Ep. 22 - Moose Mutlow: Yosemite Swiftwater SAR, Family Liaison Officer, and longevity in rescue. - Wilderness Medicine Updates

Episode Transcript
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Patrick Fink (00:07):
Welcome back to Wilderness Medicine.
Updates the show for providersat the edges.
I'm your host, Patrick Fink.
Today we have a real treat.
I'm excited to bring you aconversation that I think will
be useful, interesting, wideranging.
I'd like to welcome our guesttoday, moose Motlow, an
experienced outdoor educator andsearch and rescue professional.
With nearly four decades ofexperience around the globe,

(00:29):
moose's career spans from hisearly role as an Outward Bound
instructor to his position as adeputy headmaster in the
Kalahari Desert, and even sometime as a street performer.
2002, moose has been a member ofYosemite Search and Rescue or
Josar, serving both as atechnician and working within
incident command.
As Joss's Senior Swift WaterInstructor and a Certified

(00:52):
Rescue three InternationalTechnical Rescue instructor.
He has provided extensivetraining internationally and
accumulated more than 2000 daysinstructing in wilderness
environments.
Moose also leads the FamilyLiaison Officer training program
for the National Park Service,facilitating and teaching
critical crisis communication innational parks like Grand Teton,

(01:13):
Yellowstone, and the Great SmokyMountains.
He's the author of two bookswhen Accidents Happen, a text
about the family liaison roleand searching, finding purpose,
laughter, and distractionthrough Search and Rescue, a
personal memoir.
Currently, moose is the seniorprojects director at Nature
Bridge in Yosemite, overseeing,planning, designing and

(01:34):
constructing the NationalEnvironmental Science Center, an
environmental science learningcampus within the park.
Today I look forward to digginginto Moose's background, the
experiences that inform his pathin wilderness medicine and his
niche within search and rescue,the family liaison officer role.
Welcome to the podcast.

moose (01:54):
Thanks for having me along Patrick.

I'm excited to have you here.
I had planned to begin ourconversation with a little bit
of a cheekier question, um, butthe news recently doesn't have
me feeling very cheeky.
So let me begin by asking howyou and your compatriots are
faring in the face of prettysubstantial cuts within the
federal government.
Are you getting bio?
Okay.

moose (02:14):
Uh, within search and rescue, there was a rethink and,
and so they can do emergencyhires and get the supplementary
people around for fire andemergency response, but it's a
fluid situation.
I have a, a number of, uh,colleagues who have changed

(02:35):
their employment status, so it'sa bit rough.
I think it's rough for a lot ofpeople.
It's it, the thing aboutemergency services is you're
aware, you dunno what youhaven't got to, you haven't got
it and you need it.
So the gaps that may be outthere we aren't fully aware of,
uh, quite yet.

(02:55):
Once we start scaling with morevisitation.
National Parks had the lot, hada fantastic record setting year,
last year of visitation, andthat that visitation was
underwritten by understaffednational Parks.
And, and so this year it's,again, it's gonna be
challenging.

That visitation has been up since Covid, right?
Since the, what was theinitiative like the Find Your
Park or something

moose (03:21):
Yes.
2016 was this enormous year.
What It became quiteoverwhelming and changed the way
that parks are managed, somewhatparks like Yosemite came in with
a more, uh, adaptable trafficmanagement system and, and reg
and registering to get in thepark.

(03:42):
And, and people are discoveringthe, or rediscovering.
The value of being outdoors, thevalue of, of going to these
amazing places and immersingyourself in a non-digital world
for a few minutes, it's, it, itit at a time of stress.
That's, there's amazing healingpotential out there.

Certainly, hopefully in, in their lack,
those folks who have been cutwill again be appreciated by the
system and, and brought backinto the fold when they realize
that firing the only locksmithin Yosemite means you can't get
into the sarc.

moose (04:18):
I, I think there are lots of good individual stories out
there that, that talk aboutindividual challenges, but
overall national parks, as KenBurn said, America's greatest
idea.
It, it's, it's true.
It's this amazing jewel that therest of the world looks at and
comes here to learn.
It's, it's one of the greatestthings about America is this

(04:40):
commitment to preservation, longterm of extraordinary places and
stories.
It isn't.
The National Park Servicedoesn't just do a landscape.
They're preserving storiesaround civil rights.
They're, they're preservingstories about LGBT history.
These are all valuable parts ofAmerica that need to be

(05:00):
preserved, remembered, andrecorded.

And for better or for worse, the value of that
needs to be remembered eachgeneration in turn.

moose (05:09):
Dude.
Well, that's, that's the thingabout history.
You keep relearning it.
It's, it's, it has a, it has atendency to repeat itself.

Mm-hmm.
heard it said that it historydoesn't repeat itself, but it
tends to rhyme.

moose (05:23):
Yes.

So Moose, a lot of people are gonna be wondering
right off the bat before we diveinto some of the so nitty
gritty, you're from the uk, areyou not?

moose (05:35):
Yeah.

To the best of my knowledge, there aren't any
moose in the United Kingdom.

moose (05:40):
There aren't, and I, I got the nickname at a summer
camp where I had made some poorcareer choices as far as the
positions I was taking.
And each week the managementwould discover that perhaps I
wasn't best suited for group.
Leader, right?

(06:01):
The, their words were youinspired a riot on a Friday
night, which I felt was a littleharsh.
And they would send me off tothe local pub that had a deer
head on the wall that wasaffectionately known as the
moose.
And I would find myself sittingbeneath that moose most Friday
nights looking a bit morose intomy pint.
And it, one, the people wouldcome in and they would greet the

(06:22):
moose, good evening to the mooseand they would say hi to me.
And eventually it becamesynonymous between the two.
And Moose Marler has grace

moose?

moose (06:31):
and, and working with young people, if young people
can remember your name right offthe get go, you instantly have a
connection.
You instantly can start workingwith them in a different way.
'cause they're not afraid to askyou questions.
So Moose is fairly memorable.
So it's, it's been my name for40 years.

Okay.
Well, we don't, we don't need toruin your cover.
I won't ask you what your givenname is.

moose (06:54):
Oh my.
Give her name's Jonathan, and mymom calls me Jonathan.
That's, that's the only person.
So there you go.

refuses to call you Moose.

moose (07:01):
Uh, I wouldn't say refuse.
She's very clear that I wasnamed Jonathan.

How did you come to leave the UK and, and in
America through such a variedcareer?
I.

moose (07:15):
Uh, Britain's a very small, small country.
It's, you can only be about 70odd miles away from the ocean at
any time.
And very early on, after a, adiet of watching outdoor type
adventure shows very early DavidAttenborough and a show called
World About Us that would be onSunday nights, showing you what
was out there.

(07:36):
I had become smitten by whatelse could I see?
What else, what else could Iexperience?
And so at 18 and, and leavinghigh school, not necessarily on
a track to university, I, I'dstarted to look at other places
and the ability to be able totravel at that time and have

(07:57):
opportunity with student andwork visas was pretty good.
And so I got out of that and Ididn't really go back.
It, it's, once you'veexperienced the Outback in
Australia, the immensity of itand the emptiness of it, and
you, you are lost in thatlandscape.
It, it's harder to come backinto Britain and, and feel at

(08:22):
ease.
I think the north of northwestof Scotland has this remoteness,
it has this harsh, emptylandscape that is, can fill the
spirit.
But I, I.
I was always looking forsomething, a landscape ideally
with big animals in it.
That made me feel a little bitmore humble that that's, that
was my ultimate goal.

How do you feel the US is compared to the
Outback?

moose (08:50):
Uh, well there's lessons that bite you.
Um,

fair.
It's

moose (08:54):
RA Australia, I love that thing.
How can you tell an Australiaand when they're gonna throw a
stick for their dog?
And the answer is, they alwayskick the stick.
'cause you wanna make sure it'snot a snake.
And having gone there andguided, I, it's a pretty
remarkable experience to bearound that many things that can
quietly kill you.

