STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

The woman in the puppy dog ski underwear lay moaning on the grass outside the Sun Valley Inn. Reportedly, she and her ski partner, who lay 10 feet away, had been caught in an avalanche.

Never mind that there was no snow around, save for what could be seen in the distance on Bald Mountain, or that the temperature was a balmy 45 degrees for November in Sun Valley.

The hands-on simulation was part of the three-day Saint Alphonsus Ski & Trauma conference held this past week for more than 500 ski patrollers, firefighters, EMTs, police officers, Search and Rescue volunteers and military personnel at Sun Valley Resort.

The woman in the ski wear emblazoned with puppy dog faces uttered convincing screams as those responding to her removed her blue ski boots and tried to ward off hypothermia by getting her in dry clothing, One rescuer propped a hot water bottle he’d heated with a fire made of twigs against her stomach, while two others splinted her broken tibia using her broken ski pole and a sleeping pad.

Other rescuers assessed her companion, who suffered from diabetes that required attention, while still others attended to other victims requiring various interventions.

The Ski and Trauma Conference was born 19 years ago out of an accident on Bald Mountain’s I-80 cat track that left a Ketchum woman paralyzed.  And it has evolved to provide the most up-to-date life-saving tools for underfunded first responders in rural communities that are more than 25 minutes from services.

This year attendees came from 10 states, including one--an 80-year-old EMT from Jordan Valley, Ore.—who has attended all 17 years (the conference missed two years due to the COVID pandemic).

They included first responders from Jackson Hole and Search and Rescue volunteers from Boise, who fund their program every year by selling corn on the cob at the Western Idaho Fair. Members of the Park City Ski Patrol attended; so did 13 responders with Fremont County EMS in southeast Idaho.

“Running an ambulance service in rural Idaho has its challenges,” said Bert Mecham, EMS Director for Fremont County.  “The training that we receive at the Ski and Mountain Conference is vital for our success in remote areas of Idaho.”  

Skilled first responders build the foundation for a good outcome by making the critical care decisions to stabilize and transport patients in a timely manner, said Dr. Brian Coates, trauma medical director at Saint Alphonsus.

Dr. Richard Moore, who started the conference, responded to the woman who was paralyzed on the accident on Bald Mountain. The whole community was hurting, he said, and so he hatched the idea for the conference with mountain climbing guide Lou Whittaker, who later regaled conference attendees with tales of his adventures on the world’s toughest mountains.

Sun Valley Ski Patrol Director Mike Lloyd, who passed away last spring, was among those who gave it the green light after thoughtful consideration.

“It was not easy getting acceptance for the conference, understandably so because they had a good program here and were afraid we were going to come in and tell them they needed to do everything differently,” said Moore, an orthopedic surgeon. “Mike helped me understand what the ski patrol needed. He gave me a Ski Patrol hat that got me up on the mountain at first light so I could see how they did avalanche control to get the mountain open in the morning. And, I was able to get them avalanche beacons and other things. The conference we put in place has changed lives, including mine.”

While every conference offers hands-on instruction in such things as trauma management, delivering babies in emergency and managing accidents in the backcountry, each year also brings new workshops. This year’s conference, for instance, featured Julie Bacon, chief flight nurse at All Children’s Hospital in Tampa Bay, Fla.

She described how those running the hospital believed they would weather Hurricane Helene just fine since the hospital was built to withstand hurricane-force winds, and high tides did not flood the streets.

But they didn’t prepare for cranes to fall onto city streets, smashing water mains and cutting off water to the hospital. Faced with the prospects of airlifting each of the 1,400 patients one by one, they finally decided it more prudent to airlift water to the hospital so evacuations would not be necessary.

Bacon gave attendees a primer on dealing with pediatric patients.

“We see a magnet ingestion every 26 hours in the United States,” she said.

She showed x-rays of tiny rare earth magnets stacked up inside children’s intestines—one had a stack of 26 tiny magnets.  Once a child has swallowed them, the magnets find their way to each other and can end up perforating the intestinal tract, she said.

“We’re also seeing a 93 percent increase in the ingestion of lithium button batteries, thanks to multiple remote controls in people’s homes,” she added. “You have two hours until they can begin corroding the esophagus.”

NEXT YEAR’S CONFERENCE:

The 2025 conference, to be held Nov. 5-7, 2025, at Sun Valley Resort will feature best-selling author Cody Byrns. Byrns underwent a major shift in 2013 after a traffic accident left his body burned and scarred. He now is a motivational speaker and life coach.

#P##Cami Tayson shows how to create a splint out of a sleeping pad.