[Lifesaving] Warwick competition 2013

This weekend was the first BULSCA competition of the new year: the Warwick Refreshers Competition. I always enjoy travelling back to my undergraduate haunt, and to be honest would have gone down even if we hadn’t had a team.  This wasn’t entirely a foregone conclusion given that the competition was taking place on the weekend directly preceding the start of the semester at St Andrews, but we did pull a team together (we even had an extra helper with us), so away we went. Or at least three of us did; the other two were travelling straight to Coventry from home.

Having isolation in this lecture theatre brought back memories for me. (Credit: Adam James Martin)

I can honestly say that driving down was the worst driving experience that I’ve ever had. I didn’t turn my wipers off from the time we left to the time we arrived, and what should have been a 6.5 hour journey, plus stops, turned into an 8.5 hour saga. When it wasn’t snowing we had torrential rain, and there were several occasions when I really struggled to see through my windscreen, even with the wipers of maximum. Thankfully everyone was, generally, being very sensible, although there were a few nutters on the roads. Mostly in lorries. We had to slow to 40mph in a couple of places owing to the snow, and we saw loads of cars stopped by the side of the road, but we made it. As it turned out we’d been lucky to do so, as parts of the M6 were closed a few hours after we passed through them!

This was the M6 mere hours after we passed through! (Credit: bbc.co.uk)

Once again we were early in the draw, so we didn’t have long to wait in isolation. Both of the SERCs were nicely themed this time around, and both were also rather fun. The dry was set at a Star Wars convention, in the “Death Star room”. On entering we saw two people with lightsabres, and one with a Darth Vader mask on! I was very excited! Darth Vader appeared to have injured their head, and their companions was unconscious but breathing. There were also two other casualties (with the lightsabres), one with an asthma attack and lots of information, and one with a cut on her arm. I found the inhaler and first aid kit, only to be accosted a panicking bystander who needed help downstairs. I set one of my team to deal with that, only to find out that there was an unconscious, non-breathing adult down there, together with someone apparently suffering from their first ever anaphylactic  reaction! In the end we dealt with everything as best as we could, and managed to send for a phone. The only thing I feel that we didn’t do was finish bandaging the arm wound, but I was very happy with our performance in the dry.

The wet, unfortunately, wasn’t quite such a success. We were at the River Song, passing by Rory bridge (spot the Doctor Who theme), and on entering saw four casualties. One on the side was woozy, and eventually went unconscious no matter what you did; it turned out that he’d overdosed on paracetemol, but we didn’t find the bottle of pills. The three in the water were a hypothermic weak swimmer, an unconscious on the surface, and a dislocated shoulder. We managed to get them all to the side, but struggled to get the shoulder injury out of the water, and didn’t get around to doing a lift-out of the unconscious (who was wrongly identified as breathing). Partly that was because I was tied up talking to the bystander on the ‘bridge’, who had a phone. I spent my time trying to pass her information, and have to say that I was rather unsuccessful as I blanked on our location. Not our finest hour, but not a complete disaster.

The Warwick old boys tackle the wet SERC. (Credit: Adam James Martin)

The rope throw went as well as expected, as we got 2 casualties to the side (but were credited with 3 for some reason), and the manikin carry wasn’t too bad given our lack of practice. One of the team was very nervous about it, as last time she tried she really struggled, but this time she did a good job. Finishing off with the swim-tow was hard; I struggled with my breathing, which was very frustrating given that I normally do well at the event, but I’m blaming that on lack of training. We didn’t come last at least!

In the end we finished 8^th overall out of twenty teams, which I’m pleased with. But I’m ecstatic that we once again won the dry SERC; for a relatively inexperienced team that’s a brilliant achievement, and to do it more than once in a season is even better. It further confirms that SERCs are very much the strong point of the club.

The social was a lot of fun. I took part in my first drinking circles for several years, spent a lot of time hanging out with lots of old friends from my Warwick days, and had some nice long chats with people that I haven’t seen for a while. I was intending to leave early to get some sleep, but ended up staying until we were thrown out at 2am. The food had been disappointing, but our stopgap haggis mascot was sacrificed to satisfy our hunger.

We took it all the way down with us for Burns Night, but didn't arrive early 

enough to enjoy it. Still, it was useful in the end. (Credit: David Brown)

The less said about the drive back the better. In all honesty I probably shouldn’t have been driving. I hadn’t slept much, and I could tell. I had a few close calls that really scared me, but after having a decent meal I felt much better, and we made it home in the end.