Rafting the Nile (or LSU medical students go wild)
on Random Uganda (Uganda), 16/Feb/2010 09:41, 34 days ago
(didn't take my camera rafting, this picture shamelessly stolen off theAdrift website)I’m riding the shuttle bus to go rafting. In addition to being the world’s longest river, the Nile also has some kickass whitewater, and I’ve been meaning to check it out for a while. I had to get up early to catch the bus, so I’m hoping to snooze a little on the 2 hour trip to Jinja, but Ihappen to overhear a young man’s voice bragging: “…well, all of us know CPR and a third of us know how to do a crike.” I open my eyes. A group of young people has just boarded. Medical students, I think. Then the same dark haired, thick-browed young man goes on, “Yeah, I could do a crike with my swiss army knife. No problem.” Pure, unadulterated hubris. Definitely a fourth year med student.A crike, for the uninitiated, would be a crichothyroidotomy, an emergency surgical procedure that involves cutting a hole in someone’s neck and inserting a breathing tube. I can think of a lot of scary things to do at work, and a crichothyroidotomy would top the list every time.I think about engaging him in conversation… ‘So, buddy, assuming you’ve been very lucky and you’ve managed to get your ballpoint pen into the patient’s trachea (as opposed to the carotid artery or the esophagus), and you are now blowing air into a small tube in a poorly sealed hemorrhaging wound in some poor bastard’s throat, what are your gonna do next? Call 911?’ But, nah, I was him once. I turn up my iPod and tune him out.The source of the Nile has been the subject of controversy for a number of years. In 1858, John Speke was the first to suggest that the Nile originated from the lake he named Lake Victoria. His travel partner, Richard Burton (get the 1990 movie Mountains of the Moon on netflix), called this a bunch of rubbish. Even now, the purists will tell you that the waters of Lake Victoria (and hence the Nile) come from many sources, the most remote being the Akagera river, which starts as the Rukarara River in the Nyungwe rainforest of Rwanda.For rafting purposes, however, the Nile starts somewhere below theOwen Falls Damin Jinja. (Although a new dam currently under construction atBujagali Fallswill eventually submerge most of the rapids we'll raft over). Unlike most of the canyon whitewater I’ve been exposed to in the US (certainly not an exhaustive survey, mind you) which is more narrow, rocky and continuous, the Nile is big and wide and has long stretches of flat water punctuated by high volume, waterfall-like rapids perfect for flipping rafts in. Fortunately, the water is warm, and the rapids spaced far enough apart to allow you time to find your paddle and get back into the boat.Prior to the first big rapid, we practiced flipping the raft. Tutu, our guide wanted us to hang onto our paddles with one hand and the safety rope of the raft with the other. As we were flopping into the water with the raft on top of us, I felt an unnatural torquing sensation in my shoulder and thought, this would be the perfect way to dislocate a shoulder.And sure enough, on the last rapids before lunch, the raft in front of us was tossed and one of the rafters was floating at an odd angle in the water holding his right arm against his lifevest. We pulled him along side and headed for shore. About this time the boat with the med students shows up and my buddy starts barking out orders about bed sheets and traction and makes the poor guy with a dislocated shoulder take his wet shirt off (next time you dislocate your shoulder, try taking your shirt off). The med student wants to use the traction/counter-traction method of reducing the dislocation—probably the most painful way ever devised to put a shoulder back in.Lee, the lead guide, has been given the impression that the med students are doctors. Upon questioning, however, the young man has to sheepishly admit that no, he doesn’t graduate from medical school until June, and, no, he’s never reduced a shoulder dislocation in his life. But he points to one of his fellow med students and says that she is going to be an orthopedist and that she’s ‘put in hundreds of shoulders.’ (Turns out that she’s only a 3rd year student and, although, she would like to be an orthopedist when she grows up, she hasn’t even done her orthopedic rotation yet.)Before the 4th year can do any more damage, we gingerly load the patient into our raft. On the flat stretch of river before the lunch island, I talk the man into extending his arm out to about ninety degrees and the shoulder pops back into place. At lunchtime, the man is ignoring the sling I put him in and is eating with both hands. The raft company pulls him from the trip, however, to go get an x-ray in Jinja.We flip our boat in the rapids below the‘Bad Place.’ I don’t hang onto the rope, or my paddle. I float the whitewater feet first and wait for Tutu to get the raft turned over.