(09:15):
Uh, so I, I don't miss that partof Australia.
And I love, I love Americabecause of its AC in the West,
its access to.
Wildness because I can go for abike ride and I can see mountain
lion tracks and I can maybecatch the back end of a bear
taken off, maybe see a bobcatcome across or have Golden

(09:37):
Eagle.
We watched Golden Eagles theother day, mating a couple of
month or so ago, and it's allright there in the backyard.
And it's not that Europe lacksthat diversity.
It it, it lacks the, uh, theemptiness,

Right, right.
The Swiss or the French Alps,there's little chalets every
kilometer.

moose (10:00):
which are fantastic.
My nephew lives in Austria and,and always things the praises of
a stiff hike and then getting toa spring full a beer and a, and
an on a box to like buy one.
And he loves that.
I mean, I mean that's, that's afantastic thing,

Yeah.
No, I love it too, but it, it,there are no large tracks of
undeveloped land or at leastvery few.
It's hard to get to a placewhere you can't see a human
structure.

moose (10:29):
As you drift into the Eastern Europe and you go along
the, the vestige of what was theiron curtain?
There are these amazing nationalparks that, that have rege have,
have started, get the largewildlife back in on, on plants
like European bison and wolves.
But again, the access in Americato this, this amazing thing of

(10:50):
public lands is a, isremarkable,

How did you go from working, doing outdoor
education with Outward Boundinto.
The world of search and rescue.

moose (11:03):
well, every, every day without a bound is, is a
potential search and rescue.
And, and our bound schoolsaround the world typically are a
local resource.
So you're, you're at, you can becategorized as an, as a.
Search and rescue unit.
Outward Bound, Abu Dhabi was thesearch and rescue unit and
lifeboat operator, NorthCarolina Outward Bound had its

(11:23):
search and rescue technicallysupporting Burke County.
And, and because you'reoutdoorsy types and you have
access to equipment and you canwork as a team, there's always
that overlap.
And, and when you come tosomeone like Yosemite, which has
a very active and busy searchand rescue unit, once you get

(11:44):
in, there's opportunity andthat, that momentum builds on
itself.
So I started at, at the searchand rescue catch cash, literally
packing sleeping bags andputting gear away after
missions.
That's the way I got in.
And then somebody one dayrecognizes you and says, but you
on the river.
And they start to look at yourriver resume and you end up in

(12:05):
the swift water trainings.
And that's another beautifulthing about America is my exp my
experience has been.
What can you do rather than whatpiece of paper do you have?
There's a little bit more of anemphasis on the experience side
and your potential,

Yeah, certainly, certainly in some, some parts of
the US and particularly in the,more so in the West than on the
east coast perhaps.
But it sounds like you, you wereinterested to enter the world of
sar.
You probably weren't therepacking bags because that was
the most fun thing you could be

moose (12:44):
No,

time.

moose (12:46):
I, and the reason I love, uh, the, I love search and
rescue is, I like working in ateam.
It's a bit, it's like emergencymedicine and work in an
ambulance.
You have this task that it,that's packaged.
You, you arrive on scene, youload somebody up.
You treat them to the best ofyour ability.
You get to the er, you offloadthem, you transfer care, all

(13:08):
packages done, and it's, there'sa beginning and an end for most
of our assignments.
And I loved, I loved workingsuch and rescue because we're
all, whatever, whatever we'redoing, we're all focused on
trying to get this good outcomeand it, and it's bite size.
And then working in projectmanagement on a big building
project, it's a 20 yearcommitment to the, to getting to

(13:31):
the end.
Whereas I can go on a SAR and Ican have a two hour resolution
and that, that helps to feed mysoul one of a better word,

You get some, you get some positive feedback or

moose (13:42):
really, really,

up some experiences.

moose (13:44):
really quickly and, and being around people.
Where it's not a disparateresponse.
You're all focused on thisthing, and you all have a role,
and when you don't have a role,you step back and let it play
out until this opportunity opensup.
It's, it's a good reminder ofhow you accomplish something.

(14:04):
You don't have to be working ata hundred miles an hour all the
time and be at the front.
You just have to be ready tolend a hand when they need it.

It is, it is a joy to, a joy at times, a
satisfaction most of the time towork in a competent team.
think that there are a lot offolks who probably the best time
in their life actually was likecollege or university because
that was the last time that theywere with similarly minded
people working in a collectiveway towards a defined goal.

moose (14:36):
Well, yeah,

I think.

moose (14:37):
it's, it's that loss of community.
In a, in a disparate world wherewe've become connected at our
community becomes virtual and ona computer, and we humans need
to have that connectionphysically being in the space
with other people, and we are,we are geared as much as to sort

(14:58):
of fight for our own survival.
It's to work with others toaccomplish a common goal.
We talk a lot about this idea ofbeing the best or the alpha or
what have you, and, and itdoesn't mean anything without,
without everybody workingtogether, you don't achieve
anything.
You can be very lonely as insurvival if you're simply

(15:18):
focused on yourself.

So can you bring us into the world of what
Yosemite Swift Water Rescuelooks like?
What is your day-to-dayoperational life look like?

moose (15:31):
Well, it's pretty slow right now.
We're just starting to get tothe point where the, the spring
flows are coming upincrementally.
We've, we've had some low rain,so we've had some bigger days
and the air temperatures havebeen pretty low, so that's a
really good recipe for peoplestaying away from the water
edge.
It looks cold, it is cold, andit's going fast.

(15:53):
When the daytime temperaturecreeps up and you're starting to
get a bit sweaty out on thetrail, that's where our
incidents start to creep up ofpeople being hot and wanting to
cool down.
The water's still very cold andgoing very fast, and it's in
this narrow window running Aprilto June with high flow and high
daytime temperatures where we'llstart to get interactions with

(16:16):
the water.
And there aren't huge amounts.
There's probably many more thatare undocumented, which are just
good stories.
But we'll have a big, a bigwater year will be five
drownings out of 12 to 20 todeaths in the park.

Yeah.
What is, what is that linebetween the rescue and the good
story?

moose (16:38):
What's if, if the person telling the story is the person
involved in the story?
It's whether you've survived it.
I like, I like to talk about theidea that, be able to tell your
story, don't be the story.
And most people are out there,they make a mistake next to the
water and they get a wet footand a bit, ooh, they're a bit
scared.
They might drop something in thewater and they get away with it.

(16:59):
Uh, it's a very, very fine linehere.
The margin on some of our trailsand our exposure to some of
these cascades is, is minutebetween.
That is a great picture.
And, oh, we're doing a three daybody recovery.

Right.

moose (17:18):
I.

How, how would you, how do you steer people
towards telling the storyinstead of being the story?

moose (17:26):
We do, we do some outreach.
We do a media day in Yosemite

I.

moose (17:30):
where we'll talk specifically about it,
particularly around the bigholiday weekends.
And I, I'll tend to, we tend totrain in the open, so you train
in highly trafficked areas and,and I encourage all our
participants, all the students,law enforcement rangers,
resource rangers, that ifsomebody stops you during
training, talk to'em becausewe've got all the gear on, we're

(17:51):
demonstrating speed, and we'retalking about how dynamic it is,
and they can feel how cold thewater is there.
You touch a fraction of thepeople, but there isn't much if,
if somebody actually is up thetrail and they're just so
excited about where they are andthey're so out of touch with how
powerful the natural world is,no amount of messaging can keep

(18:13):
them back from the edge.
'cause if it did, you wouldn'thave people going off the top of
the waterfalls every other year.

Right.

moose (18:20):
And it, I think there's that, people have talked about
the disneyfication of theoutdoors, the idea that it's,
that we're some sort of themepark and we can turn stuff off,
and that's, that's a measure ofsociety rather than the national
parks.
It's nobody, very few peoplecome to the park to die.
So it comes from a pace ofignorance.

(18:42):
They don't quite get it.

Right in us in Yosemite, that's probably 10 to
20 people per year who die.
Right?

moose (18:49):
we have, it's 12 to 20, 10 to 20 or die of, of those
four or five of those could justpeople who wake up dead, people
who are come to a place theylove.
And then the hotel room, theyhad a really fun hike and they
had dinner and they chatted tosomeone and, and then they just
were late for breakfast andsomebody went to their room and
they passed away in the night inthe sleep.
I mean this beauty in that, uh,that sort of end.

Yeah.
We can all aspire to that

moose (19:16):
And then there's a few traumas and then falls, and then
depending on, we've, we've gotsome pretty high risk activities
that happen in the park.
Climbing, uh, base jumping.
There are, there are things thathappen that come with a high
degree of risk built into them,and so you would expect some
disaster to play out.

You've spoken about the need to allow people a
learning curve or anapprenticeship in the outdoors.
What would you say a, a goodthat allows you to take risks
reaching that point where you'reeither the subject of rescue or,

(20:00):
or not able to tell the story?

moose (20:04):
I think it's a really good mentor.
I think it's somebody who, whotakes you out and starts to
build the fundamentals and, andgive you a controlled
environment.
So whether it's the Girl Scoutsis a really good example.
They go out on trips and theyhave a leader and they have some
corralling and they're workingas a group and they do some
prep.
And very early on they get thefundamentals of how to stay dry

(20:26):
in the outdoors.
And then they, they might go toa summer camp and then you, you
might do an overnight expeditionand you get people helping you
on, on really good ratios.
The, the, the loss ofmentorship.
Now you do stuff online, youteach your staff stuff really
quickly.
You do, you used to go for a twoor three day trip to REI to
learn lightweight packing andsomewhere in there you didn't

(20:49):
learn anything about navigationapart from using your phone.
That's the fundamentals.
And you need somebody to, somepeople can be self-taught, you
know, as kids we used to go offand do crazy stuff with maps and
we'd figure it out.
But then you remember, actuallymy dad was a navigator in the
Air Force and taught me reallygood navigation skills when I

(21:09):
was a really little kid.
So it starts with mentorship andthere's an accelerated level to
practitioner.
So you have people going from Ato B faster.
So they become, they go frombeing in a climbing gym to
climbing really, really hardwithin the space of nine or 10

(21:31):
months.

