Bear on Patrol - "The Incidents" while Racing

Sproing!  Spring Already?

Ahhh Spring - When a certain bear's thoughts (mine, silly) turn to thoughts of skiing while basking in sunlit afternoons, watching the snow melt and dreaming of the fresh berry parfaits to come.

Speaking of snow melting, my wrangler was once asked by this British lady who was visiting Canada to ski:  "What do they do with the man-made snow in the Spring?"

His answer?  "Well, we actually pack it all up in labeled containers that go into storage so that we can put it back on the hill next winter!" (I wish I thought of that)

She seemed happy with the answer until I screamed "NOT!" and started giggling.

"actually....It melts like real snow." my now embarrassed wrangler said.

Oh well. Now where were we?


Olympics - Schmolympics!

So this Spring I caught a little Olympic Fever....

Now make no mistake, I have all kinds of respect for all kinds of people.  I think that it takes a certain amount of courage to be strapped into a portable cave with no real control of where I go or how fast I go because my wrangler likes to hurtle down the hill at astonishing speeds apparently trying to approach the speed of light to slow down aging or something.  WHEEEEEE!

I mean that's all good and stuff, but where is the control, I mean how do I get any say in what happens during all this excitement?

and now they tell me that this is a sport?  I don't think so!

How hard can it be to stand on two feet stuck on long plastic-y slippy things and go down a hill?  I figure with 4 legs it should be a snap!  A SNAP!  I tell you!  The only thing I would be worried about is stopping, but after careful observations, I have concluded that stopping happens naturally because people and bears have bums.

Well, after months and months of begging and pleading my wrangler (Okay 10 minutes, but man did I put the pressure on), I was ready to make my skiing debut!

Being new at skiing and laughing at Danger (HAH! Take That Danger!), I borrowed some of my wrangler's ski gear.  No helmet required because I know what I'm doing!  So I grabbed his skis and headed down the hill for a run.

His last words were:  "Oh my Goodness!  You look killer on my skis!" or something like that.....


Trial Run - Can I get a Do-Over?

So with skiing being so easy, I figure for my first run I'll go down the really steep expert run with some of my friends.  Here they are waiting for me.  There's Don on the left, Courtney in the middle and Céline on the right!



Now I was strapped into the skis, and ready for my first run!  YAY!  Now to join the others....Who put that sign there?  All I need to do is get on the other side of that stupid sign!

The sign says D-A-N-G-E Oh dear....

My Sunglasses fell off! Man is it bright. I'll read the sign later...

Man are these ski things slippy!

Whoa!

I mean like, totally WHOA!

RIGHT TURN! RIGHT TURN!!

Hey Guys!

I'll be right over!  Just give me a secon.... whooooops!

OOOOWIE!



I think I deviated my solarplexus!

I don't remember much after that except that I probably peed a little bit and felt really really woozy!  The next thing I DO remember is Céline running up to me and asking if she could help me!

What?  Why would I need help?  I was perfectly fine!  Nothing to see here!  Move along people!  Sheesh!

She wouldn't have any of that, and started to examine me like we learned in our Ski Patrol training course.

1.  Check to make sure the bear is breathing and has a pulse.  Check!  This might be important because I might be dreaming all this...



2.  She held my head and asked what was wrong.  I was good and told her exactly what was wrong with me.  "I've double-parked my solar-powered Lexus" I said.  She looked at me, smiled and said "I think you've hit your head!"



3.  So Céline checked me out from head to toe to make sure that nothing was really wrong with me, being careful not to move my head. She said I was probably just fine but that I should get everything checked out by a doctor "in case".

and before I knew it, I was being given a ride down the hill in a rescue toboggan with someone holding me in so that they could bring me down the hill safe and sound.  I still felt sore, but the toboggan ride was fun and I didn't throw up!

I was not very impressed with the clinic.  Yeah the blankets were all snuggy warm and the pillows were comfy, but is this any way to treat a patient?  I mean, REALLY?  I was pretty sure that my insurance had extra coverage for a Private Room and Clinic complete with spa treatments and hot-and-cold running cocoa.  Sorry guys but this wasn't gonna cut it!

