Volume 6, Issue 10
| Top of the Hill | by Tom Russo , President |
Thanks to all those who were able to attend missions this month. It's been hard to keep ready for these things after our long dry period, but I'm glad we can still get good turnout when the time comes.
As James and Jeff have pointed out in this issue, it's time to think about who will be officers next
year. Three of our officers have expressed that they definitely will not run
for their current jobs again, and the other two would be happy to let someone else
take the helm for next year. So please think of who on the team you would
like to see performing the various duties. If you would like to be an officer
yourself, or if someone has nominated you and you want to know what the jobs
entail, take a look at our member guide; officer's duties are laid out
pretty clearly there.
| Boots and Blisters | by James Newberry, Training Officer |
I have a question: Which one of you super hard charging search and rescue folks are going to run for the Vice president/ training officer position? That's right, it's that time of year again. The deadline for officer nominations is rapidly approaching.
Here's whats coming up in the future for your training pleasure.
Oct. 14 - Land nav training- Bear Canyon(east end of Spain) 9 am
Please bring along your very own map of the area.
Nov. 4 - Land Nav Eval- Bear canyon(east end of spain) 9 am
Please leave a message on the teams hotline if you plan
on attending.
Also, if there is a brave soul or two amongst you that would
like to become an evaluator. Now would be a good time.
Nov. 8 - pre meeting training- 6:30pm Winter gear, what and why
we carry it.
Nov. 10 - dark time search techniques- 6pm- Bear canyon (east end
of spain)
Dec. 8 - Search technique evaluation- 9 am Embudo(east end of
indian school) please leave a message on the voice mail
hotline if you plan on attending.
| Business as Usual:Meeting Minutes | by Jeff Phillips, Secretary |
Nominations for Officers are now open and will close at the end of the November Business Meeting. To make a nomination simply let a current Officer know. Shortly after the November Business Meeting active members will receive a Ballot by mail to be completed and returned on or before the December Business Meeting. At that time the ballots will be tallied and a new slate of Officers (and the Executive Board) elected, to take over team operations in January 2002. This is a great opportunity to serve the team and I encourage everyone to consider an office.
3 Familiar faces, Aidan Thompson, Don Gibson and Doug Davenport.
5 New faces, Don Codding, Denise Codding, Roberta Begaye and two did not sign the 211.
Brian was not in attendance but sent on information on the team's net income and net worth.
On the issue of how much to charge non-Cibola and "pre-Cibola orientation" attendees of the WFR/WFA refresher: Steve proposed - Charge $225 - Dave seconded. Motion passed unanimously.
Meeting was adjourned at 2010 hours.
| Who's Who and New | by David Dixon, Membership Officer |
Our newest prospective member is Jennifer Dellinger. Jennifer actually completed orientation last month but I forgot to include her in my column. Her mentor and tree top is Aaron Hall. Welcome to search and rescue Jennifer. You certainly have a great mentor to help you.
On the other hand we lost 2 members to resignations, Doug Davenport and Paul Donovan. Doug is back in school and hopes to have time for us at a later date. We wish him well.
Although we all knew it was coming Paul's departure is a big loss for us. I repeat here my team listserve posting of a few weeks ago.
Paul Donovan has submitted his resignation to Cibola. Most of us knew this was coming and recent events certainly quickened his departure. As with another recent member his contribution to this organization was outstanding and in that he deserves more than a simple goodbye.
Paul started with Cibola in early 1999 sprinting. His pace has only recently slowed. During his 2 ½ years he was one of our top mission goers and if we had the sense to give the award every year he certainly would have been rookie of the year his first year. In fact Paul was often our "go to" member on missions, definitely not an arguable point from anyone who tried to keep up with him in the field. I had the good fortune to work with him on an overnight find on the west face of the Sandias a while back and he certainly helped make it my most memorable mission. Not only was his expertise always evident but his demeanor and positive attitude were great to have along. Although unpretentious, he humbled us all. In fact, Paul epitomized the quality, field ready member this organization strives to produce and have the sar community see.
