Thursday, October 3, 2013

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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