Mm-hmm.

moose (21:33):
But they've actually built no understanding of
mountain weather andunderstanding what happens with
thunderstorms because that comesover a season of watching those
patterns.
And so they get themselves intotrouble'cause they start late
and they just had, don't havethat awareness.

Right.

moose (21:50):
My.

the, the few seasons that I worked for
Knowles,

moose (21:54):
Yeah.

which I'm, I'm few, I'm sure you're familiar

moose (21:56):
Yeah.

it, it was really startlingly apparent that, you
know, on first few days of acourse, some folks just have no
intuitive understanding of howto care for themselves, don't
understand why want to keeptheir clothing dry or change
their socks when they're soapingwet, soaking wet, and then it
takes that full 30 to 40 days inthe field before.

(22:21):
You can have the confidence thatthey can spend two, three days
traveling independently of you.
It's a, it's a prettysubstantial learning curve, even
when it's undertaken full time.
And that's just the beginning.

moose (22:33):
And that's an intent.
That's an intensive experience.
I.
My nephew was climbing in Europewhen he was younger, and he has
a great story about who ends uptaking him under his wing in the
Austrian Alpine Club.
And it was a 65 year,65-year-old woman who climber,
who would then go out free solo,everything, and he'd sort of

(22:55):
tell him where to go, and thenthey would drink snaps and eat
schnitzel and and sausages atthe top of the cliff.
But he had this person who waslooking out for me, and she had
this immense, she had decades ofexperience, so he really had
true mentorship in his Alpinecareer.

If you were 20, say, 20-year-old moose motlow,
now arriving with big eyes andlots of ideas to Yosemite, where
would you be looking for amentor?

moose (23:29):
Well, I wouldn't be coming to Yosemite.
I, I think I would go to a placethat had less seen, and I would,
I would go to Alaska.
I would go to that space wherethey need a driver at a, at a
raft company.
And I would drive buses for aseason and get out in the river
three times and then discoverthat actually the, the guides

(23:51):
leave and go to Costa Rica, uh,in the winter.
And I would go to Costa Rica andlearn Spanish, and I would learn
to kayak.
And that's how I would start todo it.
And I would do it all on, inabsolute dirt bag style.
I would do it saving as muchmoney as possible, not having a
car.
Everything fits in a backpack.

(24:11):
You keep 30% of the space emptyjust in case you find something
interesting.
You don't buy any clothing.
You bag like you find dirtyt-shirts, you wash'em.
Like I, I would, I would do theeconomy thing again, but I
would, I would, I would be a bitmore transnational.

Let, let's take that up to your role now as a
Swift water trainer.
When you're looking at bringingpeople into an essentially
hazardous and dynamicenvironment and conducting
trainings in high flows inYosemite, how do you help team
members learn the boundary whatis acceptable risk in the

(24:51):
context of rescue or recoveryand, and without crossing the
line into the unacceptable?

moose (24:57):
You are really careful where you pick your training
sites.
You, you wanna make sure thatpeople can have success early on
and success isn't necessarily,oh, I can do it.
Success is learning how I'm notpowerful within water.
There are things I can do to getfrom A to B, but sometimes I
can't get to B.
I've gotta go another route.
And so I talk a lot with peoplein search and rescue in training

(25:22):
is how can you do the swiftwater rescue without getting
wet?
The idea that it's reallyalluring to be in the water.
It's like there's a, it's veryeasy to slip into the hero
complex of, of sort of swimmingout and getting someone and
actually throwing a rope andpendulum mint is actually a
better option.
So I talk a lot about peoplefinding their limit and then

(25:44):
backing off a little bit fromthat so that you make good
decisions.
It's a bit like an alpine route.
You might be able to climbreally hard, but you can't climb
really hard for a day and a halfon this big alpine route.
So you have to come down acouple of grades'cause it's a
sustained challenge.
And then the water, it becomes asustained challenge 25 meters

(26:05):
after you enter, because it'ssnow melt and it's going at 20
miles an hour.
So I, I get people to start tolook and draw hard lines about
what they're comfortable withand where they're competent.

You've said that there's a great deal of myth
around SAR unit capacity andperformance.
How do you think the, the publicimagines what you do?

moose (26:33):
Well, I, I think they're guided by media and they have
this idea that you can just takean aircraft up in the air and it
can do these remarkable thingsregardless of the weather and
visibility.
Uh, I think dramas sort of showthis superhuman quality to
rescuers, that there are timesthat people do extraordinary

(26:55):
stuff like working big wallrescue in Yosemite.
Yosemite has it down, it'sthere.
We have a helicopter pilot whocan fly with him.
A couple of meters of the faceand hold a pattern there and
basically get a line out topeople stranded on the wall.
It's a remarkable technicalaccomplishment, and we have a

(27:17):
really good team thatunderstands how to do, lowers
over two and a half thousand,3000 feet like Denali has, can
do massive raises on Denali, butthese are little sections of,
of, of what the response is.
And on a really bad day withreally low visibility and really

(27:37):
remote settings, it's gonna takeus two days to mobilize and get
people out there.
We can't, we can't fly aBlackhawk in that, uh, those
conditions and drop a bunch ofNational Guard out there and
magically fix it.
It's, it's complex.
I, I thi

a

moose (27:54):
I think about the idea.
Most, uh, teams are veryordinary people in the United
States.
Most search and rescue groupsare volunteers.
They aren't paid.
They, they, they're a posse thatworks under the sheriff and they
go out there on their own timewith their own gear.
And I think about ordinarypeople doing extraordinary
things.
Um, every so often.

(28:16):
Most of the time it's prettystandard.
You just run out there andpackage somebody and bring'em
down with a busted ankle.
But every so often it's, there'sa remarkable series of lucky
things that add up and you useyour training and you accomplish
something extraordinary.

Do you have an experience that you can relate
where the public conception ofwhat was possible with SAR was
misaligned with the reality onthe ground.

moose (28:40):
Yeah.
Any water rescue in your san,any water rescue in which you,
you, you have a recoverycomponent.
So somebody's gone in the water,they've gone off a 400 foot
waterfall, it's unsurvivable,and families in their
desperation want to.
Get the loved one back.
They wanna find the body and thewater hasn't gone down and it's

(29:01):
still raging and you can't evenget to the edge of the waterfall
because the water is, themisting iss so intense.
You can't, you got no calmsthere.
People think that some peoplefeel you can just turn the
waterfall off and it will juststop like a ride at an amusement
park and it doesn't.
And that part of that strugglein this sort of this trauma,

(29:23):
this, this crisis that they'regoing through, you have to
figure out a way to put peoplein a position to be able to hear
that or, or not.
If, and then if they can't hearit, that's okay.
You, you have to listen to themthough.
They need to feel like they'vebeen listened to.
But it happens over and overagain.
Somebody gets lost and you're ina park that's, you know, a

(29:44):
million acres.
It's.
That's a lot of area you have tosearch if you're gonna go onto
every rock.
I, I remember being in ahelicopter with a family flying
over a search area and lookingdown and they could, they could
start to see the search party inthe tower slope.
And there were these tiny littlefigures with neon colors moving
through these giant rocks.

(30:04):
And the family member looked atme and just went, you aren't
gonna find her, are you?
And, and they'd had thatrealization of the immensity of
the task

Did the mismatch between realities and and these
family expectations lead youinto your role as a family
liaison officer?
How did you, how did you comeinto that space?

moose (30:30):
I'd, I'd, I'd worked in social work and in personal
development and wildnesstherapy.
So I'd done a lot of processingand facilitation.
So when the chance came along tobe in family liaison.
It, it kind of made sense withsome of the skillset I've got
around communication and, andaround understand the
technicalities of what's outthere.

(30:50):
If you've got this blend of, ofknowing how to communicate,
listen and talk to people andput people in a position to hear
what you have to say, and youdon't have to keep referencing
somebody else as an expert.
That's, that helps in buildingthat trusting relationship to
work under this very charged, inthis very charged atmosphere.

(31:13):
And so it, it became prettyclear that I could be successful
in that and help people, uh,which is the ultimate goal.
You, you, you, you fulfill thegoal where you can make the most
difference.
And so I can make a lot ofdifference in that role.

Can you explain for our audience what is the
role of the FA

moose (31:37):
I.

Liaison officer?

moose (31:39):
So the family liaison officer is the Instant
Commander's representative tothe family.
So you're actually what's calledthe command staff.
You have a very, you have adirect line to the instant
commander.
You're, you're really in theirpocket and you are providing the
insulation for the instantcommander from the family so
they can focus on completing theassignment, and you're making

(32:03):
sure the family has somebodythat they can talk to who's got
some level of H in the hierarchyand empowerment to answer their
questions and make them and lookafter them.
So it's a, i, I talk about it asa empathetic administrator.
You're not there as a therapistor counselor.
You're there to provideinformation and choreograph

(32:23):
interactions.
So the family get theinformation as quickly as they
can, and then we can also getinformation if it's gonna be
helpful for us with aninvestigation.

