Team Training

Team Training
Alcor provided a three-day training course for a team sponsored by Terasem Movement, Inc. (a 501c3 not- for- profit organization). The team, consisting of five personnel who are paramedics/firefighters from Brevard County Fire Department, traveled to the Alcor facility in Scottsdale to tour and learn the field procedures. At the conclusion of their training, they participated in a multi-hour dry run scenario for the team to better understand the flow of the skills they had learned and for Alcor to evaluate the effectiveness of its newly designed training program.

Recent Deployments

April was a busy month for Alcor field work. Two Alcor members had
scheduled surgeries in Arizona during the last week of April. One of
the surgeries was deemed to be high risk. The surgeries were in
Tucson and Phoenix, one day apart. Alcor elected to perform
precautionary standbys for both of them, bringing in three team
members from Suspended Animation, Inc. (SA) from Florida for a joint
deployment exercise with Alcor personnel. This proved invaluable
because just prior to the surgeries, Alcor’s Standby Coordinator,
Regina Pancake, became ill, and Alcor’s Transport Coordinator, Aaron
Drake, was deployed to Canada for a last-minute non-member case in
Vancouver, British Columbia.

Four staff members from Critical Care Research, Inc. (CCR) also joined
the standbys on a voluntary basis to help out (thanks!) after driving the
SA transport vehicle from its California base to Arizona for the standbys.
Aaron Drake returned two days later, in time for the second higher risk
standby, after the family in Canada decided not to proceed with cryonics
arrangements.

Both surgeries were successful, and the members are recovering.
There was another deployment outside the USA in February of this year,
when Regina Pancake spent a week in England preparing a patient for
low temperature shipment to Alcor. A full report of this case will be
published soon.

Alcor’s Transport and Readiness Team Update

The last weekend of March, Alcor’s transport coordinator, Aaron Drake, and
readiness coordinator, Regina Pancake, conducted a training session at the
home of board of director member Michael Riskin, for the Southern
California team. It was a great turnout of 16 people, including everyone at
Critical Care Research, who drove out the Suspended Animation’s rescue
vehicle to familiarize the Southern California team with the capability that
it brings to the region. The team also received the new Alcor ice bath/thumper
unit and practiced the use of it during the session. It was an uplifting, productive
gathering that was run well by Southern California team coordinator Michael
Geisen who kept everyone on task till the end. Food was graciously provided
afterward by Michael Riskin in a relaxing atmosphere.

In the coming months, Alcor will be making the rounds to all the existing
teams, and to some newly forming teams, for training sessions. If you are
interested in participating, please email either
or , who would love to hear from you, our members.
We will be dispersing the more advanced equipment for deployment to the
regions as we either receive it from our manufactures or finish construction
in-house. We look forward to meeting you all and hope that those who are in
the position to donate their time to our first responder teams will add us
to their busy lives.

Our community needs you all. In addition, we will be sending out a survey,
in the near future, that we would like potential team members to fill out.
We are sending it out in batches, so some of you will get it before others.
But please take the time to fill this out and tell us a little about yourselves.

Transport and Readiness

Supply Kits
The estimated costs to update supply kits are being reviewed by management. We expect to order all the remaining portions necessary to complete them in the near future. In the meantime, we have items in stock that require packaging corrections and sterilization before they are put into their proper positions inside the supply kit.

Los Angeles Training
The Los Angeles training went well. Regina Pancake included 3D animations ideal for training showing intubations, combi-tube insertion, Easy I-O, and the FAST I-O.

Ice Bath Production
Our ice bath liners are in production now. The prototype pattern sent out to the vendor was completed. These will work very well for our rescue litter based ice baths. We are limiting them to six at this time due to the current open question of which way to develop the Icebath/Thumper combo that we are researching with Suspended Animation.

Clinical and Readiness

Orders have been placed for the parts and rescue baskets necessary to the construction of our ice bath inventory. A list has been assembled for the components of our new cardiopulmonary support and airway kits, and the ordering will begin once we complete our inventory of the supplies currently on hand. We are still attempting to find a local manufacturer for the ice bath liners, as the one we had built in California was done a little more sloppily than we would like.

The new liner was tested, and it held approximately 200 pounds of ice cold for 95 hours in a room that was on average 17 degrees C/63 degrees F. In warmer temperatures, it should last at least 48 hours. The liner also did not quite fit around a Ziegler case, being a foot too short, but fit inside quite nicely.

We have also completed the construction of our hands-free washing station across from the operating room. This will ensure that surgeons scrubbing in for a procedure do not have to request someone else shut the water off, because the faucet is controlled by foot pedal.