Wilderness First Responder on Mt. Etna

Wed. Feb 15 - I got ready this morning and had to be waiting at the front gate at 7am for my pick-up. I waited and waited and finally at 8am, the bus came to pick me up and be on our way. We headed for Augusta Bay and of course were already running super late when we hit an accident. That took awhile but we finally got down there at 9:30. It took about 1 hour 45 minutes to get up to the mountain. I had 50 people signed up but only 35 showed up. They were all from the USS Land and 3 of them were from the USS Toledo (Submarine). They were really fun and I introduced myself and told everyone what was offered on the mountain and gave them where I'd be in case they had any questions throughout the day. They had a guide with them, Jeremy, from their base in Sardinia, La Maddalena. He was really cool and knew the two interns from MWR that I met in Millington, TN. The ride up there was fun and I got interviewed by their TV crew that was with them all day. We finally got up there around 11:30 and I headed straight to the mountain after I showed everyone around real quick. I met Amber and Rosario up there and Amber and I went snowboarding. We got in a few runs and stopped to eat lunch with our groups at 1. After lunch we headed back up for a few more runs before we each had to leave, but thats when all hell broke loose. I just got my snowboard on and went a few hundred feet when I heard my cell phone ringing. It was Leslie from back at ITT confirming that I was Wilderness First Responder Certified and she had a mission for me. You can pretty much guess what came next... Someone from Rosario and Ambers Create-A-Trip got hurt about 1/3 of the way down the mountain. I hadn't reached him yet so I didn't hear or see anything about it yet. She told me that she got a call from Rosario after a few people came down to him to tell him that someone was hurt and they think it was his back. I hung up the phone with her, snowboarded down to the accident to find this guy lying on his side and a huge crowd was already gathering around him. As soon as I got to him, I told everyone about my certification and another there had the same thing. He was really awesome and thankfully knew Italian and English. He was our only source the entire time that could translate anything. He assessed him and took all the necessary action to make our decisions. The problem was everyone else around him that had to put in their 2 cents. Tons of Italians kept coming by and telling us what to do and getting in the way. My first concern was that this guy had on a t-shirt, a thermal, and a pair of sweatpants. He was already getting soaking wet and the wind didn't help the situation. He was on his side and everyone was trying to get him to turn over onto his back. It was his back that was hurt! His chief was with him and he was telling this kid the exact-opposite of what he should be doing. The Sigonella ambulance had been called and so was the Catania Helicopter. Everything was on its way, you just have to accept the fact that its going to take at least an hour to get anything immediate or actual medical attention. There is a ski patrol on the mountain, but somehow there were no doctors on duty today. Hmm.. gotta love Italy! This guy and I did what we could and had it figured out to a lower back injury. We both agreed it was probably just his tailbone. He fell from a standing position, but it was pretty icy today. I couldn't get a signal on my phone to assure everyone and him that help was coming so I walked up a little ways to get one. As soon as I turned around, I noticed that the guy turned himself over onto his back. By then some snowmobiles came down, but they didnt have a stretcher or any blankets with them. It was freezing and this guy was getting more and more wet at the minutes went by. I was really scared he was going to go into shock or get hypothermia before the helicopter got there. I was pissed that the kid rolled himself over, but at least that helped prove the fact that it wasn't a spinal or neck injury. People were making a much bigger deal out of it that it should have been. We finally got a blanket delivered and we recruited 5 other people to help us get him on it. The helicopter finally arrived. That was a cool site to see. It was big, yellow and red, and reminded me of a flying Oscar Meyer Wiener-Mobile. It landed right on the ski path and 4 guys jumped out and immediately got him onto a stretcher and into the chopper. We tried to get Amber to go along with him, but the Italians weren't down for that and there was no room in it anyways. We got ahold of Sigonella again and told the ambulance which hospital he was going to be brought too. They will only fly them to hospitals in Catania, not into Sigonella. We cleaned up and headed down the mountain to fill out any reports, etc and I had to get back to my bus soon and bring the 35 sailors back to Augusta Bay. Two guys from Sigonella showed up at the bottom of the mountain to file the report. Everything was being taken care of and the guy was on his way to the hospital. The Create-A-Trip left and my bus left around 4:30. Altogether the accident took about an hour and a half. Italian medical attention is nothing compared to the US. It's quite scary how non-advanced they are. That is why we tell our customers to wear warm, waterproof clothing, and not to hurt themselves. We tell people flat out that it takes over an hour to get any serious medical attention on the mountain. It was fine, now things were out of our hands and into the base's ambulance and the Catania Hospital. I finally got to my bus and everyone was slowly getting on. We left right on time at 4:30 and everyone had a really good time. Most of them saw the helicopter, but only 5 of them went skiing during the day. We left Etna and stopped down the hill at a house thats completely covered by lava except the roof. The all really enjoyed that and from then on we were on our way back to Augusta. Traffic was pretty heavy but we arrived around 6:15. I finally got back to base at 7pm. That was a long freaking 12-hour day. James called me when I got back and told me he'd like to bring me out to dinner. Amber came along, I ate some really good tortellini and drank some red house wine. It was nice to sit and relax after that kind of day. I knew I'd be asked a million questions in the morning. I went home, made some phone calls to Crystal and Jeff and went to bed.