Why have you described yourself as a
reluctant family liaisonofficer?

moose (32:38):
Well, I think sometimes, I think sometimes uh, you end up
in the, in the EMS world,working with the family and
effective people as well as thepatient.
So you want to focus on, okay, Igotta, I gotta treat this person
here.
This is my primary.
And their spouse, or theirbrother or their sister or their
kid is coming in and, andthey're kind of a victim too.

(33:00):
They've, they've got an injurytoo, cause they're being
traumatized.
And so you end up in thisposition where you have to
switch on your, yourinterpersonal skills, somewhat
reluctant, reluctantly.
'cause you got into EMT to doall the really fun stuff with
the bone drills.
And you have to figure out howto zone in on them and give them
the sport they need so they feellistened to.

(33:22):
They have a role and they'realso insulated from what you're
doing on the gurney.

Yeah.
You've said that part of therole of the family liaison
officer is to manage incidentswithin incidents.
Can you give us an understandingof what you mean by that?

moose (33:38):
If you think about a rock being thrown into a pool of
water and you have theseconcentric circles rippling out,
and where the rock touches,where it touches that, bam,
that's the trauma.
That's, that's where your focusis at.
And then there are theseconcentric circles that go out
that have different levels ofimpact.
So you, the first circle mightbe the witnesses, which the
other family members.

(33:58):
And the next circle might besomebody who's distant, a parent
who's on the phone.
And so the idea at that point ishow, how do you meet their
needs?
'cause they have needs too.
They've, they've got an injury,it's not obvious, but it's
trauma.
They've had something that'sinterrupted the flow, and they
need to have some level oftreatment to help.
And once you start looking at itas a treatment cycle as opposed

(34:20):
to, I can't be bothered, or Ifeel really uncomfortable
talking to family, it, it, itactually can help, it helps the
patient, it helps you and ithelps those people.
I.

Yeah.
How do you pitch this role to anorganization with limited
resources that's full of peoplewho feel like they came, came to
the park to do the bone drillstuff?

moose (34:39):
Uh, I talk about making their lives easier.
I quite often you'll say topeople, what's the most
challenging thing?
And they'll, they say, well,actually it was the spouse
screaming in my ear.
And they say, well, if I've got,if I've got a formula that can
help mitigate that, reduce thatscream, or Would you be
interested?
Then they'll say, potentially,um, is there an acronym?

(35:01):
And I'll be like, there is anacronym you can learn, a new
acronym.
And they get really excitedabout that.
I, I did this talk to a bunchof, I know, second or third year
medical students and there wassilent and I thought it wasn't
going down very well.
Then you have this idea of, oh,what am I saying?
They're just like, they'redoctors.
They know everything.
And, and when I finished talkingand doing that first little

(35:24):
introduction, one of them said,I wish I had this in my first
year of medical school.
Because that, that interpersonalpiece, which we hear over and
over again is something thatisn't taught particularly well
or hasn't been, is so criticalin treatment of everybody and,
and for the person doing thetreatment because you are
putting yourself in a healthierposition.

So you, you're saying that you offer it up to
them as way to create spacebetween activities of the rescue
and, and the family needs sothat both can proceed
separately.

moose (36:03):
It's a way of insul, uh, basically insulating and
compartmentalizing.
If you think about it as twooverlapping circles with you in
the middle of it with treatmentto the right and the family to
the left, and you inhabit thatlittle strip in the middle, if
that becomes a really big space,you're not being able to focus
on, you're not focusing on thetreatment, which is your, with

(36:24):
your primary part in the triage.
So it's, it's figuring out howdo I respectfully answer their
questions, succinctly, tell themwhy I need space, and then give
them a role.
Like their role could be.
I want you to sit over here andI want you to hold this space.
I want you to start writing downlike the Kenny's birthday, his

(36:46):
telephone number, whose spouseis what his home address is.
Write down your re reflectionsof what happened.
Are there any medical incidentsthat are going on that that's 10
seconds and you've given them ajob to do and you've bought
yourself at a minute and a halfbefore they ask another
question.
That's, it's the on scene, thedisempowerment that family

(37:09):
members feel is so profound thatall they're looking for is a job
to do to help distract them andbe useful.
When I say distract, it's withpurpose.

Yeah, what are those needs?
Do you have a way ofcategorizing or understanding
the needs that family membershave?

moose (37:29):
Well, if, if I have the, if I have the capacity, if I, if
I have enough people, I'll havesomebody go over and say, what
do you need to know?
Like, here I am.
This is my introduction.
I'm here to help you.
You're safe right now.
So you're giving them theopportunity and the keys to
actually go from that flightfight to sort of come down the
cortisol response, which isjust, they're freaking out and

(37:52):
you're starting to actually getinto a point where they're into
an easier functioning state,state.
And then you ask them, Hey, whatdo you wanna know?
I got some, I got some factshere.
I can deliver them to you, butyou might have some questions.
How do you wanna do, do you wantme to tell you, tell you stuff,
or do you wanna ask me stuff?
And you're instantly giving themoptions.
A binary choice that says, oh, Iwant to ask questions.

(38:12):
And they go for 15 minutes ifyou, and you let'em, because
that's the best way to, tomanage them at that moment.
Or they say, just quickly tellme what's going on you like.
Well, right now we're, we've gotwith CPR in progress, we're 12
minutes in, we've got a lifeflight booked.
I, I really want to get backthere, but I wanna make sure
you've got the information.
And they go, well, can I flywith them?

(38:33):
You're like, there isn't gonnabe opportunity to do that.
But I'll walk you up when we'reloading Kenny onto the air, onto
the aircraft.
Oh, thank you.
Can you hold here?
I'm gonna come back to this spotin five minutes.
So you've given them a place tobe, you've got'em bought in and
they're gonna drift.
But you know the point person totalk to that point to go back
and manage them away.

It sounds like you keep things really, I, I think
you've put it binary.
So simple decisions.

moose (39:00):
Yeah, it's like the idea that if you walk in and you say,
what do you wanna know?
That's kind of the worstquestion out there.
'cause they're like, oh no, it'sa test.
Um, whereas if you say, I havesomething to say that I can give
you some facts, or you may havesome questions and they go,

(39:22):
well, I haven't got anyquestions, or Let's listen to
what the person says.
You give them a very simplechoice, but I don't give'em four
or five things.
And then a group is trying tofigure out which one's the
priority.

Do you ever find yourself in a position where
your role starts reflecting backin the opposite direction and
you're becoming more of a, know,an advocate for the family to
the ic?

moose (39:46):
So that's, that's one thing I teach a lot in family
liaisons, difference in advocacyand liaison.
And if, if you are a familyliaison officer, you are working
in that role.
You are, you are representingthe, the agency, the response.
And so in truth, you have alittle bit of advocacy'cause
your, your primary response isto the ic, but you aren't making

(40:10):
deals.
You're just reporting backinformation.
Allowing the incident commanderto figure out maybe the best
play to make and the best wayforward.
When you drift into advocacy,you, you, you have no role left
in the, in the response becauseit becomes combative and it

(40:30):
works against what theposition's trying to do, which
is the free flow of informationand installation.
You start?

in, you ever been involved in an incident where
you were tempted to move intothat

moose (40:43):
Yeah.
Inadvertently I ended up in asituation where I complicated
something'cause I just got worndown and the family really
wanted something to happen and Iended up just being three days
in exhausted and agreeing tothis thing and then ending up,

(41:03):
taking on board a vast amount ofwhat was actually scenting
items.
It was for dogs to track with,you only need one, one sock in a
Ziploc.
And I ended up with a garbage,garbage bag full of all these
clothes.
And so we had to enter them asevidence and so it, it made the
investigator's job harderbecause they suddenly had 36

(41:27):
pieces of clothing thatindividually needed to be
entered into evidence.
And that was my lesson.
Don't, don't, don't make it morecomplicated.
And a lot of what you do in theFamily Liaison is I'll talk
about, I'll give them a, a, asingle uh, truth.
Like it's something that'sabsolutely true.

(41:48):
I've tested it three times.
I'll give them the facts.
An undeniable truth.
And you don't over commitwithout talking to the ic and
every commitment you make, youhonor.
So it's, it, this is importantbecause in the intensity of the
relationship of the familyliaison, you have this

(42:10):
accelerated knowing of thefamily.
The family will share intimatedetails with you an hour in
because they are, they want totalk about their family member
and they want to talk about who,how valued they were as a human
being.
So you've become privy to allthis inside information.
And sometimes family get a bitconfused'cause you can become a
family member.

(42:31):
And that's dangerous.
And so at the same time that youlisten, you have this
objectivity to be able to keep astep back because it's a
transitional role.
It has a beginning and an end.
And that's part of that needs tohappen for the family because
you can't keep reoccurring intheir thoughts and interactions.
'cause it goes back to how youwere brought together, which was

(42:54):
this tragedy.
So you're this, this kindheartedadministrator, this empathetic,
compassionate administrator who,who steps back.
And I couldn't have done ahundred missions and fatalities
if I had not had that very clearboundary.
It's not that I don't care, Ijust have a very good

(43:15):
regulating, uh, approach that Iknow it will finish and I'll,
I'll hold some memories of thatfamily and that intensity.
But it is, that incident was notmine, it was theirs.
It's not possessional.

