Paranoid?
I've been spending the past several months learning the practice of technical rescue, which includes rope/high-angle rescue, confined space rescue, urban search and rescue, wilderness search and rescue, vehicle extrication and stabilization, rapid intervention team s&r work (rescuing downed firefighters), emergency command/organization, communications, and a few other odds and ends.
It's about 3-4 days a week of intensive work. For events that rarely (except for the auto wreck and wilderness s&r work) rarely happen around here. It requires me to work out 2-3 hours a day and eat a special diet just to stay in shape to attempt the work.
Yesterday, about 2pm, my team was in class. We'd been at it since 8am, solving difficult auto extrication problems and learning new techniques with a super genius instructor who came over to lend a hand. We had every single tool on the rescue truck engaged in working on a 4-car problem that had been set up for us...
When our pagers went off with a real alarm. Some fellow had fallen several hundred feet down a cliff, in a remoteish spot on this remote island.
Within an hour of that call, we had repacked up our gear, made it to the site, located the patient, got down the cliff, provided on-scene medical care with several paramedics and EMTs, and got him into a Coast Guard helicopter with a hot landing/loading in a place I wouldn't have bet could be done, with the help of the Coast Guard rescue swimmers. We had him most of the way to the landing pad of the best regional trauma center before the Golden Hour was up.
None of our team was injured during the operation, which was a minor miracle in itself.
Within 2.5 hours of the call, we were back at the station, our gear back in service, and resuming our training. The Coast Guard swimmer they left behind (because of weight restrictions) participated in our training for the rest of the day, nice to see an enthusiastic lifelong learner.
Paranoia, or preparation and practice for unlikely events with huge consequences?