Question: Ski Patrol?

[Marigee]

@bobolinx - 56 is not too old - you are only as old as you feel! Wachusett is NSP affiliated, so the medical training will be their course "Outdoor Emergency Care" or OEC. At my home mountain the OEC portion of the training takes about 120 hours of class time. however, you have to include study time, practice time and travel time. All of that probably upped my training hours for OEC to around 200 hours, spread out over 8 months. Some mountains compress their OEC training into 4 months, during the fall. After you pass OEC, then most mountains conduct mountain specific "on the hill" training, which includes learning how to pull a toboggan over all the terrain (even through the bumps!) My training started at the end of April. We met on Friday nights from 6:30 - 9:30 until September. After Labor Day we met every Saturday from 8:00 - 4:00 at either my home mountain (Whitetail) or at our sister mountain (Liberty.) We took our written test in October and our practical in mid-December, on the snow. Most mountains conduct a ski-off in the spring to test skiing skills before they invite you to their class. Wachusett is in the EMARI region of the Eastern Division of the National Ski Patrol. https://emari.org/index.php/about/region-patrols
Here is the link to the Wachusett patrol application on the Wachusett web page: https://www.wachusett.com/TheMountain/OnTheSlopes/SkiPatrolSafety/tabid/92/Default.aspx
Here is a link to the Wachusett Ski Patrol web page: https://skipatrol.wachusett.com/

Every mountain is different regarding training, whether they fast track health care professionals, how strenuous the training is, etc. From their website it looks like at Wachusett you can be an "auxiliary "patroller. This means you can treat patients, but you can't transport them in a toboggan. to become a full "patroller" you would have to undertake their ski and toboggan (transportation) program. It also looks like Wachusett has a "Ranger" program which to me sound like the "Mountain Safety" program we have at Whitetail. Our Mountain Safeties help the patrol open and close the mountain, act as mountain ambassadors, educate the public on safety issues, keep the slopes safe, conduct accident investigations, etc. Mountain Safeties at my mountain do not perform medical care and do not transport patients. However, they are a very big help to the patrol. I was a Mountain safety for 4 years before I joined the Patrol. It is not required to be a Mountain Safety before joining the Patrol, but it can help during the ski-off becasue the Patrol knows you, your willingness to work, your skiing ability, etc. I don't know if the Ranger program at Wachusett works the same way.

Good luck, and feel free to PM me with any questions you have.

 

[bobolinx]

Hi Marigee, Thank you so much for the informative post. I have a crazy few weeks and then plan to reinvest energy into this matter. I will probably PM you once I've spoken with the mountain. Again thank you for taking the time to write such an informative post. I will be travelling tomorrow and won't be able to devote attention back to this but will asap. Just curious, do you enjoy the work? What are the challenges? Thank you again, bobolinx

 

[SallyCat]

Hadn't heard of that one! Everyone here who works in guiding seems to have the WFR.

I let my EMT cert lapse, but WFR is really useful if you do anything outdoors; it's helpful to have a protocol to follow because if you're in the backcountry you're in for a long haul with the injured person, so you really need some basic skills. It's also just an interesting and fun course, and not too cumbersome to keep your cert current.

The places where I ski in the Poconos are so close to definitive care they don't even qualify as WFR-appropriate, because an ambulance can be there in minutes, and the sled ride is short. I don't know if this affects the training of patrollers or the scope of their responsibility, but it's definitely not backcountry first aid, which means there are a lot of things you don't want to do to/for a patient.

 

[Marigee]

@bobolinx : I love patrolling. A large part of the job is interacting with our "guests" usually on the lifts, but often just assisting them in getting down a particular trail, putting their skis back on, as well as treating injuries. My favorite times of the day are opening and closing. In the morning the sun is just coming over the horizon and the snow is freshly groomed. The world is peaceful and quiet and occasionally I will see a deer on the slopes. Closing time is also peaceful and quiet, but instead of sunrise you see the stars in the sky. The camaraderie among my fellow patrollers and our safety team members is awesome and a large part of why I return each season. Many of us get together off season - or ski at other mountains together. I have gone to many women's specific toboggan handling clinics and as a result have met many women from patrols all over the country that I would now consider good friends.
As for challenges - well I am 5' 1" and 110 pounds - and I can handle the job. Truly, although we call it "pulling" a toboggan, you really are mostly just guiding it down the mountain. It is momentum that makes the toboggan move. Men often will muscle through toboggan handling, but I have learned to work smarter, not harder. I use momentum and the pitch of the mountain to help me and finesse my movements as opposed to using brute strength. And if I get a really heavy patient on a beginner slope that doesn't have much pitch - well, I use my resources wisely and ask a bigger patroller on scene if they would transport the patient. I've never had one refuse yet!

