Memories as a pioneering ski patroller and nurse:(Part 1:2) When we had no radios and so much more

Carol Fountain shares her 50-year journey with the National Ski Patrol at Bogus Basin, Idaho, providing a fascinating glimpse into the evolution of mountain rescue from the 1970s to today. Her perspective as both a nurse and longtime patroller reveals how emergency care, equipment, and ski culture have transformed over five decades.

The PNWD History Project:  Shirley Cummings, the official history project coordinator, (& all around fabulous lady), has been on a mission: Collect and assemble an archive of stories and pictures from the different ski patrols within the Pacific Northwest Division. Hence, Patroller Chats was born! 

Chapters

• 1:58 Meet Carol Fountain, 50-year patroller
• 4:12 Early patrol days in the 1970s
• 11:46 From Red Cross to OEC
• 13:56 First memorable rescues
• 18:45 Communication before radios
• 21:29 Evolution of ski injuries
• 25:10 Tough roadside rescue
• 30:29 Ski patrol's lasting impact

Transcript

Murphy: 0:59

Okay, so we're on today with Carol Fountain, so I'm going to have you introduce yourself. So, carol, tell me who you are, where you patrol, give me your NSP number and if you have a national number, which I hear you do, go ahead and give me that.

Carol Fountain: 1:16

Oh okay, my name is Carol Fountain and I have patrolled mostly at Bogus Basin, idaho. I did some interim registering with the Administrative Unit of Pacific Northwest Division, but for the most part with Bogus Basin. I do have a patroller number, easy to remember 1-4-5-4-3-2. And yes, I do have a national number, 5-9-8-0.

Murphy: 1:51

Wow. So when did you get that national number?

Carol Fountain: 1:55

19. Oh, I had to go look at the chart.

Jodie: 2:05

Back in the old days, when it starts with a 19,.

Murphy: 2:08

You're forgiven for not knowing exactly 1982.

Carol Fountain: 2:12

I joined the patrol in 1972. And the first year it was three weeks before candidate training and I came down with bronchitis and my doctor said you are not going up to the mountains. So I did candidate for a second year.

Murphy: 2:30

Oh, my goodness, did you start candidate year and then have to go back and repeat any of it?

Carol Fountain: 2:37

Yes, ouch, that's painful, painful, painful. Oh, painful, painful, painful. Well, and you have to remember, back in those days we didn't have OEC classes, it was Red Cross. So that was easy to you know, do and then do all the refreshers.

Murphy: 2:56

So all right, so we're just going to, we're going to dive right in on this.

Carol Fountain: 3:12

So when did, just as confirmation.

Jodie: 3:16

We go we being the Ski Patrol from Red Cross to WEC, to OEC?

Carol Fountain: 3:20

That's yes and it's okay, it's okay, way back when I mean that's a good time.

Jodie: 3:27

I like that time, that's way back when.

Carol Fountain: 3:39

A WBW or WEC to OEC, because I went to a meeting of first aid people in the central area, yakima or wherever it was that we always met, and Jan Stanford and I did a funeral service for OEC and I remember that because we were dressed in black gowns, we had a box, good-sized box, in front and that was the casket and we had something in the box that was, you know, oec, and we played a music, you know a hymn, on the—.

Murphy: 4:34

You sang a little Amazing Grace and then buried the box.

Carol Fountain: 4:38

It was Amazing Grace, good Lord, but that was the start of OEC.

Murphy: 4:44

Oec from wec right, so you were burying weck and uh you were uh birthing oec, is that it? Yeah okay because you said you were burying oec. I'm going.

Carol Fountain: 4:56

That may have been a little premature oec is dead was our theme at that meeting.

Murphy: 5:03

You mean WEC?

Carol Fountain: 5:06

WEC sorry.

Murphy: 5:07

No, that's okay. You got OEC just on the brain now, because that's what we have.

Carol Fountain: 5:12

Right.

Murphy: 5:13

Okay, so when did we go from Red Cross to Wilderness Emergency Care?

Carol Fountain: 5:20

That's another good question. I don't remember. That's another good question, I don't remember. However, I do remember and a lot of people don't realize we still had a Division First Aid Advisor when we were still doing Red Cross and I was the Division First Aid Advisor and I had to resign. Oh, I was having some health problems at the time, so I resigned, and that's about the time they were going into WEC. And again, I don't remember. I've given away all of my historical papers and stuff to a local patroller and I'm hoping that he's kept it, but I'm not sure.

Jodie: 6:02

And who is that local patroller so we can follow up, because we don't want to lose history.