Do you have recollection of a specific
incident that illustrates thevalue of the FLO role?

moose (43:42):
I, I had a very early interaction where, uh, there was
a death of a young person andwhen the family arrived to
support the, the cousins and hisbrother, uh, his family members
said, thank you for being hereand supporting them and not, not

(44:04):
letting them be alone.
And I, I think that's a reallygood guiding point.
And I, I look back on thatincident continually when I go
on assignments is that death in,in our Western culture, for the
most part, it's a veryuncomfortable thing to deal with
traumatic death in particular,and.

(44:26):
Uh, communities struggle attimes, not always struggle at
times to figure out how tosupport families.
And we tend to withdraw and givepeople space.
And actually what people need iscompanionship and witness.
They need people just sittingthere looking uncomfortable.
And people say to me, well, whatshould I say?
I say, maybe you don't sayanything.

(44:47):
You just sit in the room andyou're uncomfortable.
You're not on your phone.
You can read a book.
You can like write down.
And as soon as they ask you aquestion, you put everything
down, you look'em straight inthe face or you like, share that
space.
And if you're uncomfortable,it's okay.
'cause it's just, what can yousay?
So you, when people are facedwith this, they shouldn't be

(45:12):
feel like they're alone.
They, they should feel, theyhave, not necessarily somebody
providing the answers, butsomebody just to listen and to
hold space.
I.

That sounds like a role that could potentially
bring a fairly significant emoemotional burden onto the person
who is acting as the liaisonofficer.
How do you manage that, thatburden?
How do you monitor and managethat in a healthy way?

moose (45:45):
Well, I didn't actually, I, I did seven or eight deaths
really quickly one year andturned up at a board meeting for
a nonprofit I worked with andhad a beer.
And a friend looked at me andwent, are you okay?
And I just burst into tears andwent, apparently not.
And I had just come from a,being a family liaison, uh, for

(46:07):
a particularly traumatic loss.
And I kind of went to pieces andI, and I struggled a couple of
times in my career with that,where.
You end up in this, essentially,if you're looking at it as an
injury with trauma where I'mact, where I'm injured, and the

(46:30):
most telling point with that isthe inability to deal with
complexity.
The story I like to tell is atthe height of all this stress in
and around working with these,these families in crisis, I
decided I needed a sandwich andI went to the refrigerator and I
opened it and I had the mostfantastic selection to make a

(46:50):
wonderful sandwich.
Like it was unbelievable that Ihad a great tomatoes or this
really happened and I opened itand it was so overwhelming that
I couldn't make a choice becauseI, I couldn't deal with the
complexity of the decision,which sort of indicates in
trauma you're pretty, you've gota pretty high level of injury.
And I shut the refrigerator andI went to bed.

(47:12):
And what saved me is, is thework on the stress continuum,
particularly work that LauraMclare has done, which is a.
Sliding scale that looks atwhether you're performing or
you, you have an injury and itallows you to self recognize and
diagnose.
My wife actually said, you,you're in red.
You're on that sort of reallyinjured end.

(47:33):
And the beauty of the stresscontinuum is because you figured
out when you're performing, whenyou're healthy, you know how to
be healthy again.
And my wife knows if I get onthe river in a boat, the
troubles of the world fall awayand she, you have to go to the
river.
And I went to the river for aweek and I boated a bunch and I
just zenned out in my canoe.

(47:55):
And it started to fix and rereroute some of that, that
injury.
But it, it, it, now we do a lotmore work in the squad of
checking in with people not tobe therapists or counselors or
necessarily to process.
It's to say, give us clues abouthow you're doing.

(48:15):
So if people aren't doing thething they love, why is that?
And it's, it's a traumaresponse.
Um, and so you, you recognizingthem and helping them maybe to
go out on the river or to goclimbing or to go fishing to do
the thing that gets you back inwhat we call green

Mm-hmm.
It sounds like recognizing thatyou're in a similar space to the
families that you were speakingabout earlier who need simple,
binary decisions, who can'thandle complexity.

moose (48:46):
and often caregivers get in that position where, where we
act in denial.

Oh yeah, we're, uh, we're not allowed We're not
allowed to show anyvulnerability and we're not
supposed to be affected by thesethings.

moose (49:02):
Yeah.
Which actually are like, butit's a really traumatic, ugly
thing that just happened.
We're human emotions are reallyimportant thing.
Like if you.
Uh, cry if you get a bit angry,if you, if you have these
natural reactions, it's actuallyquite healthy.
What's unhealthy is saying it'shad no effect on me.

(49:24):
And then drinking a bottle ofwhiskey and not doing anything
for three days and smoking a lotof cigarettes, that isn't,
that's, that's an unhealthyresponse.
You

Really?

moose (49:36):
Yeah.
It's, it's, and it's this ideathat you can torture yourself
and that's legitimate.
Yeah.
That's like supported and that'sokay.
Whereas actually if you say itin 15 minutes, I've had a really
bad day.
I just want, just want somebodyto give a hug.
That's incredibly healing.

It is, but it, it is a, a, a slow changing
cultural norm.
Moose, we, we sort of pedestalthose who would self-sacrifice
and then go home and, terriblefamily life.
But at work, they're a hero.

moose (50:08):
Which,

it's

moose (50:09):
yeah, which is kind of messed up.
I, I, I had a fan very early inmy career within Search and
Rescue.
I was in a, a debrief at thetime in which one of the
participants is a guy who'slike, he's kind of completely
unreadable, like there's noemotion.

(50:29):
And he turned up for the debriefand he said, the reason we are
here is not for the ones who aredoing fine with this.
We are here to, for, for, we arehere to support our colleagues
who may be.
They're a little unsettled.
And he stood there and he saidthat, and at the time he sort of
acknowledged that, you know,some people were uncomfortable
and he was okay, but he waslike, I'm here to support you.

(50:51):
And that was incredibly powerfulto have one of these really
upper level rescuers who do allthe real hero stuff under the,
the helicopter sort of say, I'mhere in a support role.
You're not alone.
Which is the other key in all ofthis is the cost of not treating
it healthily is these failedmarriages, it's unsatisfied

(51:15):
lives, it's substance abuse,and, and it's very worse.
It's ending your life.
The, the, the sort of, the, the,the.
The buildup of all that traumaand all the gifts that you have
as a, as someone trying to,trying to serve other people is
the only option that you face isto end your life.
It's an absolute tragedy, and weshould fight against that every

(51:36):
single day with our peers sothat we say to peers, not How
was your weekend?
You say, what did you do thisweekend?
And if they say, I just sort ofsat around and you're like,
didn't you have anybody to goout with?
And they go, no.
Hey, next time you go, maybe wecould pop out.
I, I don't drink, but we canhave a coffee on Saturday
morning.
You start to show interest ineach other beyond just talking

(51:58):
shop.

Yeah.
Creating room to express andprocess those emotions in a
healthy way.

moose (52:06):
Yeah.
And you've, I mean, I, I, I'velost people that I know who've
chosen to end their lives,who've who, who've worked on
exposure within emergencyservice in law enforcement and
the.
The disconnect that allows'em toget to that decision.

(52:26):
All of us bear responsibilityto, uh, dig a little deeper, be
a little friendlier, be kinderand more forgiving, uh, to our
peers to fight against thatloss.

Yeah.
It's, it's a, it's a tragedywhen one of your peers has to
die for that to be the up callfor the organization to start
giving attention to this, startworking with Responder Alliance
and creating stress resiliencystructures that previously
weren't there.

moose (53:04):
And I, another good place to look is the Quail Foundation,
which is looked targetingspecifically the mental health
issues in and around respondersand the, and the challenge of,
of.
Of suicide within that group isanother place I recommend people
to look, uh, because it's, it'sa fantastic resource.

(53:25):
It'cause you're in a positionwhere you're talking with
like-minded people trying tofigure out how to support your
community.
I.

Yeah.
I'll tell you, it's five yearsout now from.
and recently on some emergencymedicine podcasts, they've
started doing kind ofretrospectives and only now are
we starting to kind of processthat whole period I think a lot
of us, I was in training too, soit was like kind of different
layers of stress, but to dealwith those high intensity

(53:57):
situations with lots ofunknowns, with risk to yourself,
risk to other people, and asense of lot that is, that is
beyond your control and that youcan't affect sometimes.
The only way to deal with that,that in the moment, and maybe
you can relate to this in, in arescue context, is you need to
yourself from it and youcompartmentalize, right?