While I was in the clinic, I got a pretty good view of a race course they had set up on the hill:



and I got to thinking:

Racing - Why Not?

Well after that first run I wasn't gonna let a head bump and a little wooziness stand in the way of my Ski Glory!  No way!

So, I decided to try again, and let's make it interesting!

I rode the chairlift to the top of the hill and managed to sit next to a ski racing coach.  He gave me everything I needed to know.

Here is a picture of someone who is racing (they are just to the right of the red fence-y thingy)




Racing Secrets I learned from a coach:

• Go around the red and the blue stick things.
• When you go around the red and blue stick things, just follow the other tracks to make sure you go around the right way.
• If you fall and you are headed for one of the red fence-y things, they tangle you up and stop you if your bum doesn't work properly to do this.
• The red and blue stick things are bendy and snap back really hard!
• The reason people who are racing go so fast is so that the red and blue stick thingies don't have time to snap back and bop you on the nose!
• If you are bopped on the nose, try not to cry or swear or go into the red fence-y things..
• If you manage to avoid getting bopped on the nose, or do not get caught in the red fence-y things, and you manage to go through all the red and the blue stick things in the right order, you have "finished" and are given a series of random numbers called a "time".
• You have two tries to get a "time"
• The lowest random "time" wins.

I was ready! and I was wearing my lucky sunglasses for well, for.... luck.  Not that I needed it!



....but first, because I figured I would be going super-duper pretty fast, I would check out the fence-y things because I was pretty sure they wouldn't be able to stop me.

I then asked my wrangler to throw me at the fence-y stuff really hard! 

He's a good listener!

I was going so fast everything was just a blur and then I felt like someone was trying to put me through a strainer... and then Sproing!  The fence-y stuff stopped me!

I was going to be fine.

Now for that race.

*sigh*

Well, I was ready!  I was growling, I was INTENSE!  I was all over the hill screaming my head off to get people out of the way!

Those red and blue stick things kept bopping me on the nose faster and faster and faster!  Holeeee!  I didn't have time to think or react!  I just went for it.

I was about to cry or swear or both!  I couldn't take it any more!  So fast... so much nose-bopping pain!

...I think I almost made it past the third stick thingy when...

PAFF!



Oh dear.....

Unfortunately my second try was just too dangerous to show anyone on the internet. I don't even want to talk about it!

So after the second try,

...I was being given a ride down the hill in a rescue toboggan with someone holding me in so that they could bring me down the hill safe and sound.  I now felt terribly sore, I was sure I left my solarplexus behind in that fence-y stuff but the toboggan ride was fun and I only threw up a little!

It was a good thing the blankets were all snuggly warm and the pillows were comfy, because I had a rough day! I also decided that I would leave racing to the people who were good at going down the hill on two feet on skis. My wrangler also ordered safety gear for me for next time but perhaps being carried around in the Safety Cave going near the speed of light wasn't so had after all!


I think my solarplexus made a complete recovery.

Ski Patrolling - Safety First!

Ski Patrolling - Safety First

It all started while I was on a ski trip to Mont Tremblant with my buddies.  I have skied in a few different places, so I figure a ski trip to Tremblant would be a good way to unwind just before Christmas.  I spent most of the day skiing with my on-again off-again main babe Atousa.  The day I went skiing there was a heck of a snowstorm, and all I can say was Thank Goodness I was somewhere snuggly and warm!



but she got tired and headed to the hot tub early, and I decided to do another run.  I decided to take the South Side Gondola right to the top of the mountain and do a nice easy run down to the bottom... or so I thought...here I am in the Gondola.

So I rode the Gondola to the top as planned, and everything was fine as I got off the gondola except I thought I smelled chocolate somewhere and I stopped paying attention to what I was doing and that was when I had "The Accident" which really wasn't that bad but it was really errrr, emberassing.