Murphy: 6:07

Shirley actually wants to hunt him down, yeah.

Carol Fountain: 6:09

Because she's the historian.

Murphy: 6:11

She's always wanting that stuff.

Carol Fountain: 6:13

Yeah, yeah.

Murphy: 6:15

So feel free to name his name here so everybody can hear and yeah, we'll look for him.

Carol Fountain: 6:22

Yeah, well, that's the Air Force light colonel from here. And I don't remember his name at the moment.

Murphy: 6:30

Remember.

Carol Fountain: 6:30

I'm old.

Murphy: 6:34

Okay, well, let's go back to that. So you joined in 1972. Wound up having to go through your candidate class twice. Yes, so why did you join the ski patrol? Well, first of all, I hate to do this as a man asking a woman this question, but how old were you when you joined the patrol?

Carol Fountain: 6:59

I was 31. And I had just come back from graduate school and I had only been taking skiing, had started skiing five years earlier, and so I wanted and, by the way, on my first ski lesson I broke my leg, oh no and didn't let the ski patrol haul me off. I skied down. I have a long history with ski patrol, but but not a first time, all right.

Carol Fountain: 7:36

And I. At the time I was working again and it was like, okay, I need to do something that keeps me active and also I want to contribute to the community and use my healthcare background that I have. So I joined the ski patrol and stayed in it. For what? 52, 53 years, wow patrolling for 55 decades.

Murphy: 8:11

Yes, wow, are you still an active?

Carol Fountain: 8:13

patroller. Oh no, no I, I have too many artificial joints to do that. Um, I have been alumni for several years okay, are you an you an active alumni?

Murphy: 8:23

let me ask.

Carol Fountain: 8:24

Yes, as far as I know. Well, that's good.

Murphy: 8:27

Okay, you pay your dues, you do your happiness and you go to events here and there.

Carol Fountain: 8:41

Oh yeah, I went to division meeting last year in Eugene and I will go this year, this next year, next year in Boise. But you know, again, I'm old, it takes a while to to uh drive some of those distances and so I kind of limit, and besides I don't know anybody at the meetings anymore well, you can't say that now.

Murphy: 8:57

Now that you are being interviewed on patroller chats, you know us and you can come up and say hi, so feel free, you've got some friends at the convention, you know, and you can sit there through. Uh, you know those long seminars at the very end, or is that the, the general meeting?

Murphy: 9:16

it's okay when they nag about money and all kinds of other stuff. But, um, yeah, I know it's great when we get, uh, alumni patrollers that are there because you get some history. You know we interview people. It's fun. I actually like going to those conventions. Okay, so, 1972, you joined, you wanted to stay, or you wanted to join because you wanted to use some of your you know medical background? What did you get your master's in?

Carol Fountain: 9:43

if I can ask, I have a master's in nursing.

Murphy: 9:46

Oh, you do so you are a full-on medical person.

Jodie: 9:51

You're getting a thumbs up from Jodi yes, but she became a nurse long before I know I did and I thought I was old. I keep telling you I'm old. No, I'm teasing you. When did you get out of nursing? I'm a nursing teacher.

Carol Fountain: 10:08

Uh, 1964 was when I got my license.

Jodie: 10:14

Awesome. Murph was just a little wee little infant when he got her license in 64.

Murphy: 10:23

Uh yeah, depending on what month, I may have not even been here.

Jodie: 10:31

That's all right. You got a few years on me as nursing. I didn't become a nurse until 1990. Oh whoa, okay, that's awesome. Thank you for all your years of doing that.

Murphy: 10:41

Yeah. So think back. You know, this time where you now have your nursing degree, you join the patrol and every patroller you know has their first day on the mountain. You've been through OEC, You're now going up to the mountain, so tell me what your first day on the mountain was like.

Carol Fountain: 10:58

After 53 years, you expect me to remember that.

Murphy: 11:01

Well, okay, well, how about this? What was your most memorable day, early on?

Carol Fountain: 11:10

Oh, let's see.

Murphy: 11:13

Besides breaking her leg, no, actually when you were on the patrol Right. So you're now a patroller. So were you aid room or did you actually go alpine patrol?

Carol Fountain: 11:25

I was an alpine patroller for years until the arthritis made me leave and I had to start getting the artificial joints, and then I went to the aid room.

Murphy: 11:37

You're an Alpine patroller. I want to know you have your red coat and you're actually out now. Oh, no, no, no, oh, wait a minute.

Carol Fountain: 11:47

This was the blue coat or the gold. Oh, that's right. The rusty, the rust colored.

