The Daily Commercial
CLERMONT, Fla. — A Clermont volunteer firefighter, in Peru on business, recently ended up giving fire prevention tips to residents of a Peruvian rain forest village.
In an area with no first responders, no medical facilities, and virtually everyone cooking over open flame pits inside their homes, Gary Schindele, the Clermont Fire Department’s Public Fire Safety Education Assistant and Community Relations Coordinator, saw a need to show residents how to help protect people and save lives.
“This experience was very rewarding,” he said. “Since there is so much lacking in that part of the world, I hope the information shared will allow assistance in the years ahead.”
Schindele was on business in Peru to support the installation of several healthcare products at a hospital under construction, when he was asked by the founder of the Yantalo Peru Foundation, Dr. Luis Vasquez, to provide fire safety education and first aid to the construction workers, community members and to the local village school due to his fire service background.
With no ambulance service, little local medical expertise and the nearest hospital three hours away over a mountainous terrain, Schindele provided basic instruction on first aid, showing how construction materials like drywall could be used as makeshift splints and how garbage bags could be substituted for temporary arm slings. He also taught villagers how to properly handle potential neck, spinal cord and trauma injuries.
On the preventative side, in an area known for a high number of pediatric burns, Schindele taught nearly 400 children fire safety tips such as “Stop, Drop, Cover Your Face and Roll.”
“I had to make adjustments for some local conditions, considering the people cook with open fire inside their home with dirt floors,” he said.
Schindele also had an opportunity to meet with several new medical residents, who, as part of the Peruvian medical school program, must serve the last year of residency in a rural community. He said these new young doctors told him they have no diagnostic instruments, no technology of any sort, and must learn to assess their patients through discussion and signs of illness, rather than by using computers and monitors.
“What they also lacked was current protocols for care,” Schindele said.
Because of that, Schindele shared with the group some protocols used by Lake EMS, which has one of the highest survival rates of pre-hospital patients in the world.
Schindele said he hopes to return to Peru next year for the hospital’s grand opening and to share more safety tips with the villagers.
Copyright 2012 The Daily Commercial (Leesburg, FL)
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