Happy Father’s Day to my Dad and all the Dad’s! The past two weeks have been quite fun playing part-time tourist with Heather and Zachary. Yellowstone is a big park and we’ve seen a good portion of the front country places. We also took two days to visit the Grand Teton National Park to enjoy the spectacular mountains. Our adventures brought about many visits to scenic views and provided ample opportunities for wildlife spotting. Zach had a great time with his camera catching elusive critters in the wild and amazing moments as we toured about. Heather has been enjoying the change of pace, location and having me do the cooking for a while. We are all having a bunch of fun!
Of course, my work here at Yellowstone in the clinic continues, where we consistently are seeing 20+ patients a day. All three clinics are working hard and caring for the visitors and park staff. We’ve had a few interesting cases but for the most part it is slips, trips, and falls among minor illnesses. My volunteer paramedic work with the National Park Service has been busy, with Saturday of Father’s Day weekend being one of the busiest days this year for Yellowstone area emergency services.
We started off Saturday with a 1am medical call in Gardiner which we returned from at 430am. At 7am we started prep for the annual Gateway Hose and Ambulance Company breakfast fundraiser, where we served nearly 250 people and raised a record amount of donations. After which there was an annual parade that Zach, Heather and I participated in as we rode in one of the fire trucks throwing candy to children of all ages. And…during the parade we got a call for a head-on-crash about 10 miles outside of town. So, I jumped onto the ambulance and off we went. Fortunately, the injuries were minor and we returned to the station in time to help finish the cleanup from the breakfast event.
Later in the day, there were a series of major events that occurred in Yellowstone that pushed emergency resources to the max. Simultaneous medical and trauma calls, and then simultaneous SAR events in the north and south areas of the park. In the meantime, a major wind event was occurring in the area with gusts of 50+ MPH causing trees to fall and setting off fire alarms across the area. At about 3pm I responded to an all-hands page out for a ravine search-and-rescue for a patient about a half mile down a steep switch-back trail. Ranger Joe was early to the scene and made his way down-trail to the patient, stabilized the injuries, and managed the pain. A two-team litter carry group was assembled and furnished to the trailhead to bring the patient out safely using a wheeled litter. Once extracted from the back-country the patient was transported to the hospital by ground ambulance. All personnel worked hard and as a team to make things happen during a challenging day. The full resources of the Yellowstone Emergency Services group were operating at their max in both capabilities and capacity. The professionalism and competence of the staff is impressive.
Summer may be in full-swing here and elsewhere, but we have a winter storm advisory over the next few days for the surrounding mountains, calling for several inches of snowfall. Life here continues to be an adventure unlike any other. Thanks for all your kind messages and I appreciate you following along. Until next week…be well and stay safe!
