I was mostly dead all day
Yesterday was an interesting day...

I'm still getting used to having a regular 8 to 5 schedule so when I was asked to show up at 6:30am... well it was fun trying to convince myself to kick myself out of bed, into the car, and onto the road an hour and a half earlier... fortunately I out before rush hour so even though I was up and on the road an hour earlier than usual (that is - half an hour later than I wanted to be) I still made it to work on time.

Now yesterday was no ordinary work day.. I met several of my new coworkers at the office and we drove to our local airport (we call it the Sunport) where we had volunteered to be victims for a little drill they do every three years. We went inside and signed in and then we were handed a paper that described what sort of injury we were to receive. Some people were given minor lacerations, other got burned, while still others had compound fractures and exposed bones. I had the good fortune of getting a basilar skull fracture which involved nothing more from me than to be unconscious all day. After finding out what injury we were to get, we were shuffled over to the makeup artists to actually get injured. I got bruises on my face and behind my ears (something apparently known as "Battle's sign") and blood coming from my ears. I apparently got the most severe injury out of any of my coworkers. On top of that, some of us were told that while on the flight, we had the chicken dinner which was laced with ricin. lucky us.

After milling around a bit while waiting for the other volunteers to get their injuries applied, we were herded out to a couple of buses. On the way, someone asked me what my injury was so I showed her my sheet. She commented that she had seen me walk by and noticed my battle's sign and thought "that guy's toast!" to which I couldn't help but reply "you have no idea!".

The buses hauled us onto the runway where the airplane was waiting for us. I found a nice place behind the plane.. right smack in the middle of the runway.. and promptly took a nap since I was supposed to be unconscious. It's just as well because I didn't get much sleep the night before so while my coworkers had got to cry uncontrollably or wander around disoriented, I got to catch up on sleep... in the middle of the runway at an international airport. Roll playing is easy when all I have to do is lie there.

So the firetrucks came and guys in hazmat suits showed up and rounded up all the people walking around and herded them out of the way, then rescued everyone who was awake but either unwilling or unable to get up on their own and took them to safety. Finally they started to take notice of me... poor little D of T sprawled out on the runway... finally they determined that I was, in fact, not quite dead yet! (insert monty python quote here) They finally flipped me onto a stretcher very carefully so that my head wouldn't fall off or something and managed to get me through triage fairly quickly since I wasn't quite dead... yet.

After I was through triage, I no longer had to roll play anymore so I wandered off to have a snack... except that because I managed to get through triage so quickly I became the subject of a bit of confusion because others who hadn't been processed yet were over there having their post-triage snacks... so I kept having to explain that I already made it through and was "at the hospital" already.

It was about that time that I realized that there was a good reason why they call our airport "the Sunport"... it seems I was starting to feel the effects of UV exposure. It seems I didn't think to bring my sunscreen because when I got to the office, it was dark... and my foresight got lost in the fog that was covering the city that morning. I've also got the curious habit of cutting the natural sunscreen off of my scalp on a regular basis so the top of my head is just as burned as my face. It kinda hurts but on the other hand nobody will be able to tell if I'm blushing for a few days.

After everyone was triaged and we were all having our snacks and stuff, we were loaded back onto busses to be hauled over to our respective hospitals for treatment. I got to go to the hospital at the university here.. and when we got there, apparently they weren't really into the whole role playing thing since they went about it very half heartedly.. several of us were hauled into a room where we awaited further treatment... and then 15 minutes later someone came walking by and noticed us "oh! you're still here? come eat, you've all been declared dead." and then showed us to a break room where we found the rest of the volunteer victims that came with were already enjoying their lunch. It seems they were miraculously cured.

I'm NEVER going to that hospital again. Even if I suffer from an actual severe injury. The way I see it, if they're not going to take the drill seriously, I have good reason to be afraid of them if I should happen to need the services of a hospital for real at some point.

Back on the bus and back to the airport where we waited for a couple of hours for the rest of our coworkers to return during which time I continued to nap. The other hospitals actually took the drill seriously and so it took them a lot longer because they were actually treating people for their fake injuries. We exchanged stories of our injuries and went back to the office and talked about to the rest of us who didn't volunteer.

In all, it was an interesting day and it's good to know that they do this sort of exercise periodically. Hopefully this sort of thing will never actually happen but if it does, I know they'll be better prepared to handle it.