Jodie: 11:51

yes, the rust colored coat with the yellow coat or the gold.

Carol Fountain: 11:53

Oh, that's right, the rusty, the rust colored yes, the rust colored coat with the yellow cross on the back. It was long before red coats, that's right. But anyway, one of the memorable things I can remember is an accident that I came across and I carried a radio because we finally had gotten radios. The patrol had gotten radios on the mountain, and I came across an accident and it was okay. Do you have a broken hip? Do you have a dislocated hip?

Carol Fountain: 12:25

um, and, and actually the patient was a ski school instructor and he ended up with a dislocated hip and we had to get him, of course, into the toboggan and I was skiing by myself at the time, so I had to call for help and all of that kind of thing, and that was very, very interesting. And another one was a time that I held of course I don't know how many of you remember Eddie Orbea, but Eddie was a good friend of mine Of course. He was at Bogus Basin and he was one of my mentors in a lot of stuff and we had a patient that came in and his leg was broken and it was just the skin holding the bones together.

Carol Fountain: 13:20

I mean, if we moved it he would the bones, would have pierced the skin and we had to. And Eddie rode with me as the observer and at that time I was driving a station wagon. We loaded the toboggan into the station wagon because the guy was in so much pain we could not get him out of the toboggan and of course in those days we really didn't have much in the way of helicopter or we didn't even have an ambulance. So I drove the guy to the hospital in the toboggan, with Eddie there to help monitor.

Murphy: 13:54

Ouch.

Jodie: 13:55

Yes, Wow. And thankfully back then our station wagons were large to be able to fit a full-size sled. Yes, Nowadays you'd have half of it have to be all roped and secured.

Murphy: 14:09

Yeah, They'd fold down that seat, though, that all the kids used to sit in in the back and would look out the back secured. Yeah, they had a full down that seat, though. That all the kids used to sit in in the back and would look out the back window. Yeah, I'm sorry, that was just a memory from my youth. So you drove this guy to the hospital. How far was the hospital away?

Carol Fountain: 14:24

Well, bogus Basin is 16 miles up the hill or up from Boise, and the hospital is probably another five, five miles. And of course, the bogus basin road if you've not been here is curvy. There's something like a hundred curves in the road. That's what I've heard. I've never counted them, I just.

Carol Fountain: 15:18

But anyway, he had to have surgery and turned out okay, but he was in a lot of pain well and of course, at the time we didn't have, we had no drugs whatsoever because we were not authorized to give drugs well, wait a minute.

Murphy: 15:32

Wait a minute, this is the 60s. Oh, you couldn't give your patient any drugs we could not give any pain relieving drugs.

Carol Fountain: 15:40

Sorry, I should have clarified that yeah.

Murphy: 15:42

Yeah, let's just be, let's be honest. Okay, so, um, that was the uh, that sounds like a very traumatic call, or a fairly traumatic call. What? What's the funniest call you've ever been on?

Carol Fountain: 15:57

Oh, uh, you know, I don't know that. I can remember one.

Murphy: 16:05

I'm sure there were some all right, well, let's, we'll skip for the call, but what's the most humorous thing that's happened to you?

Carol Fountain: 16:12

on the mountain um, that's another good question. I really have to stop and think. You know, my theory is that if I have to remember something new, something old has to leave my brain. A lot of these things have been pushed out because there are new things coming in.

Murphy: 16:40

So it's like it's the Marie Kondo of memory, right? You're trying to minimizing. If it doesn't make you feel good, you get rid of it.

Carol Fountain: 16:47

Yeah, yeah, yeah that could be.

Murphy: 16:52

Yeah, my mom used to have that thing. Well, if we're going to take one thing in, we got to get rid of something. That's true. Yeah, that's it, so go ahead.

Jodie: 17:01

Oh, you mentioned that you hadn't had radios for a long time, so how was the communication delivered prior to the radios? If someone did get injured, what was that process like?

Carol Fountain: 17:13

Somebody had to ski down to the bottom of the that particular lift area and use the telephone to call the top of the hill where all the sleds were. So it was, and if there was a second person with that accident injury, then we sent them down and said you have to call for, tell them to call for the sled, otherwise we would wait for somebody to come by and send just a bystander down. It was slow getting care for the patients and the area was getting frustrated with the slowness and that's why then we had a big fundraiser kind of thing and bought radios.

Jodie: 18:02

When was that About? What year-ish range?

Carol Fountain: 18:05

I'm thinking that was late 70s, maybe early 80s, but I'm thinking late 70s.

Jodie: 18:16

Wow, that must have been hard. I mean because, like you said, that's a long wait time with your patient, especially if they were really injured. A little long cold, yeah, yes.

