Mud, Sweat and Gears
On the off chance that I ever decide to get back in the game, it's safe to say that "dirt bike enthusiast" will not be on my list of Ideal Mates. And should I end up with one anyway, I may well encourage him to go without his helmet and chest plate - this for my own safety and general peace of mind.
I was just as surprised as you must be to learn that Thomaston Dam has some pretty good dirt bike trails, good enough that a rather large event is held there every summer, drawing riders from all over New England. The ambulance corps does standby at this event, which is called the Dam Race by the organizers and participants and the Dam(n) Race by the corps, and this year I signed up. I'd been told that last year one rider broke several ribs and both femurs, so I was a little nervous as to what the day might bring, but figured I was sure to rack up some valuable experience.
Sunday was the day. Saturday was the day for kids' races, and it had gone quietly from an EMS standpoint, but Sunday was for older kids and adults, and this was the day that always saw the most accidents. Advance word was that the track was not only beaten all to hell from Saturday's races but also replete with greasy mud pits courtesy of the recent rains. In short, it was a mess out there. Of course that kind of track forecast is enough to put a lump in the pants of any dirt biker worth his orthopaedist bills; if we could have thrown in wolverines, Scylla and Charybdis, a rock monster and a hungry cannibal tribe, these guys would have been over the fucking moon.
Forsaking all my most dearly held sartorial beliefs, I gritted my teeth and donned the hideous fluorescent yellow EMS t-shirt that we would all be wearing; this would be the first time I dared wear mine out of the house. The primary reason for this attire was, naturally, that we had to be highly visible at the event. But I had another reason: if I had to be out in the hot sun all day, I wanted to be wearing something so obnoxiously bright that the sun itself would hide from it. (This genius plan worked for several pleasantly overcast hours.) Everyone met up at the garage, where we stocked both rigs and the fly car with extra cold packs, collars and splinting supplies. Then off we went, the whole screaming yellow bonkers lot of us, to the Dam(n) Race.
Five minutes after the first race started, we were mud-splattered and on our way to the hospital. Our patient was an 11-year-old kid who'd been hit in the big mud bowl right by the starting line and then hit again after falling off his bike. Well-meaning spectators lifted him out of the mud and handed him over the fence like a rag doll before we could get to him with collar and board, but no harm done. He got his bell rung pretty good, but his protective gear prevented any serious damage. His father, a perfectly sane and sensible person whose parental concern and air of general normalcy would leave me completely unprepared for most of the other people I'd meet that day, agreed that the kid should be checked out by a doctor, just to be sure, so we transported. The kid seemed unfazed once the initial shock wore off, and he was back at the dam and walking around with his dad by lunchtime.
We took this initial bang-up as a bad omen and braced ourselves for an apocalyptic day, but things actually went uphill from there. One of the race organizers, a jovial and thoroughly experienced rescue worker who will be known hereinafter as Bob because I never did catch his name, stood right by the muddy part of the track at the start of each race and stepped in to help any downed riders. I soon learned to keep my eye on Bob and not the riders: if he didn't wave us over, things were okay. It was still nervewracking, though. At the start of every race we stood by with jump bags and backboards at the ready, gloves on our hands and hearts in our mouths, holding our breath until all the riders were out of sight, at which point we would heave a collective sigh of relief and drive the rigs back up to the main road to wait until we were needed. (You will notice that I do not say safely out of sight. This is because while we were stationed in front of the timekeepers's area, the riders were out on the 9-mile track bumping into each other, wiping out on rocky terrain, crashing into trees...and just getting right back on their bikes.)
We patched up a few people with cold packs, splints, arm slings - routine Boy Scout stuff, nothing fancy. Our first patient was the only one who went to the hospital. Bob would get on his own bike and make periodic runs around the track to see if anyone was in trouble, but we never had to go far out into the woods to retrieve anyone. Most of them came to us. One kid wiped out on a tree root and hurt his foot, and we had to move him away from the track in order to treat him because other riders kept wiping out in the same spot, and it's hard to concentrate when there are dirt bikes crashing to the ground not two feet away from you. As far as working conditions, that was about as bad as it got. Not too scary, really.
