Clinical Sciences 200 done!

Well the first of many tests is done. For the past 2 weeks we've been trying to remember the information that would normally be taught to us over the period of a semester. Well today was the test day. Kind of significant since it's the first of many tests. Almost everybody passed though so it's all good. And for the one's that didn't, it's just a small matter of working on some weak areas before the re-test. The beauty of this course is that you take 16 guys, and no matter what you ask them to do or learn, they can do it.

This Sunday we leave for Winnipeg to do high altitude indoctrination for a week and then to Jarvis Lake to do ground ops.

The picture is of a SAR Tech ruck sack. Much better than the shit they give the guys in the Army. That's all the kit I'll be lugging around Jarvis Lake in ground ops. The other picture is of the guys just chillin' in our lounge.

Beach party

Course/family get together at Air Force beach. Good times.

Zukowski's zombie eyes.

This is the best job ever.

Well we're only halfway through the second week and this is officially the best job ever. Not only do we get to learn the coolest combination of skills in the world (ie. paramedic, skydiving, mountain climbing, etc.) but we also get treated really well, are given some sweet equipment, and get pro deals (50% off) on Helly Hansen, The North Face, Sierra Design, and Smith and Oakley glasses. Best job ever.

We started group PT which is run by the fitness staff. Needless to say it's pretty hard. We've done sprints up sand dunes while fireman carrying another man, crab walks up sand dunes, pool PT, you name it. The picture here is of a guy puking during pool PT. The course had to tread water for an hour straight while passing two 20 pound bricks around the circle, one clockwise and one counter-clockwise. Concurrently a guy had to break off of the group and do 25 pushups, a rope climb, and 15 chinups before rejoining the group and another guy leaving. And yes they have put a rope for us to climb and a chinup bar in the pool so you have to start out in the water. Good times had by all. Hopefully I'll be able to get some underwater shots of the guys bobbing for bricks this week.

Course Schedule

Pre study PCP and HAI/AMT
11 August - 22 August 08(pre-study) 25 August - 29 August 08 (HAI/AMT)
CFSSAR and CFSSAT at Winnipeg,Manitoba
The pre-study medical covers the anatomy and physiology portion of the primary care paramedic training. The high altitude indoctrination will include air medical considerations, physiology of flight and exposure to the effects of hypoxia.

Ground operations
30 August - 07 September 08
Jarvis Lake, Alberta
Theory and practical application of ground search techniques, search planning, man tracking and advanced navigation skills.

Primary Care Paramedic Program
08 September - 19 December 08
CFSSAR and Victoria BC
Twelves weeks of theory and practical training in pre-hospital emergency care covering anatomy, physiology and treatment of trauma and medical emergencies. Three weeks of in-hospital and ambulance practicums will follow the classroom theory.

Winter operations
05 - 09 January 09
CFSSAR
An introduction to winter back country travel and avalanche rescue techniques.

Arctic Operations
12 - 23 January 09
CFSSAR, Resolute Bay Det, Nunavut
Training and operations utilizing SAR Tech equipment in extreme arctic conditions.

Dive phase
26 January - 06 March 09
Fleet diving unit Esquimalt, CFSSAR and Helicopter egress
This phase is 6 weeks in duration and is conducted at the FDU, CFSSAR and Survival system in Dartmouth N.S. The SAR Student are going to be trained in the skills necessary to qualify as a SAR Tech Diver , including overturned vessel survivor extraction.

Sea Operations
09 March - 13 March and 23 - 27 March 09
CFSSAR
An introduction to sea survival, helicopter and fixed wing rescue procedures.

Parachute Operations
30 March - 15 may 09
Arizona and CFSSAR
Training in parachute operation's to include packing, inspecting, jumping and airmanship. Parachute descents will include both static line and freefall.

Mountain operation
18 - 29 May 09
Jasper, Alberta
An introduction to basic mountain climbing skills and rescue techniques on rock, snow and ice.