(54:19):
You,

moose (54:20):
Yeah.

you, you do what you can operationalize.
But if there's no time laterwhere you turn back and address
that other part of yourself.
That stuff starts to come outand man, it has taken me
probably all 36 of my years tofigure out, I have to feel my
feelings like

moose (54:38):
and, and it ultimately, it comes down to leadership and
peer leadership.
It's having the relationshipswhere you can show what is
perceived as weakness.
And actually I perceive it ashonesty.
It's this, this idea that we, Iwanna say rebrand it in a way
that in the same way that weexpect, um, a level of

(55:04):
professionalism is, is clearnessin our communication.
And to really say when we're notdoing well.
It's this long, that five yearsyou talk about where it's, it's
been, it's been compressed andit's been the pressured and it's
taken it, and it's this littlesharp diamond that knows away

(55:25):
inside your soul.
And it's there and it's, and ithas to be unearthed.
It has to be brought to thelight, and it has to be either
looked at as, oh, this isultimately enriched and
strengthened me.
Which it can, and it can also besomething that's really pulling
you down and it needs to be sortprofessionally processed and,

(55:46):
and not cast out, but, but putto the side.
I, I think it's interesting youtalk about time and how long it
takes.
Five years is a long time in aprofession.

Right.
Yeah.

moose (55:59):
I.

I mean, it's the better part of my professional
career, and I think the, themain, the main problem, at least
in, in medicine, is that we,everyone suffers from.
Imposter syndrome.
We all think that at some pointwe're gonna be discovered to not

(56:21):
be as amazing as, as everyoneelse thinks we are.
a, it is a terrible problem intraining, but it, it never
really gets better.
One day your peers will discoverthat you're not as smart as, as
they are, and you're not ascapable as you make yourself out
to be.
And so it feels like there's arisk if you show that you are
emotionally affected by thingsthat you're, you're sort of

(56:42):
tipping your cards and, andshowing, oh, actually he, he
isn't that, you know, superhero.
But as you said, I think thatthat invites peers to show that
part of themselves as well andcreates opportunity for all of
you to become more open,well-rounded humans who are

(57:06):
capable of, of sustaining acareer.
In a, in a field that isextremely challenging.
Right?
It's, it's the same in emergencymedicine as in search and
rescue, where you I'm sure havehad colleagues that you've seen
come in great characters, lotsof energy, incredible technical

(57:27):
expertise, and within years kindof fizzle out and have to go do
something else.

moose (57:33):
Oh yeah, the implosion and I, and I, I mean, it starts
with us individually believingthe myth.
It's, it's, we're fallible.
We're, we're, we're not as greatas we think we are.
That's okay.
It's who.
Living the lie.
Like if you, if you, if youcould come out and, and, and say

(57:55):
professionally, Hey, this iswhere I'm at, and people dump on
you.
It's not pleasant, but it's abetter place to be than, than
pretending it isn't existing.
It, it's,

But I think a, a lot of times it's, I.
it till you make it is, is areal strategy that gets people
into really interesting placesand in into great roles.
It's how you, it's how medicalschool works.
to a certain extent, I think,you know, putting yourself out
there and taking professionalrisk is probably what has
brought you into a number ofinteresting roles in your life.

(58:30):
But then there comes a pointwhere the strategies that have
gotten us to where we are noware no longer serving us.
Those, those kind of like, I'mjust gonna put my head down,
grin and bear.
It no longer a sustainablestrategy and it, it requires a,
a

moose (58:46):
yeah.

and a and a change of understanding.

moose (58:49):
And we lose a lot of good people.
It's like if you're at thatpoint where you've got that
degree of reflection and you'vehad that volume or that level of
experience, that's wherementorship is born out because
you've been to that difficultplace.
And if you don't articulate itto somebody who's just getting
in, there's a really powerfullesson there.

(59:12):
I, I think that one of thethings that within emergency
services that stands out for me,the really good mentors are able
to articulate intuitive action.
So the things that they donaturally organize in the back
of the ambulance or, or this ishow I put a line in and how line
stuff up.
You don't even think about it.
If you can talk through it witha new EMT,

Mm-hmm.

moose (59:32):
this benefit of your distilled knowledge from the
last eight to 10 years and theylearn it on the, in their first
four months.
Wow.
Where are they gonna be in 10years time?
And so our professional legacy.
Isn't just in treatment ofpatients in front of us, it's
how do we set up the nextgeneration of EMTs, paramedics

(59:55):
to, to go on this and exceedwhere I'm at?
How do we share that distilledknowledge?
And it, there's, there's suchpower in that'cause you start to
see your own self-worth as well.
You're like, oh, I actually knowwhat I'm doing.
Wow.
That's a really good trick.
Um, so I, I think that that'salmost a great place to, to

(01:00:17):
start as a group is to all sitaround as a team and go, I want
you to count with your top threetricks of the trade.
And you put'em all up andthere'll be some overlap.
You are like, wow, look at allthat distilled knowledge and
let's add up how many yearswe've got.
How are we gonna give this as asort of handout to next group?
And it's a really easy place tostart sharing'cause it's
professional.

(01:00:40):
You drift into that personalplace when you've built that,
that understanding of trust andsharing of information.

Patrick Fink (01:00:49):
Do you think that that's given you career
longevity as you, you have to belooking at to some degree and
saying there's a, there's a daywhere jumping in a river isn't
for rescue purposes, isn't gonnamake a lot of sense anymore.

moose (01:01:04):
Oh, it already doesn't make sense.
Like I have this, the mostamazing, uh, colleague that I
work with, Zach, who's a former,uh, surf lifeguard, and he's
like a fish, he's a torpedo.
And if I didn't have Zach when Iwas teaching, I probably
wouldn't be teaching because Ineed this, this guy who's

(01:01:25):
basically a jet ski to go outthere and demonstrate
everything.
And it, so part of, part ofknowing, you have to recognize
what your limitations are.
And it comes pretty quick.
When you get through yourforties, you're like, I'm still
a badass.
And then your fifties, every sooften, you're a badass.

(01:01:46):
And like, I'm gonna be 60 nextmonth.
And, and I was a badass.
Like it's, it's, it's okay.
It's, I carry a bit more weight.
I, I can't swim quite like Iused to, but I'm a really good,
I still float great with a PFDon so I can, that's 90% of the
job.
And, and you just go intosomething else.
You, you, you, you allowyourself to keep evolving and,

(01:02:10):
and life, life is not static.
We, we, you, you have it visitedto you.
Every time you take a gurneyout, put a patient on there is
you, you are faced withmortality.

mm-hmm.

moose (01:02:21):
And so we have to continue to grow.
And it's hard'cause we go intothe unknown, but it's, I mean,
one of the greatest things thatany medical practitioner could
do is become a bettercommunicator and teacher.
Because you're in a commandposition where you kind of need
to know what you're happeningand, and what happens with that

(01:02:41):
is you can kind of be a reallycrap teacher because you're
kinda like, I know the answers.
And you have to sort of take astep back and go, well, maybe
the first thing I'm gonna dowhen I teach somebody is ask a
question and have them evolvethe answer.
So it's rediscovering thatcommunication skill to allow
somebody to grow with yourencouragement.

Do you think that there are, are roles within,
this is a leading question.

moose (01:03:10):
Yes.

Is, is the, is the family liaison role one that you
think is, is better by someonewho has been, been through the
ringer and is more experiencedwithin the organization?

moose (01:03:25):
I, I think 80, 80 or 90% would, being a good family
liaison is being a certain typeof human being who is very, very
comfortable with death.
You know, and sort of the, youknow, the forces that are out
there and they have goodcommunication skills, and the
other 10% is learning thesystem.
So I, I think it's people comeinto the role already equipped.

(01:03:51):
They just need to learn thesystem.
Did that answer,

of, yeah,

moose (01:03:56):
that answer the question?

Mm-hmm.
Are those sorts of people bornor can they be made.

moose (01:04:01):
But, um, they're both, they're like, there's intuitive
people who are, like, the personwho trained me was a great
hugger.
Like she, she, she is like an,she was like an Italian grandma.
Like her, her entire persona inthat moment is, I'm gonna have
the most amazing spaghettidinner'cause I need to be fed.

(01:04:22):
You know, I need to be lookedafter.
And she just radiates love andconnection.
And that's her style.
Like she, that is, that is whothat person is.
And I have other people,there's, there's somebody I work
with who's basically a standupcomedian and they're incredibly
gifted because they find humorin everything.
And they're very fast thinkingand they're incredibly

(01:04:44):
organized, but they'reintuitive.
They look at situations andthey, they make good calculated
decisions.
And I would, and they areyounger and I think they're
absolutely amazing.
So it's, and they learned thesystem, they learned, you know,
oh, this is how I do it withinthe system.

Mm-hmm.

moose (01:05:03):
But it's,

you would need a very strong intuition to use
humor consistently in thatcontext.
'cause that could go awry.

moose (01:05:11):
yeah, I mean, like, but, but that's that idea of, of
where are the family at and youare figuring out and reading the
situation

Mm-hmm.

moose (01:05:22):
and it's, this person is particularly gifted.
They, the, the way they can readtheir audience is exceptional,
which is what a good comedianis.
They look at the crowd and theygo, okay, where can I go with
this?
What's my boundary?
And they're, they read itconsistently.
They're an interpreter.

(01:05:43):
So they, they've got thatbackground of, of working with
disparate groups.