@SallyCat : OEC is a deliberately written so the training is just a bit below EMT, but above first responder. This is for proprietary reasons - NSP owns the rights to OEC. That way those who want to join a patrol can't just take any EMT class if the patrol is NSP affiliated. I would say that our job description probably falls more under first responder though - at least in Pennsylvania, because definitive care is so close. Many patrollers at Whitetail are EMT's and Paramedics, with a few nurses and doctors as well. However, we all treat at the OEC level (insurance and liability reasons) and follow local protocols as well as mountain protocols.

 

[bounceswoosh]

I let my EMT cert lapse, but WFR is really useful if you do anything outdoors; it's helpful to have a protocol to follow because if you're in the backcountry you're in for a long haul with the injured person, so you really need some basic skills. It's also just an interesting and fun course, and not too cumbersome to keep your cert current.

I really want to take it. Ideally WFA, then WFR which would reinforce the concepts and add more. Time is the issue. This whole "job" thing gets in the way so much!

Truly, although we call it "pulling" a toboggan, you really are mostly just guiding it down the mountain.

From my two experiences on a sled (the second, I was perfectly fine and sitting upright, but I'd damaged my binding and they didn't want me hiking down for some reason), I gather that it's mostly about slowing it down, not pulling it!

Also, as we got toward the bottom of Breck peak 9 where it is extremely flat, we got a brief tow from a snowmobile.

 

[geargrrl]

One more thing about OEC - it's specific to Outdoors Care and not having access to an ambulance etc. It's about stablizing and getting them off the hill, out of the snow, and stabilized. This is why on our patrol, ALL medical professionals still have to take it. They can challenge it but I can't think of anyone that has passed the challenge.

Here's a good example from a long time ago. Some of our patrol were at an XC race at the nordic area. I don't remember exactly what happened, but I think a guy collapsed, heart attack maybe. One of our student patrollers was right on the scene doing appropriate care. Some guy "I'M A DOCTOR LET ME HANDLE THIS" got into the scene and immediately started undressing the guy, IN THE SNOW. As I recall, Rachel stood him down, kept the patient covered up and warm among other things until he could be taken to the aid room. The moral of the story is the doctor may have known how to treat the condition but had no training whatsoever in taking the environment into consideration. That kind of thing is just one of many reasons that everyone has to do OEC.

 

[newboots]

Some guy "I'M A DOCTOR LET ME HANDLE THIS" got into the scene and immediately started undressing the guy, IN THE SNOW. As I recall, Rachel stood him down, kept the patient covered up and warm among other things until he could be taken to the aid room. The moral of the story is the doctor may have known how to treat the condition but had no training whatsoever in taking the environment into consideration.

They forgot to teach common sense in medical school.

Hm, I can see how this could happen. I'm very specialized in my field, and I can imagine being so sure about what I'm doing that I failed to take perspective in a new situation.

. . . Still, a doctor should have some inkling about hypothermia.

 

[Brenda T.]

This is a great little thread.

I love the "I'm a doctor" bit. We have doctors on our patrol, and a fair amount of the time they won't tell anyone they are a doc just like our EMTs, Medics, and Nurses won't tell patients/guests most of the time. We want them to know that the Ski Patrol has them.

I've been and OEC instructor for about 6 years and the last three I was one of three instructors that was with our students from day one of class all the way to the end. I love teaching OEC and getting a new set of candidates ready to start becoming Patrollers. Of course that means that my ski season really starts in August!!

There are different rules for different patrols, regions, and divisions. Medical care in the National Ski Patrol starts with the OEC course. Some states (I know New Mexico and maybe Colorado unsure of others) require that Patrollers be EMTs or higher. So patrols allow EMTs and RNs to skip the OEC course proper and just take the test, others require that you take the entire course no mater what. Most will allow Medical Doctors to join as "medical associates" without taking the OEC course. My Patrol will let Medical Doctors do that but they won't allow EMTs or RNs to skip anything, but use to. I was offered to skip the course, but decided to take it, because in my state I could use it for my Inservice hours anyway.

Our course was 15 weeks this year and started on Aug. 10th and ended on November 18th with their practical skills test. We switched to a hybrid course this year, so that they did book work/quizzes on their own and we reviewed and did skills one night a week as a group. It was different but everyone really liked it and it make the course much less daunting for both the candidates and the instructors.

If you love skiing and like helping people (and can spare the time) the NSP is a great thing. I highly encourage every one to look into it. (We even get great discounts with lots of different companies, some aren't even ski related!!! Plus some resorts will let us ski for next to nothing.)

-Brenda