SAR Fundamentals and operational phase
31 May - 12 Jun 09
Jarvis Lake, Alberta
Ground search followed by operational type training putting into used all previous phases and skills. This is an assessment phase used to evaluate the individual on his performance and will be the deciding factor for the SAR Tech QL5A qualification.

Grad Week (Grad day 18 June 09)

15 - 19 June 09
CFSSAR

SAR Tech birthday bumps.

First Day

Well Course 42 has officially started. The day started off with an unofficial welcome by the course NCO. He told us what to expect from today and we shared some laughs. He basically told us to forget everything that happened on selection, meaning all the negative motivation, and that the instructors are there to ensure that we finish the course. That was good to hear. I spent the whole day waiting for an explosion that would leave us all panting and sweating. But it never came.

We did the SAR Tech PT test in the morning and as you can see in the picture, some of us even blew some chunks. The end of the day finished off with us doing our first of many sets of pushups. It was a good feeling. I'll try and get some footage of some random "extra-training" that we're sure to do tomorrow.

Pre PT test PT test.

The guys got together to run the PT test prior to the real thing on Tuesday. It consists of a 2.4km run, 31 pushups, 33 situps, 8 chinups, a 450m shuttle run at 20m intervals, and a 2X 6m rope climb. All of this needs to be done as fast as possible to a maximum time of 17 minutes. Believe me it is a hard test. Especially if you push yourself. Our course runs it anywhere from 13:30 to 15:00 minutes. Hardest 14 minutes of your life.

Finally arrived.

Well I finally made it up to Comox. Goddamn it was a tough go getting out of Esquimalt but it's finally done. The drive up was actually pretty nice considering it was blazing hot out and there's no a/c in the car. It's a fast highway. 110km/h speed limit which means I was going 140. I made it in just over 2 hours which is pretty good time. Only used a quarter tank of gas to. Perks of driving a Hyundai Accent.

The first thing I noticed is how small this base is. Navy bases are typically pretty small because our training area is the ocean. I guess the Air Force has the same concept with the sky. Nontheless I was suprised at how small it is. Much like I prefer small towns, I also prefer small bases. The reason is you can get to know people and make social connections. Another reason is the food is MUCH better here than any other base I've been on. I have yet to have a bad meal and some have been truly exceptional. Another perk is that the Canadian Forces School of Search and Rescue-CFSSAR- is right across the street and the gym is just behind that. Another good thing is that a friend of mine, Kevin Jones is posted here as the mess manager of the Junior Ranks mess. Kev is a 2nd class Petty Officer in the Navy and is the guy who helped me become a diver long ago when I started this quest to be a SAR Tech, so I owe him in a way. Aside from being just a great guy, he's also in charge of all the booze!

The rooms are okay. All the army guys have been complaining but compared to shacks in Esquimalt this might as well be the Hilton. There is this one guy who stays here. He's like a 45 year old Corporal and all he does is swear. He will be walking down the hall muttering "fuckin' cocksucker" and in the shower you can hear him swearing away. I swear to God I have not passed this guy or seen him once without hearing him mumble some kind of curse. On a different note, it's great to see the guys from selection again. Especially after spending 5 years in the Navy it's good to be around guys of like mind. I sometimes had problems keeping fit and healthy in the Navy due to the fact that everyone parties and no one works out. It's hard to keep motivated when you're saturated in that kind of environment. Shouldn't be a problem now. I'm in good shape but some of these guys put me to shame.

So right now most of the candidates are balls deep in paramedic text books trying to absorb as much as we can before the start of the PCP phase. Man this stuff is hard to retain.

Before I forget I would like to mention that Ewa and I hadn't been able to talk to each other due to some problems with my cell phone or something for about a month. I got a call tonight from her with the confession that she had been dialing the wrong number this entire time. No big suprise to anyone that knows Ewa. One of the many reasons why I love her.

The picture is in my 5 star room wearing a course shirt. Kinda lame I know but it felt good to wear something with a set of pararescue wings on it.

Almost there......