You know what was scary? The people.
Not all of them, obviously. Most of the folks at the race seemed perfectly normal and genial. But then there were the other ones. Look, I have met some scary people. I have been in scary places and situations. We all have. But never have I been so creeped out by so many people in one place. Never have I looked around me and seen so many pairs of dead eyes. It was Thousand-Yard StareFest 2008, and it freaked me out. These people had a certain look about them, like if they decided that they hated you, there would be no internalizing, no plotting, no secrecy. They'd simply pick up the nearest heavy object and bury it in your skull. Talking to them did nothing to dispel this impression. They gave brief answers and didn't really seem to be...all there. And it wasn't just the adults - there were a lot of kids like that, too, and that was somehow even more disturbing. It didn't help at all when Bob, talking about matters on the track, said, "They don't care what happens to themselves or anyone else." That's one of the criteria needed for a diagnosis of sociopath, and it occurred to me that it might be worth conducting a study to see how many dirt bikers fit the profile. Just for laughs, doncha know.
I heard words like "rednecks" and "hillbillies" quite a few times that day, and while I doubted that you could be a true redneck or hillbilly if you were from New England, I did have to admit that there was that vibe. It was like Deliverance, only with dirt bikes instead of canoes. How I refrained from constantly humming the infamous banjo tune, I will never know.
There's nothing like a little speculative analysis to make one feel better at times like this, so I indulged. I wondered if maybe they were only creepy like this off the track. Maybe they'd been riding dirt bikes and doing god knew what other dangerous things for fun for so long that their central nervous systems were permanently out of whack, and they were now the sort of people who simply did not come alive unless they were actively risking their necks. Adrenaline abuse can do that to you, right?
I'll give them this: they sure weren't crybabies. They'd rack themselves out on the track and just get back on their bikes and keep riding. In this respect, they were a refreshing change from a lot of the people we usually deal with, some of whom, I kid you not, have been known to dial 911 for something as minor as a sore throat. With the exception of one rider who asked for Tylenol (sorry, no can do) and another who thought we carried crutches on the ambulance (sorry again), all they wanted were ice packs. One guy dislocated his shoulder and popped it back in, then came up to us: "I can only move my arm this much." (Lifts arm all of 8 inches from his side) "Y'got an ice pack?" Another kid had a broken foot: "Can I have an ice pack?" I got the impression that they could have a bloody, splintered bone sticking out of them, and they'd just say, "Got an ice pack?" They all got their ice packs, and they got splints and arm slings as well - but only because we insisted on those. And we'd say, "You really need to get that x-rayed", and the patient would look right through us and grunt, "Nnph" and limp away on his splinted foot. "These are very resilient people," said Bob. Which seemed rather a diplomatic way of putting it.
Again, this lack of concern regarding physical injury could be blamed on adrenaline. It's certainly not unusual. A fireman's wife who was working at the food tent told me later that towards the end the day, one of the riders had a meltdown because there was no more mustard for his hot dog. So obviously these guys were capable of emotional upset. Maybe it was different when they were at home and their nervous systems weren't on overdrive. Maybe they kicked up a fuss if they got so much as a paper cut. The thought was reassuring.
The work of treating patients and the constant low-level anxiety of waiting for a serious wreck were enough to make us all thoroughly tired by the end of the day. Now add to that the stress of feeling creeped out for ten straight hours. I was exhausted. We bid Bob a fond farewell and went back to the garage and cleaned our rig, which was a muddy disaster. Then we restocked supplies and finished up all the paperwork for the day. I dragged myself home and took a long shower, after which I barely had the energy to eat my dinner. I was asleep before 8 p.m. and still tired the next day. Still a little bit wigged, too.
So will I attend the Dam(n) Race again next year? Probably. It's experience, it's fun to work with the other techs, it beats doing nothing. None of my colleagues seemed freaked out, so maybe these people aren’t really sociopaths who'd just as soon brain you with a rock as look at you. Maybe I'll get used to them. But I'll never get used to that awful yellow shirt. And I will keep an ear out for banjos.
