Fake Wounds & Egress Training

Today was a great day! A way of getting me more excited for this entire trip. The title says it all: fake wounds and egress training.

We learned how to make fake wounds all with over the counter products and make-up. I had my first opportunity to be made up with fake blood, have a big bruise put on my forehead, and had a fake protrusion of intestines made up on me as well. It was really neat and looked pretty real too. Here's a couple pictures. Here's my arm and the best selfie I could muster.

Here's another wound on a classmate's leg:

This was really great to see and I can't wait to practice this when I get home. Through using plumber's putty, a bruise wheel, some Pond's cold cream, and some Ben Nye blood you can make wounds like this too! Very neat. Just don't get any blood on clothes!

Just before this we spent time making med kits and started our own "life-lines" of essential items we'd need in the wild for scraps, bruises, and general survival skills. A wonderful first token of our time spent here. 

Then came our instruction for egress from a crashed helicopter. This was in preparation for tomorrow's big activity of being submerged upside down in a pool and learning to escape (egress) from the bottom of the pool. Before doing it dry I felt a lot of trepidation, but after doing it and reminding myself and others of the steps I can't wait to get in the pool and do it. But the best part is filming it all and taking pictures with a bunch of great people. We'll be posting short clips and photos from here on out. It's already been a great experience and it has only been one day. 

It's a water day and an earlier day. 10 pm and the sun is still shining bright. But it never really peaks in the sky so it always seems like evening with long shadows everywhere. So I'm going to go for another walk and film our personal confessionals our professor wants from us. On the way I'll go see the IHOH:

All while walking down this street: 

Until tomorrow. Have fun with your nighttime. I'll still be awake with the sun here.

Anchorage, AK

It was a long day of traveling (12+ hours), but I’m finally here. Alaska is beautiful! It’s the perfect temperature all the time. We met a fantastic waitress at our first restaurant, which also has incredible pizza!

First thing was getting all the equipment and all our stuff to where we’re staying. It’s a cabin feel in the front and a garage in the back. It’s the Alaskan mullet, in building form. Our fridge is stocked. And is now overflowing with two enormous boxes of pizza. Everyone’s eyes were bigger than their stomachs from traveling all day. But now we have leftovers!

This is going to be quite a journey, learning experience, and a ton of fun. I don’t feel out of my comfort zone yet, but I know that I will soon. That’s half the reason I wanted to do this trip. Similar to Australia I’ll be in situations I’ve never been in before and are completely new to me, but that’s what will make it the most fun.

Our crew for filming, climbing, and living together is just awesome and I couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to dive into this new experience with. As far as I know this is all new to all of us, save for a few activities. But those will have to wait.

Tomorrow will be a nice recovery day for us, but we’re jumping right in on safety when climbing, hiking, moving as a team, and many other situations too. Already feeling less overwhelmed than I did getting off the plane. I had been telecommuting into class in DC while I was in Wisconsin and felt a little separated from the group, but not anymore! We're gonna have a blast!

Time to finally get to bed. It’s 2:30 am in Wisconsin and 11:30 pm here in Anchorage. Funny thing is: here it’s still light out. The sun is almost fully set, but with a range of mountains near us it couldn’t get any better!

Arrivederci!