OK well it's been a very long wait but the time is allllmost here. After completing the prelim and waiting for messages for a period of months, I finally leave for Comox on the 21st of July. Despite my every effort to make this as fluid a transition as possible, I've been thwarted at every turn. I was one of the first guys to get an offer and I had my medicals done immediately. But my paperwork was lost somewhere in Toronto for 6 weeks resulting in: a late posting message which forced me to move back into barracks and; an inordinate amount of stress. Anyway no time for sob stories.

On the good side I am leaving Victoria in 3 days to go to Comox. I've been trying to secure accommodations in Comox so that I would not be forced to live in Barracks up there. As luck would have it, a good friend of mine was recently appointed accommodations supervisor up in Comox and he's been working to ensure I get the place I want. They have fully furnished one bedroom apartments available to military members up there but the waiting list is huge. Luckily Jonesy is in a position to put my name at the top of that list. It's very important I get this place because I cannot afford to live off base in an apartment downtown, both financially (I'm losing a substantial amount of money leaving the Navy) as well as time wise as it is a very intensive course and I don't want to be far away from the base. More importantly Ewa will be able to come and stay with me when she has the time without having to worry about a hotel or anything, whereas we would not be able to do that if I were in barracks.

I'll update this again after I get situated in Comox.

Arctic Rescue

Senior Citizens..........ugh.

Damn it I can't wait to move away from Victoria. It's common knowledge that I'm not a patient guy at the best of times. But today got to me for some reason. I was really tired from not sleeping well and training hard. Anyway Vic is a big tourist city, lots of asian tourists who cross the road like ducks.......... one at a time all in a line. Victoria is also the retirement capital of Canada which means lots of senior citizens. To get to my house I have to drive past Parliament and some other big tourist attractions, and I live in the part of the city with the highest amount of elderly. So what should take 10 minutes to drive home takes 40 because of the huge number of pedestrian traffic compounded by the fact that there is a crosswalk every hundred feet. I went to the Thrifty's near my house to get some groceries on the way home and found it full of white-haired, slow-moving old people. Now I am a respectful guy and will go out of my way to help an elderly person. But I had barely got in the door when an old man ran over my foot in his electric cart. And what pissed me off was he didn't notice and just kept on going.

After 30 minutes of dodging senile customers to get chicken, tuna, oatmeal, snack bars, yogurt, milk, cereal, and bread I finally made it to the checkout line, albeit dodging the odd senior driving their motorized cart like the late Dale Earnhardt. All I want to do is pay for this stuff, get an americano from starbucks and go home and chill. But then the fire alarm goes off. The tills shut down, the automatic doors stop working, and everything comes to a grinding halt. We are asked to evacuate the store. F!#$(%& hell! I just drop my little basket of goods and leave before I disconnect someone's oxygen. And it's like that EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Man that posting message can't come soon enough.

An up and a big down

Good news first I guess. My friend Coco recently received his offer to transfer to SAR Tech. Coco did the selection with me, he was the only other sailor besides myself, and is also from the same ship as I am. He was worried initially since I received my offer the 3rd of April. A month went by and Coco was convinced he wasn't getting selected. Apparently the powers that be, were sorting out some concerns about the laser eye surgery Coco had done. From what I understand there are two types of laser eye surgery. One type the doctor makes an incision in your eyeball and fixes it from the inside. This is unacceptable if you want to be a SAR Tech, pilot, diver, or any aircrew because there is a risk of something happening to your eye under increased (diving) or decreased (flying) pressure. SAR Techs experience both. The second type and the one Coco had, is a technique where they use a laser to shave your eyeball. They alter the shape of your eyeball which makes it focus differently I guess. So in addition to being an acceptable form of eye surgery for SAR Tech, it is also much safer in the long run due to the fact that your eyeball hasn't actually been opened up. Not everyone can have this surgery though since your eye needs to be a certain thickness for them to be able to shave part of it away. Also as you can imagine, it's quite expensive. Anyways the powers that be finally were happy with their findings in regards to Coco's eyes and sent him his offer. A huge relief for him for sure, but also to me as I would be going into the course with a friend I've know for 4 years.

