medsled training....AWKWARD

We had medsled training this week, for those of you that don't know, a medsled is a device used to evacuate people that are unable to walk in an emergency, down the stairs.  I don't know what I was thinking when I volunteered to be the patient,  noone else was volunteering, I should have taken a moment to consider why they were not volunteering before I stepped up, but I didn't, I just volunteered.  My first clue that this situation might be a little awkward was when I had to climb up on the bed, which was in it's highest position, with everyone watching me, not the most graceful move I have ever done, but I was in pants, so I didn't flash anything.  The medsled is a great big flexible piece of hard plastic with ropes and buckles on it.  To get me on this sled they needed to  roll me to the side.  I didn't realize  how close I was to the side until I found myself looking at the floor.  It was at that moment that I realized that my 4 nurse friends, that do this kind of thing all day everyday safely, were standing against a wall watching, and the guy that passes out the dinner trays and the pharmacy tech, that never actually touch people, were the ones there to keep me from falling off.  It was a little unsetltling, and I called out a little to ask my  nurse friends to help, but they were unable to get close enough to help me. I think they were having too much fun laughing at me.  Thankfully I made it onto the sled safely.  Those of you that know me well know that I am rather claustrophobic, and I really, really hate having my arms tied down.  When I volunteered I was envisioning something open, like the thing they lift people  up into helicopters with.  Imaging how I felt when the instructor then told the people to pad the sides of the sled and buckle it up tight, like a taco or a burrito.  I considered bolting at this point, however they quickly had me strapped in to the sled, buckled tight like a papoose, with my arms inside, so I had no choice but to deal with the situation, and try to not let everyone see me freak out, which would be terribly embarassing in front of my coworkers.  Once I was buckled in it was time to roll the bed onto the elevator, as we were going around the corner I heard a voice from the back say something like "watch out, she's falling off", the instructor stepped up and said "yes she is" then he proceeded to try and adjust me inside my cocoon,  thinking that I was somehow not laying in the medsled right, as he tried to shift me I tried to help, but when you are wrapped up tight how do you help with something like that?  awkward.  When he realized that the voice was trying to tell him I was falling off the bed he saved the day by pushing me back on the bed.  Noone, in the room full of healthcare workers, including myself considered the basic safety princple of having the side rales up when transporting a patient on a bed. duh..  My vision was limited by the medsled buckled tight around my head, with only my face sticking out I was only able to see the ceiling, which for some reason was dirtywith handprints in places, I have a whole new perspective on what my patients see when I transport them. 
When we made it to the first floor by the stairwell it was time to move me to the floor, we needed the bed in the lowest position to do this safely, but there were no outlets,and without power to lower the bed,  the decision was made to just lift me from the bed where it was, high in the air, to the floor.  The inner fat person in me came out, and inside my head all I could hear was myself screaming "oh no, they are going to lift my weight, they are going to know  how heavy I am!!!!"  for some reason, the fact that they were going to have to actually lift and move my weight hadn't occurred to me prior to that.  I was comforted by the fact that I no longer weight almost 300lbs, but I was mortified nonetheless.  To get me to the floor they slid my feet off first and kind of let me fall, at that point I was fully prepared for my head to hit the floor, hard, thankfully the instructor had a hold of the top of the sled so that didn't happen.  They then proceeded to drag me in my medsled papoose to the top of the stairwell so they could use a rope and a repel me down the stairs,the rope was hooked to a big bolt in the wall.  The problem was that the bolt was behind the door and it was challenging to get me into the right position, I felt huge as one person struggled to drag me around to the right position.

  Finally I was in the right position and the rope was attached.  People were lined up the stairway to the second floor looking down at me.  I lay there wondering if they realized how terrified I was, and thinking "how bad could I really get hurt anyway, if the sled took a freefall to the bottom of the stairs?"  I looked up to see the woman that had volunteered to control the ropes as I made my descent.  I didn't recognize her, but she looked to be about 50# soaking wet, OK so maybe that's an exageration, but she looked very small and weak, Dee must have read my mind, because she stepped up and said, I will hold the end of the rope so that if something doesn't go right you won't freefall to the bottom.  I thought, wait a minute, you mean there is possibility, that might actually happen?  With that I started down the stairs, at that point I realized that a quick decent was not what I needed to worry about, as I started over the top step, oh so slowly, I felt the pressure of the cement stairs pressing against my vertebrae, one by one as I went over them, I kind of arched to get away from the pressure, but that didn't help much, I once again looked up in the faces of my coworkers who were still lined up on the stairwell to the 2nd floor, my face must have shown what I was feeling, because they had a look of concern on their face and someone said "does that hurt?"  The instructor told the lady in control of the ropes "you need to let her go a little faster, and with that I was at the landing at the bottom of the first set of stairs.  Now it became the task of the one scrawny little pharmacy tech (who is actually very strong, but at that moment he looked scrawny) to drag, push and pull me around into position to decend the second portion of the stairs.  Again I felt like I weighed 300 lbs as I looked at him grunting and struggling to maneuver me around.  The second decent was much quicker and much smoother.  I swear, when I made it to the bottom and he started unbuckling me I heard a chorus of angels singing "AAAAHHHHH"  safe, and free at last.  I stood up quickly, only to notice that I must have been hyperventilating while in the sled, as I was very dizzy and lightheaded, thankfully I didn't faint, that would have been so uncool.  It occurred to me that if I fainted they would most likely call a rapid resonse, which would only add to the entire awkward procedure, this thought steadied me, and I was able to head back up the stairs for the second part of the training, how to use the evacuation chair.   I cannot imagine doing this with a 400# person, or a little lady with an osteoporitic spine, one can only pray we never have to find out what that is like.

I learned a valuable lesson from this experience, never volunteer when everyone else is holding back, there is probably a good reason for that, one that I should take a moment to try and discover.  OK, so I turned around and volunteered for the chair too, so maybe I didn't really learn anything after all!