a week just to keep your head above water. The day of the first class, take one last look at your wife, your house and your dog, because you won’t be seeing them for a few months.
    The classroom part of the course had 2 tests, an unofficial midterm and an official National Ski Patrol (NSP) written test of 100 multiple choice (pass mark was 80%). Towards the end of the course we started practicing our newfound skills in the snow at Loveland using other patrollers as “victims”. This is the part of the course where everything we’d learnt over the last 3 months came together. The reality of working on someone in the great outdoors is a far cry from practicing on someone in a nice air-conditioned room and it took us quite a while to adapt ourselves for the real world.

    At the end of the course we had a two-day final test. The first day was a practice test, run exactly as our final test would be to give us a feel for the format and hopefully get any last minute problems out of the way. The main difference between the 2 days was that we were given feedback on our performance on the first day, but not on the final day. Our final test consisted of 4 scenarios, which we went through in teams of 3. Each station had 2 instructors, one was the “patient” and one was solely a judge. Each team of 3 also had a judge who traveled with them to compare our performances throughout the day. 
    After all the teams had been through all the stations, the judges met to decide our fate while we sat in the lodge getting more and more nervous. Of the 3 possible outcomes, pass, retest or fail our team got a retest on 1 station. This is fairly common, I would say that at least half of the teams had to retest on something and we made it through with no trouble at all.

I was now a patroller.