 See, I was turning left when the person next to me on the hill was turning left too, only they were on my left and they were turning to their other left.  Well, that's how it happened!  and this was the result....

.

Ski Patrolling - By the Book

It was a good thing that no one was hurt! That whole accident got me to thinking that perhaps if someone DID get hurt (namely me) would I know what to do to help myself get better?  Then I had a nap.

Fast forward to a couple years later and I finally decided to join the Ski Patrol.  I thought you know, just join, show up to a few classes, and then go and ski and get the babes and if you're hurt make yourself better.

Boy was I wrong!  I had to go into a big classroom full of big people who all needed to learn this stuff too!  That part wasn't too bad, but then they gave us THE BOOK!  It's a Big Book!  It must weigh a bajillion pounds and it has everything we need to know in it, so I had to read it... the babes would have to wait.  This was gonna take forever to learn!


 
We would listen to someone talk about the book (blah blah blah...) and then we would get to practice what they had showed us.  Boy if only I had paid more attention in class! Oh well, after the lectures it was Skills day and finally

My Turn!

 
Well, after all the blah blah, it was time for me to show them what I had learned.  But first.the Ski Patroller's Secret Fuel..... COFFEE! and it was a good thing they had lots, 'cause it was an early morning.




It was also a good thing they started us off slowly... so we went with a large paw sling.  The Large paw sling is easy to tie and is used to immobilize something like a sprained paw, if you want sympathy, or someone to carry around all your stuff all day!  Definitely a good one to know....

The next thing we learned was how to use a blood pressure cuff to see if my blood can work under pressure.  In order to do this we use a special device which I seem to remember is called a "spit bomb thumb-ometer" **actually sphygmomanomator.  Now for the life of me I do not know why they don't have a bear-sized cuff for us to learn with, but my buddy convinced me that the best way to use it was to wrap it around my body.  He then pushed a squeezy thing and the cuff inflated and all of a sudden my head felt like it would explode at which point the first measurement was taken, then the pressure was released and as soon as my head stopped pounding buddy took the second reading.  Whew!

Next we demonstrated how to give Oxygen.  Oxygen is important to know how to give.  If you give too much people might blow up like a balloon, if you don't give enough they turn purple and start to deflate.  So In the middle of demonstrating to my examiner how to give oxygen to a screaming baby, I had a panic attack!  I mean the tiny thing was making so much noise and it wouldn't stop and the examiner was watching and I was sweating and after the blood pressure cuff and everything.  When I came to...

my buddy was giving oxygen to me!

and Finally.... C(or B)PR

It is important to know how to properly do BPR (Bear Pulmonary Resuscitation), especially if you are stressed or tired.  Here is how to do it:

1. Make sure the Bear has no pulse.  If you can't find it at the neck, check at the paw.  Do not do BPR if the bear has a pulse as this makes them grumpy.
2. Ask for help if the bear is particularly large, if the bear is small (as pictured) you should be okay on your own.  
3. Draw an imaginary line between where the front legs attach to the body.
4. Place both hands (if a big bear you may need several people's hands and if a small bear --as pictured-- use index and middle finger) on the chest of the bear.
5. If the bear starts shaking and laughing and saying "that tickles" then it is faking.  Do not actually perform BPR (see step 1).  Pretend to perform BPR and continue tickling until bear begs for mercy.
6. If there is no response, quickly pick up the phone and order an emergency pizza.
7. Return to the bear and push the chest about half the depth of the ribcage and repeat 30 times.
8. Administer 2 breaths.  This might be tricky if the bear has bad breath.  You may wish to use a mask as in the illustration above.  
9. Repeat until either the bear comes to or the pizza arrived.  Pizza usually revives bears.

One More Thing..... 

The most important lesson that I learned from all of this was how to practice my wounded animal look.  This is extremely important because this is how you get people to do the first aid on you rather than the other way around!  Practice practice practice!  I was especially proud of this look...



Oh, and by the way... I passed!  Here I am with my wrangler at the hill.  I love patrolling with him because I get to use the radio!

~Cheers~