In addition to his mission contributions Paul was also very active in trainings and bivies. He certainly worked to try and get everyone to his level. You knew if he was involved the event would be better. Recently, not being content to simply fly and follow his other pursuits he felt it necessary to start serious climbing and has bagged many of Colorado's 14'ers. A goal some of us would cherish in doing just one.
Paul Donovan's all too short time with Cibola will never be forgotten and the team can't say a big enough thank you. We wish him a save passage in the future. Oh to have everyone fighting for us a Paul Donovan.
We can only hope he retires here and rejoins. I have no doubt his pace will not have slowed a bit.
| Medical News | by Mike Dugger and Mickey Jojola |
Trauma to the head can result in open wounds, fractures to the bones of the face and cranium, or less obviously to hidden damage to the brain from being impacted and "sloshed about" inside its rigid container. In some respects, the former types of injuries are somewhat easier to deal with in the backcountry since they are obvious. The skull is an extremely durable container, and very difficult to damage. Therefore, trauma resulting in open wounds or fractures represents a high probability of severe damage to the brain which may not be survivable in the backcountry setting. We must control bleeding, stabilize, and transport to advanced life support as soon as possible. Forces sufficient to cause this kind of damage to the skull are also capable of causing a spinal injury, so we must also take precautions for this.
More common, and potentially as dangerous, is damage to the brain from blunt trauma that may leave no or minimal external physical signs. The heart is capable of beating without a signal from the brain, but the lungs will not operate without nervous system control. Head trauma can therefore lead to respiratory arrest due to loss of nervous system control of the muscles in the diaphragm and chest. Red flags for head trauma include the loss of conciousness at any time, decline in mental status following the event, deformity of the skull, persistent severe headaches, vomiting more than once, antegrade amnesia (no memory of events after the injury), and feeling dazed, sleepy or nauseated. The real danger here is swelling of the brain due to trauma. Since it is inside a rigid container with no place to go except out the hole at the base of the skull where the spinal cord exits, swelling of the brain leads to increasing "intracranial pressure," or ICP. If a mechanism for head injury exists the subject should be monitored for signs of increasing ICP. If the patient has a confirmed concussion, evacuation should be started immediately rather than waiting for ICP to increase, as this condition is life-threatening and must be managed in a hospital setting. Increasing ICP can manifest itself over a period of 24 hours. Basically, as the brain swells the heart may not be able to pump blood at high enough pressure to overcome the pressure inside the cranial vault, and the brain is not adequately perfused with oxygenated blood. Some compensation is possible, as spinal fluid and blood move from the cranial vault to the spinal canal and surrounding vasculature, respectively. Eventually compensation is impossible and hypoxia of the brain results. Late symptoms include siezures, a maximally dilated pupil, and posturing (hands and feet turning in or out).
Check here in the future for answers to this medical question of the month.
| Web News | by Tom Russo |
Please don't forget that the website has quite a few training handouts, and the "other interesting websites" page has links to informative sites all over the World Wide Web. I occasionally add new things to the latter page. Most recently I added a link to an article on "The Basics of Classical Datums" that tells more than you ever wanted to know about the origins of the map datums we've come to know (e.g. NAD83, NAD27, WGS84). Makes for some good reading when you have a half hour to kill.
Another useful link is the Federal Emergency Management Agency's ICS course, and I highly recommend that you go visit that one and download the textbook. I'd recommend signing up for the course, too --- it's free and self-paced, so you just download the book, read it at your own speed, then take a multiple-guess test.
I am willing and able to continue doing website management next year, but as always I would be delighted if anyone would like to help out. It's a geeky job, requires one to roll up one's sleeves and get Unix smeared all over you, and often requires forays in to the world of database administration and programming, but the website has become a pretty important part of our record keeping and it would be good for me to have some backup.
A gentler way to get into the web administration would be to volunteer to help
edit this newsletter. Susan Corban and Mike Dugger have helped me a great
deal over the past four years, but Mike's mostly working on the CE
Coordinator's job and Susan ran off to play on rocks (sniff). Line forms to
the right (the line for helping with next year's mock search forms to the
left, I'm running out of directions here!).
The team website can be accessed at http://www.cibolasar.org/
| Disclaimer and Copyright notice | the Editors |