Monday, May 7, 2001
Well, classes are over! So let's go through the last few days...
Slope Day was Friday! Now that was an experience to remember. I arrived at the base of the slope at 8:40am--it was just myself and another crew chief, and we proceeded to set up the tables for the first aid tent. Many more arrived by 9:00, and by about 9:15 the crews were ready to traverse the slope. Only one problem--there was no one on the slope. In fact, the slope didn't get packed until about noon. So my morning crew didn't do much but walk across the slope a few times.
The weather stayed quite nice for the whole day... Partly cloudy and in the mid 70's. It was pretty warm, and I had about 8-10 bottles of water throughout the day. By noon, the crowds really began to pour onto the slope. The mass of people spread about 200 yards in the north-south direction (the length of the slope) and 100 yards in the east-west direction (top-bottom). I would estimate 3,000 to 4,000 students, staff, faculty and Ithaca residents (even including Ithaca H.S. students) were on the slope between 2-3pm. During the peak of the day, Cornell EMS had 9 crews on the slope, in the nonalcoholic event Slope Fest, and above the slope in Ho Plaza and the Arts quad. At times, there was only one available crew for the whole of the slope.
In the end, the heat was a huge help for those who chose to drink massive amounts of alcohol. Instead of drinking just alcohol, they actually drank a LOT of the endless supply of free bottled water. This turns out to be very important to the body's ability to metabolize the alcohol. Dramatically fewer patients were seen on Friday... just over 50 documented patients and 87 calls (dispatches and communicated nudgings). Only 5 people went to the hospital, and only 2 of those were purely EtOH-related.
When Slope Day came to a close around 6:30pm, the slope itself looked like a tornado hit a landfill. Even through the persistent trash collecting by the volunteers, there were bottles, bags, and trash everywhere. The sheer power of the Cornell Grounds Department comes through when every bit of trash has disappeared by Sunday.
I finished up my Slope Day experience with a 7-11pm shift. We got one call around 7:30pm to an unresponsive male (EtOH). He responded remarkably well to high-flow oxygen, and was sent on his way home. Later that evening, we were dispatched to a non-injury MVA (car accident) where we had two patients (each driver). Since we had an extra crew chief riding with us at the time, I was lucky enough to run through the entire assessment and RMA (sign off, a.k.a. no hospital) sequence with one of the drivers.
My Saturday was a day of pure relaxation and rest from the previous day. End of story!
On Sunday, I finished up the two Physics and Intro Engineering problem sets that were due today. I then decided to cover an open overnight shift. We had no calls until 5am, when I managed to wake up out of a deep sleep to hear Cornell Dispatch on the radio, sending police and our environmental health and safety (EHS) officer to a residence for a bad reaction to "bad" marijuana. In my grogginess I figured we'd be toned shortly, until I heard that Cornell had dispatched Bangs (the professional ambulance). So I jumped up, woke the crew, and we were ready to go before the EHS officer called in to remind Dispatch to send us to the call. Naturally, due to patient confidentially I can't say much more about the call itself. We placed him on oxygen, which appeared to help him to calm down, and he was taken to the hospital by Bangs. We were back by 6 and caught a couple more hours of sleep.
Finals are approaching. I have my State EMT written exam on Thursday. Then I have two exams Monday (one in the morning and one in the afternoon) and third on Tuesday morning. Finish packing on Wednesday then I'm off!!
Aaron
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