Old habits die hard – me in my ambulance, 1976
Note: I don’t often write about myself in this blog (I’m honestly not interesting enough to warrant that), but today, I hope you’ll forgive an exception, as we embark on National Preparedness Month Day 2.
# 7626
Although I could probably go back to my early childhood living aboard a boat in Florida, or a couple of teenage years spent as an explorer scout, it was probably the daily shift-change as an EMT (and later a Paramedic) that instilled in me the preparedness habits that I carry with me today.
As a medic, there were few sins greater than failing to check your unit for supplies at the start of each shift.
Being caught on the scene of an emergency without a needed split, backboard, ambu-bag, or the right cardiac med could prove disastrous – not only for the patient, but for your career.
So we always arrived 15-20 minute early, dutifully checking every piece of gear, drug box meds, oxygen tank levels, defibrillator batteries, and system on our ambulance (lights, radio, fuel, etc.) against a printed checklist, before `accepting’ the unit from the off going shift.
Which probably explains why , from the age of 18 onward, I’ve never gone a day without a well stocked first aid kit close at hand - either in the trunk of my car, or in my home. Usually both.
And over the years, I’ve had more than one occasion to be glad I did.
But I really began to think about preparedness seriously in 1984, when I bought my first small sailboat and began to outfit it for extended coastal cruising.
Even though I’d grown up aboard a boat (ages 8-11), I immediately enrolled in a Coast Guard Auxiliary Boating & Safety course, which my wife and I attended for 12 weeks.
I knew there would be times when my wife and I would be absolutely on our own – often miles from shore or in some remote region of the Ten Thousands Islands or the Florida Keys - well beyond the puny range of our VHF radio.
Suddenly, I was faced with playing the `What if?’ game.
- What if one of us got hurt?
- What if we were dismasted or driven hard aground?
- What if the outboard motor or radio died?
- What if we sank!
What if . . . what if . . . what if . . . the possibilities for disaster were endless and daunting, and then there were the less emergent considerations.
How much food and water could we carry? How much fuel? How would we generate electricity for anchor, navigation, and interior lights . . . and for the radio?
As the only thing smaller than our 23-foot Grampian sailboat was the budget we had for outfitting her, it took nearly a year to get her ready for the cruise.
Twelve months, and $7,500 dollars later (and that included the price of the 12 year old boat!), we headed south.
Cheryl at the Helm of Halcyon
I’m happy to report that while we did see our share of storms, gear failures, minor injuries, and accidental groundings we managed to enjoy the better part of a year cruising without any major mishaps.
But it wouldn’t have had a happy ending without proper planning.
During the mid-1990’s we moved from our second (and much larger) sailboat to the land, and tried our hands at taming 24 acres of Missouri backwoods.
Once again, living miles from the nearest town and occasionally cut off for a week or more by snow and ice storms, made preparedness and self-sufficiency paramount.
The view from our 4000sf garden of two houses on property.
I confess - I’m not really much of a backwoodsman – but I picked up a lot of skills along the way. Everything from chopping and splitting wood (we heated with wood, and it took a LOT of wood!), to gardening and the canning of produce, to dealing with coyotes and other backwoods `issues’.
It was a tremendous experience, but after a decade in Missouri, I finally was able to return to Florida in 2005 (the statute of limitations having expired).
So you see, I come by my preparedness streak honestly. Even though I no longer live the nautical life, or that of a backwoodsman, I still believe in being prepared.
Not for the end of the world - as seems to be the popular perception of preppers - but for the very real and all-to-common disasters and emergencies that happen all the time.
September is National Preparedness Month, and for the next four weeks I’ll be be devoting considerable blog space to preparedness issues.
Over the years - whether at sea, in the backwoods, or in the back of my ambulance - I’ve enjoyed the peace of mind that comes from knowing I was prepared to deal with just about anything.
The big lesson I’ve learned, is that preparing is easy.
It’s worrying that is hard.
