This was my first time volunteering on something like this. It was an amazing experience! The tent was in the parking lot at Squaw Valley, right by the finish line. It was set up for 30 patients.

I got there at 1pm. At that point they'd only had about 3 patients. (T1 was separate from T2 and the finish, so the main medical tent didn't get any folks from the swim.) We'd actually had snow down to lake level on Saturday. Sunday, race day, was clear but the morning was 30 degrees and it was only expected to get into the low 60's during the day. So we were expecting lots of COLD people. And that was correct...

About 5pm we suddenly started getting the athletes. All of them were cold and exhausted. (Any trauma beyond simple road rash went directly to the hospital.)

Ironman Tahoe is a TOUGH Ironman. Tahoe is cold. The bike ride is extremely hilly, with one 9% grade that goes from about 6200 ft to 7200 feet... and they do that twice. The run is luckily relatively flat. I spoke with one of the pros who came in to warm up after he finished. He told me he did about 3 Ironman races a year and this was the toughest one he'd done.

By 6pm we had a room full of people wrapped in mylar space blankets and fleece blankets, sipping on chicken broth. This lasted until we were told to shut down at midnight. They earlier folks weren't too bad off. We were able to bundle them up and give them oral fluids. The athletes who came in later were more exhausted, and much colder. A lot of them ended up with IVs and medication for nausea.

We had a lot of energetic, enthusiastic volunteers: docs, nurses, EMTs. We ran around keeping the athlete's spirits up for the ones who couldn't finish, and congratulating the ones who did. It was amazing to see how these people pushed themselves and what they put up with to finish the race. Since we were so close to the finish, we could hear the "YOU ARE AN IRONMAN" announcement when runners came through the finish. It was very inspiring.

I didn't get to see any of the race despite being so near the finish. I was basically the doc in charge of the tent. I circulated and made sure that every patient was seen by a doctor. I was also available for "consultation" if one of the other docs wasn't sure if someone needed an IV or to go to the hospital. There was a nurse who took charge of the nursing aspect, and she and I worked together to keep things flowing smoothly. This freed up the Medical and Nursing Directors to take care of higher level problems.

Since this was the inaugural event, there were a few glitches. But we worked them out. I think that we'll be having a meeting in a few days to start planning next year. I definitely plan to help out again.