The Day Scoutcamp Tried To Kill Ron

Last Thursday Ron and his scout troop prepared for the Boy Scouts of America swim test at the Kearns Oquirrh Park Fitness Center.

This was one of the last preparations for this summer's scout camp.

Ron did great on the swim test. He jumped in feet first into water over his head. He swam the required laps and everything was just fine....

Fast forward to this week

Monday morning Ron left us for what we thought would be six days in the Uintah Mountains with the boyscouts. He says they drove to Evanston, WY. (6800 feet) where they stopped for breakfast and then continued to more than 8000 feet to Camp Evergreen at the East fork of the Bear River.

He meticulously set up his tent and had a pretty easy day.

He texted me at 5:47 and said, "Miss u."

Around 7 p.m. was the BSA swim test at the lake

at 8400 feet in 50 degree water.

I'll let him tell you the rest, but it's not for the queazy.

Scout swim test: "Jump feet first into water over the head, level off, and begin swimming.  Swim 75 yards in a strong manner using one or more of the following strokes: side, breast, trudgen, or crawl. Swim 25 yards using an easy, resting backstroke."

Piece of cake right?  In fact I distinctly remember saying to Levi, Andrew, and Kyle as we waited at the edge of the dock, "This is silly.  If we can do it in Salt Lake, it shouldn't be any problem to do it here."  Those words have a bitter taste now that I've eaten them.

So my turn came and I jumped in.

My mind said, "Wow, this water is cold."

Meanwhile my body's command center said, "Ok.  Cold water.  What we need is adrenaline.  Yeah.  Some adrenaline would be great about now."

Then the pulmonary capillaries said, "Nooooooooooooo."

When at high altitude, the capillaries in the lungs are typically already under a lot of pressure.  When the adrenaline hit, blood flow increased.  Then the capillaries broke.

So while I was swimming and thinking, "Boy this water is cold",

my lungs were filling up with blood.

(Jessica said it wasn't for the queasy.  You chose to read on.)

The funny thing about your lungs is

they don't work very well when they're full of blood.

By yard 50, I didn't think I could complete the swim test,

but I couldn't lose face in front of my scouts, so I pressed on.

At yard 75, I swallowed my pride... with some lake water to wash it down.

The lifeguard boat was about 50 feet away, but shore was only 30,

so I chose shore.  I almost didn't make it.

I sat down and took some deep rapid breaths.

I thought the worst was over.

My lungs felt full of phlegm, so I started coughing and spitting.

But it wasn't phlegm; it was blood.

I had seen Vertical Limit

So I started to get scared.

I toweled off, put my scout uniform back on

and we started back to our campsite.

I didn't make it 50 yards before being completely spent.

I sat down on a log and Randy and Thaylon gave me a blessing.

Then Randy ran back to camp and grabbed his truck

to take me to the camp infirmirary for some oxygen.

Interesting fact about Camp Evergreen:  No infirmirary.

So we left Thaylon with the Scouts and hightailed it back to Evanston.

At the ER, they gave me six liters of Oxygen, some heated blankets

and took a chest X-Ray.

Normal Chest X-Ray

Mine looked more like this.

The ER doc said he didn't like it at all and that my ride to Salt Lake would be there in a few minutes.

So they choppered me back to Intermountain Medical Center.

There, the Pulmonologist told me that I am highly supceptible to HAPE.

They continued my Oxygen therapy along with some extra fluid and told me he was going to keep me over Tuesday night.

By Tuesday evening, I was off the Oxygen and IV.

By Wednesday morning I was ready to come home.

Moral of this story:

Life is precious.

I was only seconds away

from not coming home from Scout Camp at all.

And it would have been my pride that killed me.

This is what the treatment of high altitude pulmonary hemorrhage looks like.

We're sooo glad he's alive and home!