If, if someone listening wanted to bring an
awareness of the need for thiskind of communication skill into
their organization, into theirsearch and rescue group or ski
patrol, and wanted to to thatline, SAR member or or ski
patrol are the value of this,how can you imagine like

(01:06:11):
designing some kind of trainingscenario that would just make it
blatantly apparent to them theneed for this within the
organization.

moose (01:06:20):
I think you can sit there particularly in ski patrol and
say, when was the last fatalityyou dealt with?
And you can tabletop it as anexercise.
And what will emerge for thepretty clearly is a, a
underwhelming response to thefamily because liability at, at
ski areas says, don't sayanything.

Right.

moose (01:06:43):
And actually I advocate say a lot because they, if
you're gonna be sued, you'regonna be sued.
And if a family says, actually,they're really nice to me on the
stand.
That can really affect yourjudgment'cause you didn't treat
them with contempt.

Yeah.

moose (01:07:00):
I think that's a good place to look is, is what have
we done in the past and how has,how has it been a problem?
So if you doing a water recoveryand you hear the family sort of
rushed the beach as the body wasbeing pulled out and you analyze
it, you realize that nobody wason point

Mm-hmm.

moose (01:07:18):
the family in a location and explain to'em what's gonna
happen and how you, they weregonna be able to be with the
body in the back of theambulance and have some privacy
before it, before the ambulanceleaves.
So you've set up what's gonnahappen.
You, you, you basically identifywhere the gaps are and if you,

(01:07:40):
and on a level of staffing, ifyou have a good family liaison
program, you reduce the traumathat the rest of the team goes
through.

Hmm.

moose (01:07:50):
You.

everyone is, is facing that emotional energy
from the family.

moose (01:07:55):
Yeah, when a family, uh, when a family wants to have that
connection with the team andsay, thank you for bringing
their loved one home who's died,it's coming from a really good
place.
They want to, they wanna share.
But, but I know and I see thoseand the team know, it's kind of
hard when you've got a momcoming up to you and just
crying.

Mm-hmm.

moose (01:08:15):
I dunno if I've got 34 of those experiences in me.
'cause I just really like movingthe litter.
My skill is moving the litter.
It isn't hugging a, a distraughtmom.
So I think I would say workthrough your incidents and
you'll see where the gaps are.
And at that point you can lookat something like the Responder

(01:08:37):
Alliance and say, Hey, there's areally good program there that
trains up how to, how to workspecifically along the stress
continuum with families affectedby it.
Or you can look within theinstant command such and look at
the family liaison set up forthese bigger incidents.
There's really good work.
Nicole, Dr.
Nicole Lester in Britain did awhole bunch of interviews with

(01:09:01):
families affected by loss andhow they interacted with their
family, uh, liaison officer.
It's a great hour, uh, YouTubevideo where she took, comes out
with really good information.
That's science, it's facts, andit shows why that role has

(01:09:21):
value.

I will chase that down and, and put that along
with Responder Alliance and theother resources you've

moose (01:09:27):
I'll send you the, I'll send you the, I'll send you the
link.

Okay.
Very good.
Yeah.
I, one, one passage that struckme from your book that seems
pertinent, um, is there is aclock ticking inside of every
responder that records everysecond of traumatic exposure and
banks it for a future breakdown.

(01:09:52):
People discount it and say, notme.
some on the surface it appearstrue, but examine the road
they're on and patterns emerge.
Unhealthy choices, binging,bickering, insignificant
disagreements fester up andmetastasize misdirected rage.
a reckoning at some point.

(01:10:13):
I think that that fullyillustrates the need to really
come back to the, the stresscontinuum and, and have
structures to both minimizetrauma for the team, but also
address the trauma that thatdoes arise.

moose (01:10:29):
Yeah.
And, and what you wanna do ishave a long career.
So if you manage that trauma andyou surface it and you, and you
treat it, you'll have decadesmore in the thing you love doing
and you won't be angry and youwon't make bad decisions and you
won't have this unsatisfied lifeoutside the job.

(01:10:53):
I like that definition oftrauma, which says trauma is
what stops us living the life wewanna live.
And, and that's such a powerfulsentence.
'cause what it says iseverybody's trauma is different.
Nobody owns exclusivity to, tothe worst trauma.
'cause we, it's whatever stopsus living the life we wanna live

(01:11:15):
and we have a resp, we, we, whenwe're faced with the mortality
every day of other people, I.
It shouldn't put us in aposition.
Understand why.
We get, we get drawn down and weget worn down by that.
But it's also a reminder what,how precious life is and to live
every moment.

So I, I wanna bring us back to something
lighthearted to end ourconversation, but before we do,
I, I would ask you if, if, ifyou are speaking to someone
who's at the beginning of theircareer in wilderness medicine,
search and rescue, where they'rebringing their, you know, their

(01:12:00):
passion for a sport and theirtechnical competence into line
with maybe medical expertise or,or, um, volunteering within an
organization, and they're, andthey're starting on their
career, they feel like possiblythe most important thing that
they can do is become competentin these technical domains.
What else would you have them donow to most, not insulate them,

(01:12:25):
but make them resilient to.
challenges that grind peopledown in the middle of their
career to the trauma, to thestress, what?
What can they do early?
What are the skills they cantake on?

moose (01:12:37):
Learn how to build a community that isn't around the
job.
Learn, learn to build friendsthat are able to listen to you
without passing judgment.
And a community that offers youmore than just more work speak.
'cause that gives you theinsulation and within that have

(01:12:58):
hobbies that extend beyondreally, really good, uh,
management of airways.
It's, it's having these thingsthat are different but
complimentary.

Mm-hmm.

moose (01:13:12):
So the idea that if you work in the, you are working in
wounds, medicine, make sure yougo out and hike a bunch and camp
a bunch and go with people whoare really clean bird watchers
and, and really have no ideaabout what you do.
And maybe talk about a bit, butlearn more about birds.
And so the idea of a generalistis, is, is a way to be healthy.

(01:13:35):
I'm a generalist.
I have competency in differentareas.
I'm not an expert in anything.
It's, and it's, it's, and it'salso really great to realize
that you are, for the most part,we're incredibly ordinary.
We're not exceptional.
It takes a lot of pressure offis the idea that I don't have to
be exceptional.
Oh, I could just be Audreyawesome.

(01:13:57):
And every so often I'll dosomething that's kind of
reasonably competent and good.
But be fair to yourself.
Like I was a, I wasn't a greatstudent.
I, I was the, I think I was theonly kid in my high school that
didn't go to college at thestart.
I went and I got a minimum wagejob working on a fish farm, and
I, I left my sort of school lifeand I went straight into a 60

(01:14:20):
hour week for, for$35 a week.
It's, it's, we are very ordinaryand at moments we do things that
are extraordinary that, that arereally exciting and they, that
you save a life, but you do itwith it isn't you.
It's all the knowledge thatyou've got.
It's so in, in saying all ofthis is be fair on yourself and

(01:14:43):
be humble.
It's,

it's putting down that, uh, syndrome that I was
talking about earlier.
That character that you put onto go to work.

moose (01:14:54):
yeah.
It's, it, it's, it's, it's okayto be valuable.
I mean, it's not, it's not okayto go out there and, and give
the wrong drug combination andfail to, to follow procedure,
but that's just me.
It's like you kind of got theseequations you have to follow and
these procedures, which is kindof a framework and it's easy to

(01:15:18):
lose your way and lose who youare and then suddenly discover
at 40, you have to rediscoverthat and it, it, I I've always
had a very lighthearted outlookon life, even with all the
tragedy and stuff that's goingon.
I, and I put that down to my dadwas a, was a real comedian about

(01:15:39):
everything.
And that lightness is reallyimportant to remember in life,
even when we're consumed by allthis heaviness is don't lose
that'cause at the at, at the, atthe soul of everything that we
do.
It should, we should getsatisfaction and enjoyment out
of it.
And if we aren't, it's, it isprobably time to do something
else.

Right.
I would really recommend to theaudience your book searching,
because I think it, one, it'sjust really fascinating to get
inside your world and and hearsome of these experiences from
Yosemite.
also you can, I can see, I feellike I can see in real time.
that you use humor and otherpositive means to process, you

(01:16:23):
know, these difficultsituations.
I mean, you're dealing withpeople who are dying left and
right, and, and families who aretraumatized, but there's, uh,
something in moose motlow thatcan make light of it

moose (01:16:37):
Make it lighter and it, all we're trying to do is put
things in a digestible form.
It's, there's a, the chameleon'sthe most amazing animal, you
know, the chameleon where itchanges its color to match the
background.
And I, I'm fascinated by that.

(01:17:00):
'cause not only that, but it'salso got these sort of
independent eyes that can lookall over the place.
It's kind of cool.
And I think a chameleon adaptsto the situation and tries to
stay hidden.
And it does that'cause itdoesn't wanna be at risk or it's
hunting.
Right.
That's what it's trying to do.
And I think the richness.
That we bring as individualsshouldn't be hidden.

(01:17:23):
So a team is made up of, of, ofpeople who shouldn't be hiding.
You kind of that out in theforeground, you know who each
other are, and at that point,you know your strengths and
weaknesses and you play to yourstrengths and you work on your
weaknesses.
And that's being human.
It's, it's okay.
Don't hide.

