One Hell of a Damn Weekend

I had one hell of a damn weekend. This Thursday I got off work at 11pm and spent all night riding buses, walking many miles, and hiding from campus security while I tried to pack my bags in the dark outside. Finally, at 4am I walked up to the Santa Cruz Metro Station and waited for my friend Emily to show up so that we could start the long public transportation journey up to San Francisco. There were so many transfers that I had no chance to catch any shuteye before we reached the city. It was about 8:30am by the time we met our ride, a friend of Emily's, in the city to head north to the Earthdance music festival in Laytonville. In this stranger's backseat I finally got to nod off during the two hour ride.

Earthdance was a name I had heard before, but I had no idea what to expect from the festival. It was out in the rolling hills, miles from town, where thousands would camp on this large private property, watch music, learn, meditate and take many, many psychadelics. That's where I came in. As a volunteer for RockMed, an amazing organization that you should all look into, I was going to put my Wilderness First Responder training into real life practice for the first time ever. RockMed provides 100% donation based medical care to all who need it and they send large groups of medically trained volunteers, from those who are simply CPR certified to full blown RNs and doctors, to concerts and festivals in the Northern California area. Their goal at these festivals is simply to make sure everyone is having a good time and that when people are hurt or uncomfortable, they can have a safe place to go for free.

Upon my arrival Emily and I spoke with the coordinator, Carol, to see what they wanted to do with me, as I was a last minute addition who had not gone through the proper orientations, which is the only way that I know how to do things. Carol assigned me to the night shift psych crew. She wanted me to just stick with Emily and watch and help where I can. Night shift, by the way, is 8pm to 8am. Psych crew, as I'm sure you can all imagine, meant I'd be dealing with people who have lost their friggin' minds. LSD was flowing through this festival like Eminem through one of his sick rhymes.

Several of the patients who came in were injured and required immediate medical care. One guy had started a fight at the bar and got a beer bottle broken over his head. Security escorted him to our tent while his blood ran all over his shirtless torso from just behind his ear. The doctors and nurses on site gave him several stitches while the police showed up and questioned him. We sent him on his way without a single fee, right into police custody.

Once the sun went down however, the injuries thinned out and the trippers began their dance. Some were brought in by their friends or security because they were non-combative and just clearly needed a safe place to ride out their stressful trip. There were others though. Oh my lord were there others. Throughout the night we would get a call from security or some random festival employee about a resistant, violent psychadelic victim. The psych team would then hop aboard the Gator (imagine a golf cart designed for off-roading) and haul ass through the rain and mud and darkness to find the patient.

For one call we had to go so far out into the mass of tents, miles from the actual venue, that the only way we managed to find the patient was by following her screams in the night. She was completely out of control, thrashing all over the ground at nothing and everything. We tried to communicate but she wouldn't speak, only yell unintelligibly and throw her body into other tents and push people away. It soon became clear that she was at risk of hurting herself or someone else and that we would have to restrain her. Unfortunately she was in a very tight cluster of tents and there was no room to work, so we had to drag the poor girl out into the muddy road. There we (six men) pinned her to the ground as gently as we could while two others brought up a back board to which we would tie her. I never even saw the poor girl's face, just the part of her body that my head lamp would illuminate while I held it down. She never stopped screaming, even after we had hauled her back to the med tent, given her sedatives and waited about an hour for an ambulance to take her to the hospital. As she was being rolled away someone finally got her to say her first name. That was all we knew of her. She had no friends available or looking after her, not one person on the site had known who she was.

Another patient, a young man who was large and cumbersome had to be carried in as he could no longer stand under his own power. I sat with him for about an hour trying to help him relax and breathe and reassure him that the trip would end. He was terrified of everything, he would lie down and then every minute or so suddenly grab his hair and pull hard or press his fingers deep into his own eyes. Each time I gently pulled his hands away and told him that he didn't want to hurt himself. He never said much, but would occasionally start chanting about Oregon or the redwoods, or ask us if we were his friends, Randy or Morgan or Jessica. There was one moment where he was lying there, still, breathing deeply to relax while I knelt over him saying reassuring things. Suddenly he snapped awake sat up and grabbed the fingers of my right hand and began pulling them apart. His grip was iron tight and he was close to breaking the bones but I managed to calmly pull his hands off me and reassure him that he did not need to grab me like that. He never did it again, but I was much more cautious about my extremities for the rest of the night.

There were many others besides these two. Many that were never dangerous, only scared and rather amusing to watch. I sat with trippers all night long both nights, just talking to them and making them comfortable. There was Love, a young man that was brought in naked, who started masturbating with the most blissful look on his face. It was gross and my teammate gave him a sharp tap on the shoulder to make him stop, but the rest of us couldn't help but laugh. I'll never forget the kid that was brought in tied down because he had been combative but ended up being one of the nicest, funniest people I had met. He kept asking if he had started a fire and if we were all burning, which we were not. Once he had finally been convinced that he was safe and had simply taken a bit too much acid, he attempted and apparently succeeded at levitating. Twice. He also kept asking for dancers to perform for him so one of our volunteer doctors stood in front of him and twirled around with some light sticks.

All in all, after 3 full nights without sleep and dealing with intense and sometimes terrible events, I came away from that festival only more certain that I want to save people. My EMT class starts on October 25th. I saved up the cash I need by working two jobs all summer long and I could not be more satisfied with where my money is going. This life path has reached a curve and I think I like where it's heading.