So we just got back from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, after a weekend of camping and learning. Twelve lifeguards made the 8+ hour trip from Jax Beach to the conference, which is put on by the Appalachian Center for Wilderness Medicine, and had a blast. James’ sister lives and works on a farm in nearby Durham where we made camp and got aquatinted with some of the livestock. We spent most of the first night chasing chickens and ambushing the Fainting Goats that lived there. Somehow we even found time to sit everyone down for a meeting about the upcoming year and our plans to return to Peru and expand our local drowning prevention strategies and get more and more guards involved.

The conference itself was very cool. One of the highlights was a very moving talk from Navy Cmdr. Richard Jadick about his time in Falluja as a battalion surgeon and the parallels between combat medicine and wilderness medicine. After that, the courses were divided into several simultaneous hour-long lectures and we split up, trying to attend them all so we could have teach-backs around the campfire that night and discuss how to translate various applications to our work in developing nations.

The next day we were briefed on GPS navigation and sent out to “find” practical scenarios based on the things we had seen the day before. This turned out to be pretty cool and, since most of it was based in first responder emergency medicine, it was fun to see some of our younger guards help guide med students through the treatment for a dog bite.

All in all, we met some great people, had a great time, and learned some really cool stuff. Plus, it was awesome to expose our other lifeguards to the kind of teaching format we use abroad and for all of us to see potential new ways to apply our passions and blaze new trails.