Surviving the Extremes: A Doctor's Journey to the Limits of Human Endurance Read Free

need to treat it. If I didn’t bring it myself, I wouldn’t have it and there would be no way of obtaining it. I even wrote out treatments on small squares of paper that I would keep in my pocket in case my mind went blank in an emergency. In short, I went to Peru thoroughly prepared and somewhat confident but nevertheless hoping for a trauma-free adventure. I didn’t want to be put to the test.
    With that thought in the back of my mind, I sat on climbing gear in the back of an open truck and watched the Peruvian countryside roll by. We were riding up a high mountain pass on our way to Taqurahu, the 19,000-foot peak that we intended to climb. Another open truck, even more rickety than ours, was coming from the other direction filled with Indian villagers on their way to market. As we watched in disbelief, the truck teetered on the edge of the road and then toppled over, tossing out people and animals as it tumbled down the slope.
    My first test was going to be at a full-blown disaster. It was like a bad dream. I forced myself to keep cool on the outside, because if the doctor looked nervous, everyone would get nervous. The two minutes it took for our truck to reach the accident scene was enough time for me to calm down on the inside by focusing on the likely injuries. I ran through the treatment steps in my head. I remembered the notes in my front pocket.
    People, livestock, and baggage were strewn all over the hillside, which sloped down to a ravine where the truck was lying on its side. I paused at the top to let the first frightening impression pass by, then took an analytical look, noting who was groaning, who was only moaning, and who was bleeding. No one seemed to be dying. I reduced the chaotic scene to a series of problems I would handle one by one. Gradually it became clear that although I was high up in the Andes, I was facing injuries not unlike those I would find in anyhospital’s emergency room. I injected a little girl with an anesthetic, then set her fractured forearm. My Green Beret climbing teacher was a resourceful assistant; he splinted the arm with a wooden slat he broke off from the overturned truck. I started an intravenous line on a farmer who looked ready to faint. There was one concussion, one blunt abdominal trauma, and several other more minor injuries. Once I realized there was no patient I would not be able to treat, my confidence, which at first had required some effort to project, started flowing naturally. Though they spoke only Quechua, my patients and I communicated easily in the universal language of patient and doctor. I didn’t once think about the little treatment notes in my pocket, though having them there may have helped me subconsciously. As I finished cleaning and sewing the last laceration, one of my patients came back with a goat, still stunned and bleeding from the neck. Buoyed up by how well things had gone, I sewed up the goat.
    According to our map, a
clinica
was a day’s ride away, so we unloaded our truck and laid in all the villagers for the long trip. One of my teammates came with me; the others just set up camp where we were and waited for us to return. We fully expected to drop off our patients and make a quick U-turn to the mountain. The
clinica,
however, turned out to be a cinder-block room with no medical supplies, run by a doctor who seemed capable only of handing out birth-control pills. Although the patients were stabilized, he begged me not to leave until medical transportation arrived from Lima. With the still vivid memory of the fear that can be provoked in a doctor faced with a medical challenge, I had empathy for my colleague and stayed the night.
    The rescue was publicized in Peruvian newspapers and on the radio, making me something of a local hero. We eventually did get back to climb Taqurahu, but reaching the top wasn’t nearly as exhilarating to me as treating the accident victims had been. I had risen to both challenges, and yet, in my heart, taking