All right, moose.
Let's turn it around and, andtalk about something
lighthearted so that everyonecan relax their shoulders.
After this conversation, can youshare with the audience the
story from your book, searchingabout the discovery of the
finger?

moose (01:18:03):
Oh, that's just, well, I like this story, uh, because it
has so many, it says so muchabout rescue.
So a, I think it was a, a dadand his son were out.
Fishing on the Masad and theywere just walking along the bank
and they looked down and therein the water is a human finger

(01:18:25):
right on the edge of the water.
And the dad takes out and looksand goes, that's a human finger.
And this is, I think the heightof summer or something.
It's quite busy and it getscalled out to 9 1 1 and very
quickly we muster up and westart looking for the rest of
the body.
And we've got people on theriver.
The south side is a completelypumped'cause they've got, like,

(01:18:47):
they're out there on boogieboards, just swimming along with
fins and they're lookingeverywhere.
And if we've got a a finger,there's a lot more, there's 99%
of our body is out there thatwe've gotta look for.
And they look and look and lookand the finger ends up in a bag
of ice in the ic and the instantcommands are sitting there

(01:19:09):
dealing with this scaling up.
Summertime, uh, response.
And somebody happens to wanderin and says, what's happening?
And, and you very quick, oh,it's kind of exciting.
We found a finger.
You know, and there's lots ofguessing about how the finger
got there.
And,

stories.
Yeah.

moose (01:19:27):
and then at some point the person goes, oh, can I have
a look?
And, you know, oh yeah, I'llhave a look.
And they open it up and theylook in there, and at that point
there's this realization,actually, it's not a finger.
The person looks at it and goes,that's a chicken gizzard, which
is used for bait for fish.
So we had, we had, we hadabsolutely scaled this enormous
response looking for a, a humanbody.

(01:19:49):
We, it turned out we werelooking, we should've been
looking for a chicken body allright.
Out there.
So the great gizzard search wascalled off.
We never, we never resolvedwhere that chicken was,
unfortunately.
Yeah.

A number of heroes.

moose (01:20:05):
Yeah.
Not least the person who walkedin and went, that's a chicken
gizzard.
I love that fact because it's soridiculous that we, nobody at
the time looked at it.
If you look at the chickengizzard, it kind of, it does
look like a human finger, butthen when you know it's a
chicken gizzard, you're like,that's a chicken gizzard.
There's no doubt about it.
It's not a finger.
The suggestibility of emergency.

(01:20:26):
Yeah.

Yeah.
The, the early closure, that's afinger.
Therefore, everything else

moose (01:20:33):
It's, but there, there's lunacy out there, all over the
place.
Like there was a group, one ofmy favorite things ever was I
was working an incident in whichtwo men have gone out at the
start of a major winter storm,and it's kind of odd, right?
The, the wife has rung up andsaid they haven't come back.

(01:20:56):
And we find their car up atBadger Pass and.
The wife is a little bit evasiveabout why they were out there
under these conditions and whatthey end up eventually
investigating.
And she cracks.
She goes, listen, they'relooking for buried tre treasure.
And it was like that, uh, therewas a guy, remember this

there's some book, right?

moose (01:21:17):
fern something or other, and he, he'd written this book
about buried treasure andthere's, there's like a budget
version, there's like a cheapversion of this story.
And these two men, it was afather and son, had decided that
they'd found exactly where thistreasure was buried in Yosemite,
despite it saying in the book,it's not in a national park.
And what had given it away tothem was they had discovered two

(01:21:39):
trees that have fallen acrosseach other in the woods in a Big
X.
And it was visible on GoogleEarth.
And they headed out to look forthese big trees in the middle of
winter as a big winter storm wasstarting

Have to get there before everyone

moose (01:21:53):
Everybody else.
So they go out there and they'rewoefully inadequately, like, uh,
prepared really early on.
One of them falls through, uh,like an ice bridge and drops in
the creek and they're soakingwet and they're trying to make a
fire and it just becomes a totalepic.
And they had videoed theirdeparture and sent a video.

(01:22:15):
So they were really upbeat andyou could see they were totally
ill-equipped to be out there.
And we are, we are walkingaround looking for them, and we
find the sun, the sun sort ofstumbles up onto a snowshoe
trail, and his dad has actuallygiven up.
His dad has been like, I can'tgo on, just leave me behind to
die here.
And he's like a hundred feetaway.

yourself.

moose (01:22:34):
And so it's this ludicrous nest of like, they
were, they were, they werefocused on the prize.
They were totally inadequate.
They were totally pumped for anadventure, and it all went
terribly wrong.
We laugh about it now becauseit's like, oh, they came through
it, they actually survived.
But it could have been sotragically wrong.
And that is, that's on a lot ofsars.

(01:22:54):
Like there are stories of thatall over the place of people
coming this close to disaster,but having a great story going
on.
And just to tell you thattreasure was not there.
All right.
It wasn't in the park.
And trees fall across each otherthe whole time.

I think I've seen that before.

moose (01:23:11):
Yeah.

Alright.
Moose.
Um, are, are you familiar withany other, I, so I mentioned
that I really enjoyed your book.
Are you familiar with any otherbooks, other memoirs, other
texts with, uh, experience fromrescue that, that you enjoy?

moose (01:23:30):
Uh uh, it's kind of, it's a thin, it's a thin, uh, genre,
uh, that is out there.
Um, there's a Ranger Noir, whichis, which is a good, good read,
which is an, which is a lawenforcement ranger who's based
down the Sequoia Kings, which isa, which I would recommend.
It's an easy, it's an easy readand it's a good storyteller.

(01:23:55):
And there is, there's anotherstory, and I can't remember the
name of it, which is a rangerthat disappears.
Randy Mortenson, I thinkdisappears down in Sequoia.
And it's about a long search toresolve his disappearance.
And that is a great read in thenational parks.
Um, and then there's a bookcalled The Cold Vanish, which

(01:24:15):
is, um, cold vanishing.
Cold vanish, which is about adisappearance in Olympic
National Park.
And about the dynamics oflooking, the family, looking
for, um,

someone Gray

moose (01:24:32):
yeah.
Yeah, and it's definitely onesided.
It's, it's the da it'sessentially the dad's story, but
it, it gives you an idea thecomplexity of response

Mm-hmm.

moose (01:24:42):
and jurisdiction.

Fantastic.
All right.
I'll put, I'll, I'll chase thosedown and throw those in the show
notes as well.
Finally, if um, folks want moreMoose Motlow, they want to
connect with you, want to lookat your trainings or, or learn
more about you, where, where isMoose Motlow on the

moose (01:24:59):
Uh, I'm in a few places now.
Um, I've got a website, ww dotmoose motlow.com, and that talks
about trainings and someresources and some links.
I'm on Blue Sky at Moose Motlow.
I'm on Substack at Moose Motlow.
I'm on Instagram at MooseMotlow, and yeah, I'm, I'm happy
to, to chat with people and totalk through what they're trying

(01:25:24):
to do or how they're trying toscale their own programs.

Fantastic.
Well, moose, I've really enjoyedthis conversation.
It went a little, littlefurther, a little deeper, a
little more emotional than I wasexpecting, uh, which I probably
not surprising given thesubject.
But I'd love to have you onagain in the future and
everything, all the wisdom thatyou bring to the table from

(01:25:48):
years and years doing the thing.

moose (01:25:50):
And good luck, Patrick.
Good, good luck on yourrehabbing.
Um, aggressively rest andaggressively rehab.
Um, yeah, I've enjoyed theopportunity to have a chat and
yeah, good luck.

That's it for this episode of Wilderness Medicine
Updates.
Thanks for listening, man.
What an episode.
Definitely the longestwilderness medicine updates
discussion to date, but I thinkMoose Motlow deserves it, and
you deserve all the moose Motlowthat we can bring to you.
So I hope that that was a usefuldiscussion, kinda wide ranging,

(01:26:32):
you know, really started withthe family liaison officer idea
and then moved from there intothinking about.
Managing trauma and how to dothat so you can have a long
career in search and rescue andwilderness medicine.
Do take a look at the resourcesin the show notes.
I hope that if anyone out thereis experiencing burnout, isn't

(01:26:55):
loving what they used to love,that you reach out, get help.
If as an organization, this issomething you struggle with,
reach out to the ResponderAlliance.
They do trainings for groups.
They have online trainings, andthey're really invested.
In helping the people who aredoing the job, they understand
what you do and they want tohelp.
So with that, don't hesitate toreach out Wilderness medicine

(01:27:21):
updates@gmail.com.
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(01:28:05):
it or someone who needs to hearit.
And that's the best way that youcan bring another ski patroller,
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I appreciate your time.
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Until next time, stay fit, stayfocused, and have fun.

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Ep. 22 - Moose Mutlow: Yosemite Swiftwater SAR, Family Liaison Officer, and longevity in rescue.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 22 - Moose Mutlow: Yosemite Swiftwater SAR, Family Liaison Officer, and longevity in rescue.