I was just as surprised as you must be to learn that Thomaston Dam has some pretty good dirt bike trails, good enough that a rather large event is held there every summer, drawing riders from all over New England. The ambulance corps does standby at this event, which is called the Dam Race by the organizers and participants and the Dam(n) Race by the corps, and this year I signed up. I'd been told that last year one rider broke several ribs and both femurs, so I was a little nervous as to what the day might bring, but figured I was sure to rack up some valuable experience.
Sunday was the day. Saturday was the day for kids' races, and it had gone quietly from an EMS standpoint, but Sunday was for older kids and adults, and this was the day that always saw the most accidents. Advance word was that the track was not only beaten all to hell from Saturday's races but also replete with greasy mud pits courtesy of the recent rains. In short, it was a mess out there. Of course that kind of track forecast is enough to put a lump in the pants of any dirt biker worth his orthopaedist bills; if we could have thrown in wolverines, Scylla and Charybdis, a rock monster and a hungry cannibal tribe, these guys would have been over the fucking moon.
Forsaking all my most dearly held sartorial beliefs, I gritted my teeth and donned the hideous fluorescent yellow EMS t-shirt that we would all be wearing; this would be the first time I dared wear mine out of the house. The primary reason for this attire was, naturally, that we had to be highly visible at the event. But I had another reason: if I had to be out in the hot sun all day, I wanted to be wearing something so obnoxiously bright that the sun itself would hide from it. (This genius plan worked for several pleasantly overcast hours.) Everyone met up at the garage, where we stocked both rigs and the fly car with extra cold packs, collars and splinting supplies. Then off we went, the whole screaming yellow bonkers lot of us, to the Dam(n) Race.
Five minutes after the first race started, we were mud-splattered and on our way to the hospital. Our patient was an 11-year-old kid who'd been hit in the big mud bowl right by the starting line and then hit again after falling off his bike. Well-meaning spectators lifted him out of the mud and handed him over the fence like a rag doll before we could get to him with collar and board, but no harm done. He got his bell rung pretty good, but his protective gear prevented any serious damage. His father, a perfectly sane and sensible person whose parental concern and air of general normalcy would leave me completely unprepared for most of the other people I'd meet that day, agreed that the kid should be checked out by a doctor, just to be sure, so we transported. The kid seemed unfazed once the initial shock wore off, and he was back at the dam and walking around with his dad by lunchtime.
We took this initial bang-up as a bad omen and braced ourselves for an apocalyptic day, but things actually went uphill from there. One of the race organizers, a jovial and thoroughly experienced rescue worker who will be known hereinafter as Bob because I never did catch his name, stood right by the muddy part of the track at the start of each race and stepped in to help any downed riders. I soon learned to keep my eye on Bob and not the riders: if he didn't wave us over, things were okay. It was still nervewracking, though. At the start of every race we stood by with jump bags and backboards at the ready, gloves on our hands and hearts in our mouths, holding our breath until all the riders were out of sight, at which point we would heave a collective sigh of relief and drive the rigs back up to the main road to wait until we were needed. (You will notice that I do not say safely out of sight. This is because while we were stationed in front of the timekeepers's area, the riders were out on the 9-mile track bumping into each other, wiping out on rocky terrain, crashing into trees...and just getting right back on their bikes.)
We patched up a few people with cold packs, splints, arm slings - routine Boy Scout stuff, nothing fancy. Our first patient was the only one who went to the hospital. Bob would get on his own bike and make periodic runs around the track to see if anyone was in trouble, but we never had to go far out into the woods to retrieve anyone. Most of them came to us. One kid wiped out on a tree root and hurt his foot, and we had to move him away from the track in order to treat him because other riders kept wiping out in the same spot, and it's hard to concentrate when there are dirt bikes crashing to the ground not two feet away from you. As far as working conditions, that was about as bad as it got. Not too scary, really.
You know what was scary? The people.
