At 0800h I was standing in my room at the B & B, holding
the silver emergency blanket in my hand.
I gauged its weight and worked at stuffing it into my already bursting
camelback. The pack was full, mostly due to the 2L water bladder, but I had
also managed to squeeze in 3 nutrigrain bars, a headscarf, my mobile, a few
tissues, and a headlamp. My first adventure race was only 2 weeks away, so I
had driven to Westport the night before to join the training group and suss out
the upcoming racecourse. In a rush I’d ‘packed’ by basically throwing all my
outdoor gear into the car, hoping I’d managed to toss in all the essential pieces
of kit.
“I am only going on a
road ride and a run, I am definitely not
going to need my emergency blanket or my headlamp. The last thing I want is an
overstuffed pack bouncing on my back while trying to run” I thought.
I pulled the blanket and headlamp out of the camelback and
transferred them to the larger pack that I take on hikes. This pack always contains
my mitts, 2 winter hats, spare socks, earmuffs, and rain pants. Just in case.
I couldn’t have predicted that 5h later I’d be pulling the
camelback apart thinking,
“Wait!!! I had an
emergency blanket in there this morning…did I leave it in or put it in my other
pack?? Ohhh…”
So I finished getting dressed in my long biking pants, tank
top, t-shirt, long-sleeved merino wool top, and windbreaker. I usually end up
overheating and cursing every layer once my heart rate gets going, but it
seemed windy enough to warrant the wool shirt. I kept it on and headed out the
door for what I thought was going to be a morning consisting of a bike
maintenance workshop, followed by a group road ride, and short run.
Due to a miscommunication with Paul, the trainer, regarding
the schedule, I ended up cycling to the base of Croagh Patrick without my
running shoes. He felt terrible and offered to head back to town and collect
them for me. I was embarrassed
that I’d misunderstood the plan and contemplated going up in my clips, but he
insisted, so I gave him my keys and waited.
By the time Paul returned most of the training group were
trickling back into the parking lot after hiking to the shoulder. He handed the
shoes over and suggested that I hike to the top (since that was how far I’d
have to go on race day). He gave me his mobile number and said he’d go through
the rest of the course with me on my own once I’d cycled back to town, later in
the afternoon. I was so mortified
over being the most high maintenance participant of the day that I didn’t mention
that I had no way of locking up my road bike while heading up the mountain. I waited for everyone to leave and then
negotiated with the elderly Irishman selling walking sticks from a stall in the
parking lot. I told him I’d be 2 hours maximum
and he agreed to keep an eye on my bike as long as I propped it within view of
the stall.
It was noon, there were snatches of blue sky scattered
amongst the clouds, but the top of Croagh Patrick was wrapped in a heavy grey
fog. It was the best that one could hope for in terms of Irish weather so I
struck off. I started my GPS timer
and (mostly cheesy) ipod running mix, trying to move as fast as I could up the
mountain, partly to take advantage of the weather and partly because I didn’t
want to keep Paul waiting once he was done with the training group.
An hour later I was nearing the top of the mountain, which
is mostly a rocky scramble. Despite the cold wind and scattered rain, I had
long ago shed all my top layers and was down to a sweaty t-shirt. I was hammering away with
Daft Punk and Fat Boy Slim blaring, feeling good.
Then I saw a small cluster of people crouched down on the
trail ahead. I thought for a
moment that it was just a group of melodramatic teenagers taking a breather
from the sustained final push to the top. Then I noticed that one of them was
lying on the trail with blood on her face.
I crouched down and she opened her eyes. I asked what had
happened and if I could help. The person on the ground was a woman in her
thirties with soft brown curls framing her bruised and swollen face. A cut
across the bridge of her nose bled in a line down her cheek and along her neck.
She was covered in a mix of raincoats and sweatshirts, visibly shaking. Her
clear blue eyes opened when I asked her her name and she told me it was Maggie. A hover of teens surrounded her. They said she’d fallen and hit her head but she
hadn’t been knocked out. A frantic looking middle aged man in a blue cableknit
sweater and khaki pants spotted with blood approached me and said that mountain
rescue had been called and that they were on their way. I asked if there was anything I could
do, he said “Uhhh…I don’t think so, mountain rescue will be here shortly…”
In these situations I never know how to state my
credentials, going into a ramble about being an ex-ER / arctic nurse, now 3rd
year medical student, with a smattering of trauma and backcountry courses,
seems a little too long-winded and confusing. So I decided to distill it down
to ‘student doctor’ even though it sounded vaguely ridiculous at the time. Especially
since that part of my background was
probably going to help me this least at
this point.
“I just want to make sure she’s ok, I am a student doctor...can I quickly check her out?”
“Wait…what?”, the man said, “oh thank God! You’re a student
doctor? Once you’ve looked at Maggie can you come and see the girl? I think she
is in worse shape.”
The girl?
It was then that I saw a second huddle of teens away from
the trail, on a steeper aspect of the scree, about 5 meters away.
Oh dear.
