.......because I got it!

School starts Monday so I spent the morning and early afternoon glued to a chair working on lesson plans and classroom activities. About 2:15 I decided I needed a break and thought that getting some exercise would be good.

I was thinking that a 45-60 minute hike on my treadmill at 4 mph while watching TV would be a welcome break for the afternoon. But I decided to go outside and water my hanging baskets while I was thinking about it.

When I came back in my pager was going wild. I belong to a volunteer high angle, rough terrain rescue team, and guess what. We had a callout. I headed up to the local "mountain" (state park) where we had a 58 yr old female suffering from heat exhaustion, about 1 mile down the trail from the closest road. By down, I mean in elevation, probably about 400 ft.

So, I got my exercise! The hike down to the patient wasn't bad, only took about 15 minutes and I was just carrying a light pack with water in it. The patient was packaged in a litter (one of those orange baskets kinda like a stretcher) and we had to carry her up the trail to a waiting vehicle so she could be taken to the ambulance. For the first .75 miles I carried the medical pack, a couple of rescuers backpacks, and an empty oxygen tank. I figure I was toting about 50 lbs uphill. There were about 10 of us and there would be six carrying the litter at any one time, switching off to get some rest. The temperature was in the 90's by the way, and the paramedic kept reminding us that he didn't want a second patient. About a quarter mile from the vehicle another rescuer met us on the trail. I unloaded the packs on someone who was going to get the vehicle ready and took up position on the foot of the litter. I carried the rest of the way to the vehicle. Boy I'm glad I've been working on my biceps.

Oh, yeah, I was the only female on the evac team.

Here's a link to our HART team http://www.hemsi.org/HART%20Team.html No, I'm not in any of the pictures, but the guy in the red shirt in the bottom two pix is the operations chief and the team member who met us on the trail.

Didn't mean to bore all you with this adventure, but I tend to have a buildup of adrenalin when we have a rescue.

So, I guess the moral to this story is.... be careful of what you wish for, you just might get it!

Joan