Hooray… I passed my final exam

For the past four plus months I’ve been living IN the Outdoor Emergency Care 5e book.  Its thick, heavy and very annoying to carry around with you wherever you go. (Note to self, should have got the iPad version… DOH!).  All of the studying, all of the class, everything I’ve been doing for the past four months comes down to this simple practical exam.

So how did it go?  Well judging by the picture on the left… I passed.  Although it was not a walk in the park like our instructors kept telling us it would be.

Basically we showed up at a Firestation where they had a community room and my OEC class was joined by another OEC class from San Diego.  All the students were waiting outside while lots of experienced patrollers arrived and walked into the building.  As they passed by, some let out cackels, some cracked jokes, etc.  Clearly THEY were having fun, we weren’t.  Everyone was nervous.

The actual exam itself consisted of two full scenarios and four skill stations.  Sounds easy right?  No.  For fear of retribution by the Ski Patrol gods, I’m not going to share with you what I did get but I will share that if you don’t know your primary cold, you are going to have trouble as both scenarios had “curve balls” in them that will catch you off your guard and throw you out of your normal flow.  I’m guessing this was intentional to see how you would react on your feet.  The skill stations were fairly easy to complete although it was odd because you aren’t doing a full assessment, just the specific injury.

So how did I do?  Well, lets put it this way.  I’m sure they must have some kind of name for 100% total brain fade but I walked into my first scenario, received my first curve ball and when blank.  Yep, blank.  Where do I start?  OK, I managed to pull it together and I don’t think my examiners sensed that I was 100% totally lost for about 5 seconds but I pulled it together and got through it.  It wasn’t until about 15 minutes later that I realized that I had totally missed my SAMPLE in my secondary.  Wow, thats a big thing to miss.

The good news is apparently the first time brain fade is pretty common.  Once you get over it, hopefully it doesn’t happen again.  On my second assessment, I was so focused on making sure that never happened again I walked into the assessment and forgot to verbalize “scene is safe” as the very first thing you are supposed to say.  I went through the entire assessment and guess what.  FAIL.  Yep, Scene safety is a “CPI” (Critical performance indicator… aka, miss this and you don’t pass).  Thankfully my examiners thought I did a good job minus the missing the failure item part.  So I finish, go outside and wait nervously with all my fellow classmates to find out if we go home or go to the patrol.  Then the dreaded clipboard appears.  Chris… we need to see you inside.  I know I botched the first one so with the second one having been a fail for not saying my scene safety line, I’m in trouble now.   They asked me If I knew my mistake which by then I had figured out on my own and asked me to repeat the full assessment starting at the beginning.  Whew!  This time I proudly walked in, surveyed the room, decided it was safe and SLOWLY announced to all around me that the scene was safe prior to proceeding.

A very nervous half an hour later, results were called off the clipboard and thankfully my name was in the pass column.  Looks like I’m going to train at the mountain after all.

One passing note that I wonder about.  Everyone we talked to was already on the patrol kept commenting how much easier we have it than them.  I’m wondering if that is really true or if that is the walking uphill both ways in the snow to get to school barefoot talk.

….Back in my day when I joined patrol, we didn’t have splints.  We used to cut down trees and take them to the sawmill behind the patrol shack and make our own splints.  You have it easy junior….

Regardless, I have a big smile on my face and I’m looking forward to the on the hill refresher.  I wonder what other surprises they have in store for us rookies???