A ski doctor who guards life on an alpine track

【First-line narration】

A ski doctor who guards life on an alpine track

Narrator: Yuan Qiang, deputy medical officer of the alpine skiing medical team at the Beijing Winter Olympics

I am a doctor and a ski enthusiast. In recent years, I have a new identity – a ski doctor. At the Beijing Winter Olympics, my team and I's main task is to provide medical protection for alpine skiers.

Known as the "jewel in the crown of the Winter Olympics", alpine skiing is one of the fastest events in the Winter Olympics, in which athletes rush down from the top of the mountain at a speed of up to 140 km/h, and the incidence of injuries among athletes is close to 15%. Therefore, the rescue of alpine skiing tracks is very difficult.

After the athlete is injured, the golden rescue time is 4 minutes, and after the referee issued the instruction "athlete stops departing" to "close the track", the time left for the rescue personnel of the track medical station from departure to arrival at the scene for treatment is also about 1 minute. Therefore, for our Winter Olympic Alpine Skiing Medical Support Team, skiing technology and medical level are equally important.

When an athlete falls injured, we have to carry more than a dozen kilograms of medical kits, step on a snowboard and slide quickly to the destination, and quickly deal with the injury. Our team has more than 100 people, and 40 domestic ski doctors responsible for track rescue. In order to cope with fractures, spinal injuries, head injuries, maxillofacial injuries, etc. that may occur at any time in the competition, the team members' professional backgrounds include orthopedics, neurosurgery, thoracic surgery, respiratory medicine, etc., which are selected from more than a dozen top three hospitals in Beijing.

To be a ski doctor, you have to reach the level of alpine professional track skating. Because the slope of the alpine track is steep, the average slope is 70%, and it is not ordinary powder snow, it is compacted ice-like snow, and only by "carving" the snowboard with a blade can it stand. We must also be able to stop anywhere on the slope and quickly take off and wear snowboards for rescue. Reaching such a level, the hardships of ordinary training are self-evident. We have gone through more than three years of intensive training to fill the "experience gap" of pistatic first aid.

Now that the Beijing Winter Olympics have begun, we are always ready to provide medical protection services. Although the pressure is huge, we do surgery, every operation is on the battlefield, never afraid of pressure. The only wish is to use my own efforts to protect the ice and snow athletes and make the Beijing Winter Olympics smooth and exciting!

Project team: Guangming Daily reporters Liu Bochao, Wang Meiying, Hou Keke

Guangming Daily ( 2022-02-10 08 edition)

Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily