MedWAR

Two weekends back I had the opportunity to participate in what I can only describe as an amazing event. Before I go any further I must put out the disclaimer that i do not have time to edit this much and thus I am sure errors will abound. please forgive me:)

anyhow, medwar. the short version is i participated in an all day adventure race with medical scenarios. and it rocked. for the longer version, read on.

after a 6+ hour car ride to central michigan and a night spent at sub-freezing temperatures in a tent (i know see why my tent is called a three season tent because i found the 4th season) we got up and assembled at the start line. being the midwest medwar there were over 30 teams of three from all over ohio, wisconsin, michigan, and more.

at the go command we all raced helter-skelter to the lake shore where the teams jumped in canoes and headed out onto the lake in the cold early morning light. or tried to. one team, close by our boat, capsized and almost took us out as well! we were then rammed by another boat which almost tipped both teams. clearly there were few skilled canoeists in the competition. the starting canoe portion took us over 2 miles through a series of lakes connected by small passages until we arrived in "asia." i say asia as the theme of this year's competition was "around the world."

we were handed a slip of paper explaining we had just arrived after a tsunami had hit and needed to help as many people as we could. before us were three dummies and an event coordinator who narrated to us/answered our questions as if he was a victim. we had to initiate CPR on a baby (plastic life size doll), splint the arm of an inflatable dummy and insert a tube (we used part of a pen we disassembled) in the throat of a third dummy to restore breathing after massize facial trauma. when we cut through into the "throat" (plastic tubing under fake skin) red goo went everywhere - they had inserted ketchup packets in the dummy! for failing to assess the scene for safety we were penalized by having to clean the babies diaper which had been fouled with chocolate goo.

From there we were told to navigate any way we saw fit to the next point on our map. heading off at a medium jog we started passing several teams who had gotten ahead of us by whipping through the medical scenario. Arriving at the top of a hill (mt. everest) one of our teammates was whisked (alex) and myself and Luke were handed a scenario detailing that he had become disorientated, wandered off, and fallen. assessing alex's condition we found a fractured femur and possible spinal cord injury. we had to immobilize his neck, splint his leg, and then construct a stretcher to carry him down a very steep hill covered in low trees and brush. this proved to be the most physically demanding of all the scenarios. we splinted his leg with the canoe paddle we were required to carry, immobilized his neck with card board and duct tape, put him on a tarp we had, and started to haul him down the hill. this sort of worked but the trees were so low and the slope so steep we went very slowly. if alex really had the injuries we was pretending i imagine we would have severely aggravated his condition. we eventually made it to the checkpoint and received no penalties - nice!

We ran on until the next point in which i had become "too cold to continue." my teammates had to warm me up and build a fire of adequate size. to pass each team had to burn through a pencil. alex had read about rubbing cotton balls with vaseline and those babies worked like a charm - we were through that pencil in no time!

at the point luke and i became "snow blind" and had to put on goggles with that essentially left us with no vision. alex led us through a mile of trail in this condition and with his careful guidance we had no falls.

after the blindness we arrived in south america and luke was instructed to split from us to go get water. i handed him my filter and we split ways. alex and i had been instructed to find the park headquarters to rest before luke would rejoin us but we could not find him. we headed to the other side of the parking lot and found a bunch of competitors with paper bags over their heads and a lady patrolling them with an airsoft gun - colombian hostage situation! i tried talking to her in spanish but i guess the scenario wasnt that realistic. we had to identify luke, and then escape with him without getting shot by the guard. running from the scene we came across several dummies. it turned out our interpreter had been injured in the flight and we had to take care of him. looking to dummy over we found a gun shot wound over his right lung and discovered it had caused his lung to collapse in. for this we had to create a one way valve for which we used the pen tube, tape and a piece of a latex glove. when i tested the device later at my house it really worked! you could blog through it but not suck much air back in. after rescuing Javier we had to describe how we would coordinate a helicopter extraction and alex's lucky guess of a 100 ft by 100 ft landing zone let us escape without a penalty.

after rocking through south america it was on to its northern counterpart. yes, things were going well. and then we got lost. badly. we thought we knew where we were on the map but this turned out to be incorrect and led us to run 2 miles down a county road outside the park. by the time we got back on track any hope of victory was pretty much gone but we were having fun so this wasnt too big a deal.

the north america challenge was three-fold: removing a giant fish hook from a chicken thigh (dead chicken) - we pushed it out through the flesh and then clipped the end with pliers that alex had somehow thought to bring, filtering water and then drinking it to prove it, and finally a gear check to make sure we had a change of clothes and water proof layers, a compass (should have been using it more:) etc.

We took off though the trails on the way to Europe and promptly got lost again. I blame it on our speed. we were running fast enough that we could get way off track before we thought "hey, maybe we shouldn't have been going south quite this long..." in the end we arrived at the first europe scenario from the opposite direction have run an extra 3 miles or so on a completely different trail. at least we were getting great exercise! the slow teams we had passed earlier all gave us funny looks as we passed them for the second time.

arriving in europe we were "exploring nazi caves on the coast of france" when alex screamed. we rushed to over to find him, according to the scenario, lying next to a broken bottle, pupils dilated, vomit and feces evident, and shallow breathing. we had to figure out what he had been exposed to and administer the proper medication. luke and i looked at each other. 6 weeks in and we certainly hadnt gotten to any like this yet. we both recognized signs that his parasympathetic "rest and digest" nervous system was out of wack and one of the meds from the pile (of which most i had never heard of) i knew had something to do with stimulating the heart (atropine). as we debated, the volunteer delivering the scenario got on us saying, "you gotta commit, he's gonna die, make a decision!" "ok, ok, um... we'll go with atropine" i replied

"you're right, he lives"

nice! turns out the substance was sarin nerve gas which is an irreversible cholinesterase inhibitor aka nasty.

At that point we had to get to the next point on the map without using any roads. this didnt turn out too bad as we found a good trail and didnt make any wrong turns. popping out from the forest we came upon... africa! the first challenge was a safari "hunting" expedition. each team member had to hit three separate targets using paintballs and a slingshot - super fun! from there we ran up the road a bit to find huge rubbery fake halloween feet that had a small hole with a cooked noodle sticking out. this was to simulate Guinea worm and we had to extract the noodle, er worm, without breaking it. in real life this process can take over a month!

another free for all navigation section led us back to the lake where we had to construct a shelter and have it tested by a guy with a squirtgun. at this point we could have canoed back or there was the optional orientering challenge. a number of questions had been scattered throughout the park and for each question found and answered correctly time would be subtracted from your total team time. losing so much time being lost we didnt have much of a chance on this portion but did manage to get 2/10 question zones.

from there it was back to base as fast as we could paddle. the pizza, chili and cidar feast that awaited us was heavenly after a hard 7+ hours on the move fueled by bagels and energy bars.

reflecting back on the event not only did i have a blast but i learned a fair amount too. we didnt finish very high (middle of the pack) but in the end none of us cared too much. i definitely plan to return next year.