Intern Voice: Has everyone been injured? Good
-Written by Dionthé
Hingson, Six Month Intern
First week
of the Jalova experience consists of a lot of training. Emergency First
Responder (EFR) training was first on the list. Two days of training (both
practical and reading) then one day with a written exam and a practical exam.
These once strangers could now be responsible for saving my life. We could make
the difference between a lifelong disability and short recovery, even between
life and death.
Which is
good because a lot of things are deadly here. From snakes that contain
neurotoxins and haemotoxins, to the cuddly jaguars and branch throwing monkeys,
even several of the frogs secrete neurotoxins in their skin capable of killing
10 adult humans or 20,000 mice. I think the mice or agouti is more likely. Even
just a few days ago I shrank in the protection of my mosquito-netted bed from
the scorpion crawling on my wall.
Volunteer Nicole being expertly strapped up by interns Sophia, Alex and Dionthe |
The great
thing is that the training is super practical so as to keep us from boredom. When
we are doing 14 mile walks on the beach in Costa Rica heat stroke and heat
exhaustion are legitimate concerns. Food poisoning, and treating a snake bite
are all things we need to be prepared to handle for ourselves and others. The
practical made us a bit nervous as we approached our first scenario, excited
and aware we went step by step through our training and were able to treat our
victims from their various signs and symptoms which ranged from life
threatening to treating for shock. We even learned to use the things around us
to improvise when needed. Other training we are receiving is just as practical
and includes turtles, jaguars, birds, duty, and machete. Hopefully the reason
we do EFR training before machete training is because of sound judgement, not
experience.
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