Qoornoq Part 2: The Open Wound
Saturday we woke up and quickly got on task hunting for some nice bouldering problems. We didn't find much and spent the first couple hours on a fun low angle traverse fairly close to camp-- great for the beginners in the group (including yours truly). We then moved on to some more challenging problems of the overhanging variety that soon had me exhausted and napping in the sun.
We came around the corner and there lay our valiant leader, holding his leg and muttering obscenities. Tina, who is a midwife at the hospital, took charge. Unfortunately, Thomas was not having a baby, but she still was the best-trained among us to take his hand away from his leg and examine the five inch long, inch (or more) deep cut running alongside his shin. Apparently he had swung his leg into the WRONG razor sharp rock while down-climbing a few minutes earlier--not that sensational of an accident, but a definite bummer, and a painful and potentially hazardous one at that.
With my years of veterninary technician experience, my first instinct before doing anything was to look for some clippers to shave the hair away from the site of the injury and bandage his hands to keep him from scratching the wound, but I kept my mouth shut and let the trained medical professional do her job. As Tina kept pressure on the wound and I picked mosquitos from her face, we determined that the wound needed a good cleaning, stitches, and some antibiotics, none of which we were really equipped to provide (although to Tina's credit, she offered to do some stitches.)
Luckily, the first chinese brother (or at least the tidetable) was indeed on our side because within an hour, Najaaraq returned to the beach with a nurse and her husband in a small inflatable boat with an outboard motor. The nurse was in fact Thomas' girlfriend's boss-- small world here in Nuuk. She carried a very serious looking orange medical case and I braced myself for a real live wilderness medicine situation. Much to my disappointment (and even more to Thomas'), she did not have any anesthetic and decided it would be best to take Thomas back to town and put him on a boat to Nuuk.
Below, some pics of Qoornoq town and the party-goers.