First Aid? This could have gone horribly wrong...

We've moved on from the language and culture training (though training us to have any 'culture' is arguably a lost cause) to Combat Life Saver...basically, we learned to put a tourniquet on anything bleeding, jam a needle into a chest cavity for a pneumothorax to let the air out, and last but not least, we learned how to stick each other with IV needles. That last part was awesome! But this was just basic life saving stuff...until you can get your buddy to real medical treatment. We just wanted to be clear...we're not male nurses.

 The training was outstanding...the instructors were excellent. They told us no tourniquets around the neck, even for a bleeding head wound? REALLY? come on!  They said it works for everything else! And the sucking chest wound...jamming a needle in there is pretty sweet. The dummies chest cavities even hiss like a beach ball letting the air out. But the best part of all, IV's! We were taught how to put in a saline lock...which has an outstanding secondary benefit- curing a hangover! But we had to give back the unused needles.

 But before that poking and stabbing stuff...we had to learn how to roll over a wounded buddy. Um...I'm not sure it's supposed to look quite like this. This looks a little male nurse...but since they are our roommates, we assume they must be straight!

This guy had a really bad day...looks like he might need a neck tourniquet. Or an orthodontist? 

This is murse Rod....administering some prime time combat life saving!  That is a CAT5 that he put on the arm of our casualty. This dummy was part of a medical simulator, one of 15 or so worldwide and it was pretty interesting. The casualties blink, breathe and bleed. 

And then...the very best part. Stabbing each other with needles and hooking up the saline lock! Rod stabbed me, Dona stabbed Rod and I stabbed Dona. It was a sort of mutually assured destruction pact...no retribution for the one that stabbed you! You just push till you feel it 'pop' into the vein, tape it down and then hook up the saline lock...there were only a few squirters.