This Book Is About Travel by Andrew Hyde

Author:Andrew Hyde [Hyde, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2012-06-04T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

FRACTALS OF SEIZURES

It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.

—Ernest Hemingway

CHIANG MAI, THAILAND

We were following a game trail (deer, we thought) up a steep ridge in the dense jungle outside Chiang Mai, Thailand. 11 of us from a hostel and two nice folks from other guest houses set off and had two great days. About an hour into the hike on day three, one of the guys from the other guest houses, a nice Italian about 50 years of age whom we will call Tizio, started stumbling and violently convulsing.

I probably don’t have to tell you this, but it’s a scary thing when someone you barely know gets alarmingly ill in the middle of a wilderness you are completely unfamiliar with. Fortunately, I am not a complete novice when it comes to such matters. Right after I graduated high school, I took a 45 day Outward Bound course that featured a Wilderness First Responder certification. The WFR is a very basic EMT course designed for those who are in the wilderness often enough that they may happen upon a situation where immediate care is needed. Although skills are taught, the main point of the certification is “do not get hurt away from roads” — there is very, very little that can be done if you break your femur five miles from the road. Noted. Aside from that, I was also around the wilderness and first aid as an Eagle Scout. Which is all just to say, although I may have a very basic knowledge of what could or should be done in case of crisis or disaster, I have nowhere near the knowledge I should have in order to actually help. And that, it seems, is exactly what I was being called to do.

Crap.

The sequence of events went roughly as follows:

11:34-Seizure. Tizio literally starts convulsing while walking. His convulsions cause him to trip and he begins to fall down the steep slope to his left.

11:34-First Contact. The last two hikers, myself and Taylor, rush to the scene to stop his fall (also helping stop his fall is a bamboo cropping). The fall was two slow flips, all while convulsing. We keep his head from hitting anything (else) and try to get him to talk to us. I remember the whole “don’t let them chew their tongue” advice, but that seems like the least of our worries right now. His eyes are rolling back deep in his head, he isn’t breathing and he isn’t responding to verbal commands. He is laying on his side (good). He has a deep cut on his back that is bleeding from the log that kept him from falling anymore (bad).

Oh yeah, and Tizio is Italian, so a bunch of guys yelling in English might not be the best choice to get him to calm down once he wakes up. Fortunately we have Gwen, a twenty-something Italian, who is able to get to the scene in time to step in as a translator.

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