The bad news is my girlfriend Ewa's father, Krzysztof Jan Koziol born May 17th 1955, died on Friday the 9th of May, sometime around 3:30pm. He was 52 years old. He was at work when it happened. It's unclear how it exactly happened, but it would appear that he was crushed by a falling tree. Kris (easier to say) was falling trees for the government, cutting the border between Canada and the US. It is a dangerous and physically demanding job, and only someone who has worked in the forestry/logging business can understand how hard it can be. I found out immediately and took steps to ensure Ewa, who was on deployment with the HMCS Protecteur was informed, and that she would be flown home to attend to this emergency. I then made arrangements to go to Surrey to help and support her mother and brother. If anyone had met Krzysztof they would know how much the guy liked to talk. When over at their house for Christmas, he and I were the only one's still awake the night of Dec 24th (or early morning on the 25th), and I remember him pulling out a bottle of whiskey. I got fucking hammered but I don't think he finished one glass because he was talking so much! He was a very intense individual who sacrificed a lot, and worked his ass off to get his family migrated to Canada. At the time people weren't allowed to migrate from Poland to North America. Understandably Poland has gone through it's share of hard times. Times that 99% of us can't imagine. Poland was all but written off the map by Russia and Austria from the 1700's up until the first World War. When WW1 came around there was a draft so to speak and all Poles were suddenly into the Russian, Austrian and German army. Almost all of the fighting on the eastern front in WW1 was done on Polish soil. At the end of WW1 Russia sought to conquer Europe, they fought the Polish army at Warsaw and were routed. Enter WW2. On Sept 1st 1939 Poland was invaded on 2 fronts by the Germans and Russians. Warsaw was taken Sept 17th and Poland surrendered Oct 5th. But consider that in that one month Poland caused more enemy casualties than both Britain and France combined in all of the year of 1940. This gives you an idea of what type of people the Polish are. Hitler declared that that the polish race was to be eliminated along with the jews, and Poland was the only country were aiding a jew was punishable by death. Despite all of this, there was not a single polish collaborator, unlike every other country occupied. Not one. I remember Krzysztof was very proud about that. Poland continued to fight (the term "give up" does not apply to these people) and was the only country to fight on every front in WW2. By the time the war was over, 5 and a half MILLION poles (50% christian/50% jewish) were killed in prison, death camps, raids, executions, or simply worked to death. The country lost 38% of its assets. Compare that to France's 1.5% or Britain's 0.8%. Despite "winning" that war the poles had lost. This attrition greatly weakened Polands strength, and who came knocking at the door at Warsaw ready to occupy "victorious" Poland? The now Soviet army steam rolled what was left of Polish defenses and moved in to occupy half of Polands territory. Things slowly worked themselves out and in 1990 the first non-communist Polish President was sworn in. Krzysztof was the epitome of a Pole. Hard working and determined to overcome any adversity. Around this time Kris left Poland to try and make a better life for his family. Like I said before I went off on that huge tangent about the history of Poland, you could not migrate from Poland to North America. Kris left his wife Grazyna, son Michal, and daughter Ewa to live in Greece by himself for two years. I remember him telling me how lonely he was one Christmas in Greece by himself, with nothing but a candle to keep him company. After two years in Greece he was allowed to come to Canada. He spent 5 years in Canada working to send money home and gain his citizenship which would allow him to have his family brought over to Canada. Hahaha one of my favourite stories from Ewa is her recapping how one day she was in a village of a few hundred people in Poland, and the next day she was in downtown Toronto. It gets especially good listening to her describe the event of seeing her first black person. Anyways Kris sacrificed a lot and worked his ass off to provide a good life full of opportunities for his family and I give him more credit and respect than anyone I've ever met. He loved the outdoors and never would have thought twice about working in a city. Everyone who knew Krzysztof well speaks of how he was always willing to help anyone no matter who it was. I spent Christmas at his house with Ewa and I asked why there was an empty place at the table. He explained that it was a tradition to keep an extra place in case any travelers happened by they would have a place at his table. Obviously that wasn't necessary in Surrey, but it was the idea of "taking care of each other" that mattered. If you would have known him and let him talk your ear off for a few hours I guarantee you would have walked away from that conversation with a better work ethic and sense of what it means to commit to something.