Not all of them, obviously. Most of the folks at the race seemed perfectly normal and genial. But then there were the other ones. Look, I have met some scary people. I have been in scary places and situations. We all have. But never have I been so creeped out by so many people in one place. Never have I looked around me and seen so many pairs of dead eyes. It was Thousand-Yard StareFest 2008, and it freaked me out. These people had a certain look about them, like if they decided that they hated you, there would be no internalizing, no plotting, no secrecy. They'd simply pick up the nearest heavy object and bury it in your skull. Talking to them did nothing to dispel this impression. They gave brief answers and didn't really seem to be...all there. And it wasn't just the adults - there were a lot of kids like that, too, and that was somehow even more disturbing. It didn't help at all when Bob, talking about matters on the track, said, "They don't care what happens to themselves or anyone else." That's one of the criteria needed for a diagnosis of sociopath, and it occurred to me that it might be worth conducting a study to see how many dirt bikers fit the profile. Just for laughs, doncha know.
I heard words like "rednecks" and "hillbillies" quite a few times that day, and while I doubted that you could be a true redneck or hillbilly if you were from New England, I did have to admit that there was that vibe. It was like Deliverance, only with dirt bikes instead of canoes. How I refrained from constantly humming the infamous banjo tune, I will never know.
There's nothing like a little speculative analysis to make one feel better at times like this, so I indulged. I wondered if maybe they were only creepy like this off the track. Maybe they'd been riding dirt bikes and doing god knew what other dangerous things for fun for so long that their central nervous systems were permanently out of whack, and they were now the sort of people who simply did not come alive unless they were actively risking their necks. Adrenaline abuse can do that to you, right?
I'll give them this: they sure weren't crybabies. They'd rack themselves out on the track and just get back on their bikes and keep riding. In this respect, they were a refreshing change from a lot of the people we usually deal with, some of whom, I kid you not, have been known to dial 911 for something as minor as a sore throat. With the exception of one rider who asked for Tylenol (sorry, no can do) and another who thought we carried crutches on the ambulance (sorry again), all they wanted were ice packs. One guy dislocated his shoulder and popped it back in, then came up to us: "I can only move my arm this much." (Lifts arm all of 8 inches from his side) "Y'got an ice pack?" Another kid had a broken foot: "Can I have an ice pack?" I got the impression that they could have a bloody, splintered bone sticking out of them, and they'd just say, "Got an ice pack?" They all got their ice packs, and they got splints and arm slings as well - but only because we insisted on those. And we'd say, "You really need to get that x-rayed", and the patient would look right through us and grunt, "Nnph" and limp away on his splinted foot. "These are very resilient people," said Bob. Which seemed rather a diplomatic way of putting it.
Again, this lack of concern regarding physical injury could be blamed on adrenaline. It's certainly not unusual. A fireman's wife who was working at the food tent told me later that towards the end the day, one of the riders had a meltdown because there was no more mustard for his hot dog. So obviously these guys were capable of emotional upset. Maybe it was different when they were at home and their nervous systems weren't on overdrive. Maybe they kicked up a fuss if they got so much as a paper cut. The thought was reassuring.
The work of treating patients and the constant low-level anxiety of waiting for a serious wreck were enough to make us all thoroughly tired by the end of the day. Now add to that the stress of feeling creeped out for ten straight hours. I was exhausted. We bid Bob a fond farewell and went back to the garage and cleaned our rig, which was a muddy disaster. Then we restocked supplies and finished up all the paperwork for the day. I dragged myself home and took a long shower, after which I barely had the energy to eat my dinner. I was asleep before 8 p.m. and still tired the next day. Still a little bit wigged, too.
So will I attend the Dam(n) Race again next year? Probably. It's experience, it's fun to work with the other techs, it beats doing nothing. None of my colleagues seemed freaked out, so maybe these people aren’t really sociopaths who'd just as soon brain you with a rock as look at you. Maybe I'll get used to them. But I'll never get used to that awful yellow shirt. And I will keep an ear out for banjos.