Medicine and High Altitude
Half-Doctor in Pakistan
“You are best American doctor” says the Balti porter as I finish cleaning and bandaging his heel.
“Half-doctor!” I respond. He smiles broadly happy to have a soft wrap on his badly scraped foot and a cheeky medic attending to him.I say this because I am an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) and not a true doctor. (For those of you not versed in this acronym it means that I can serve on an ambulance crew.) Actually I am a W-EMT which means that I have additional training in how to apply my craft in the remote environments where we will not have the luxury of ambulances, hospitals and other more highly trained people to take over for me.
Agony of Da-feet
Blisters can be the bane of any expedition. From annoying to incapacitating, blisters alter our enjoyment, our gait and our pace. They contribute to compensations (ie: limping, favoring, etc.) that may lead to other injuries including sprained ankles and knees. Preventing them in the first place is our real job.Jack Frost Bites
Golden Rules for Avoiding Cold Injury
by stu remensnyder
The day grows long, the sun dims and you begin to shiver.
You have not drank in many hours (as your water bottle froze a long time ago!) and you are damp from sweat. You realize that a few fingers/toes are going numb and have a barely lucid debate with yourself about the importance of the fingers/toes compared to reaching camp and flopping down in a warm cozy bag.
ABC’s of HAPE and HACE - Case stuudy
ABC’s of HAPE and HACE – a case study in serious high altitude illness
On our recent expedition to K2 another teams newly arrived cook was brought to our basecamp (4850m) with conditions of high altitude illness that were very serious and life-threatening. Our team wasted no time in acting on the symptoms they saw and administered treatment which saved the life of the cook.