Waiting and saying goodbye

So after I got back to Victoria I immediately took 9 days of unauthorized leave. In some units (most notably the Army) I would have almost assuredly went to jail. But after I went back to work no one seemed to notice or care. The Navy is good for some things I guess. And the waiting began. I expected to see a message (if I got one at all) around the end of April. The 3^rd of April (it was a Thursday) I remember walking to see my supervisor and someone said “Hey! Congrats on your message!” I was like “what the fuck are you talking about?” They said “your offer is in”. I almost shit a chicken. I went to see the message myself and then almost did a backflip. I couldn’t believe it, it almost seemed surreal. To have worked so hard for so long and then have it come to fruition is a fantastic feeling.

At the same time Ewa (my girlfriend) was about to deploy to the gulf on the HMCS Protecteur for a 7 month tour. Not cool. Most couples never experience saying goodbye to a loved one while they go off to.... war, essentially for that length of time. I took some leave and she had some post deployment leave so I surprised her with a 3 night stay at a resort on Salt Spring Island. It was a nice relaxing way to spend some time with each other before being separated. Beautiful log chalet, as much hiking as we could handle, fishing, etc…. It was perfect. The highlight was after 3 days of rowing around the lake, Ewa managed to catch a 7 pound Rainbow trout. And like the idiot I sometimes am I forgot to bring a net so I had to wrestle the slippery bugger into the boat and beat him continuously off the seat until he died. Also of course I had never cleaned a fish. I knew the basics but hadn’t actually done it. The look on Ewa’s face as I violently tore the guts out of the fish was priceless.

Click the picture to see more

Salt Spring Island

So as it stands, I’m waiting for a posting message so I can get an idea of the time frame I’m working with here. I probably won’t update this again until I’m actually in Comox.

The Beginning

I'll start at point 1. For the last 4 years I've been committed to becoming a Search and Rescue Technician or SAR Tech. It's a military trade in the air force and possibly the best job in the world. SAR Techs are paramedics who skydive, scuba dive, ice/rock/mountain climb and whatever else it takes to get to a remote rescue scene. Not only that but they are also survival experts since they need to take care of the casualties in the case they can’t be extracted. It's a physically demanding outdoorsy job and as such, was difficult initially for me to decide how to proceed since I was and still currently am in the navy. First and foremost priority was to excel at my trade so my supervisors would have no ammo for denying me the things I really wanted. Then it was a ship's team diver course. A demanding 6 week course which I finished with little difficulty aside from some sore ankles, a written off crotch rocket, and some road rash (note: road rash is NOT cool when you wear a wetsuit all day). After that it was lay low and perform at work both in operations and diving, biding my time until I felt comfortable asking for something else. I had some time since you need at least 4 years of service before you can apply for SAR Tech. Next was a Medical First Response course which costs approximately $1300. But there is a stipulation saying that all military divers are to qualified to that level, so that was my in without paying for it. After that I tried to obtain a time waiver to disregard my lack of time served (I only had 3 years at this point), so that I could apply early. It was rejected and I had to go to Halifax for 4 months on a trades course. I was smart enough to obtain a time waiver for THAT however since the navy binds you to 2 years of obligatory service in that trade on completion of that course. While in Halifax I trained like a madman, emailed people getting letters of recommendation, got the necessary medical and fitness testing out of the way, and basically just tried to learn and do as much as possible to get selected for pre-selection. I soon returned to Victoria, did some civilian parachuting, finished compiling my file and had it sent to Ottawa.

After much waiting I found out via email that I was picked to attend the annual SAR Tech pre-selection held in Jarvis Lake, Alta. Pre-selection is no joke. If you're reading this and are considering becoming a SAR Tech, bring your A-game.

This is a good video to give you an idea of what a SAR Tech is and does;

RESCUE