Hi Again!
This past week has been filled with project related activities! two Fridays ago I spent the evening with SAR Bolivia as i have for the past few weeks and finally got my first call! Though simple and relatively uneventful i was happy to get on the ambulance and assist with things instead of just sitting in the office like i had for the two previous weeks. The call was for a potential cardiac issue in the center of town at about 9:45pm, just when the night-time traffic was picking up. The ambulance that we took to the call does not have lights and the sirens that it does possess are often not respected by the other divers on the street which made getting to the call a tad more difficult than i was used to. Upon arriving we found a 30 something male semi conscience on the exterior steps of an apartment building complaining of severe chest pain. After examining the patient and checking his vitals we transferred him to the ambulance and transported to a nearby military hospital. Though very little treatments were provided to the patient while in route to the hospital it was obvious that the patient and his friend who was riding up front were very grateful for the free volunteer run services that they were being provided.
This past Friday I was at SAR as usual but this time specifically to attend the bi-weekly Quechua class that SAR provides for its members. Quechua is the primary indigenous language in Cochabamba and the surrounding areas and there are many do not speak Spanish and are only able to community in Quechua. This class is part of an effort by SAR to be able to provide comprehensive healthcare to all residents of the Cochabamba area not just to the patients who speak Spanish. Though i was lost for most of the class i was able to pick up on some vocabulary words as well as learn that Quechua has to different verb conjugations for the first person plural, one that is you, me and everyone and a second that is me and everyone but not you. Though this class was very educational i think I'm going to stick with learning Spanish for the moment.
My final EMS related experience this week was early sunday morning at a splinting class for medical students at the university of San Simon, Cochabamba's largest public university. The students arrived by 8 am equipped with string, torn up table clothes and sheets and a whole lot of cardboard. With these few tools they constructed splints , slings and supports for every imaginable injury while the professors wandered through the group of students offering tips and constructive criticism. I found the ingenuity and creativity of these students and their professor amazing and learned so much about how to easily support and secure injuries when the official equipment was not at hand.
I am spending the next two weeks designing a research project around what i have learned so far and preparing to move to another city to continue to study EMS issues in Bolivia.
Until next time!
~Kai