Murphy: 18:27

Yeah, not to mention you're playing essentially, a game of telephone.

Carol Fountain: 18:31

Tell somebody to go down and this is what I want you to say when you get to the base area, and then they get down, tell somebody else who tells somebody else who relays it up to the top of the mountain by phone you know Well, and a lot of times the skiers if they were skiing together, the second person that we were sending down didn't know the name of the run, and so we would say you know, okay, go tell and call and we're on this run. And of course they sometimes would forget by the time they got to the bottom. So the guys at the top of the hill might send out two or three people down the runs to see okay, what do we have when? Oh Lord, so radios were a great improvement.

Murphy: 19:21

Yeah, in efficiency and in getting—yeah. Oh my gosh, I can only imagine. I can't imagine being on patrol without a radio. That would be something else, especially if you had a critical patient that you had to deal with. Yes, so what was the difference? You know you're patrolling in the 70s and the 80s. Can you give us like a little decade by decade, what kind of changed in your view in the world of patrolling from those early years until you know you went to alumni?

Carol Fountain: 19:55

from those early years until you went to alumni. In the early years we had accidents, mostly legs, ankles. It was the typical ski boot injury. We had some upper extremity injuries, but not a lot. Well, then the ski industry and the ski population changed and so then snowboards came in. Well, snowboards usually didn't break their ankle, they broke their arms or shoulders or et cetera, et cetera. So that's one of the things. Oh, and then we started getting major injuries because everybody was going faster and so we had people running into trees or, you know, running into other people. So that was another thing of you know, a mass casualty kind of issue.

Murphy: 20:51

Mass casualty.

Carol Fountain: 20:52

Did you have mass casualties at bogus?

Carol Fountain: 20:53

oh well, I'm saying, like you know, two or three people injured

Murphy: 20:58

okay okay, not,

Carol Fountain: 20:59

not really mass casualties

Murphy: 21:01

multiple collisions and that kind of happiness right all right, that's understandable. So, um, can you think back, you know, over your year? Oh, wait a minute, let's this. So that's the 70s, anything like I don't know 80s, 90s, 2000s. Was there much that changed after that? I mean, you got all those changes in the gear right, so you went from wood skis to metal skis and then, you know, to boots. So you're going to start getting boot top fractures.

Carol Fountain: 21:36

Ski schools changed also because they didn't start kids on skis. Kids were on snowboards them. You know the kamikaze snowboarders would not be paying attention and did not know. You know the quote rules of the area, unquote, and it was. You know, always watch out for people and look back before you start out, et cetera, et cetera. And the safety issue was one of a big um promotion that came in in the 90s and continuing even today because safety was a major issue with all of increased population, increased number of skiers. You know, bogus Basin started a trend way back when it was in the 70s or maybe even 80s of a like $200 season pass. So everybody could afford a season pass to ski at Bogus Basin because it was $200. And that was a trend in the industry that other areas looked at seriously because it did increase precipitously the number of peoples on the Hill and the number of injuries.

Murphy: 23:09

Wow.

Jodie: 23:10

Carol, I just have to interrupt. Sorry, murphy, but you're just making my heart swell when I hear about more of safety. Yes, thank you. I'll do my little segment there. Okay, and now I'm backing out.

Murphy: 23:23

So over all your years of patrolling what was I don't know what was one of the toughest calls that you did that you I don't know, you don't have to be first responder on, but you were involved with.

Carol Fountain: 23:36

One of the toughest wasn't on the hill, it was on the road, on the way down, and it was, let's see, 72.

Carol Fountain: 23:50

So it was about 780, somewhere in there, 1980, that's what I'm saying and we were headed down the hill. Sweep had been done, everybody is going down the hill Patrollers, people, skiers, everybody. And we were having a patrol party that night at one of the patrollers party. I don't remember now why, but we were having a party that night. So everybody is patrollers are okay, yeah, let's get down the hill. We need to, you know, get out of ski gear and and head for the party.

Carol Fountain: 24:25

Well, we were close to, we were probably within four miles of town and all of a sudden we could see on one of the curves. The car had not made the curve and so I stopped my truck and stood outside and about. I wasn't the first one there, but there was a patroller down there and he's yelling I need help, I can't find a pulse, yelling I need help, I can't find a pulse. And so of course I go tearing down and I did CPR on this one gal for several minutes until the ambulance got there and they declared her deceased at the time. But we were doing CPR.

Carol Fountain: 25:08

I had somebody come help and I was doing that was when we were doing rescue breathing and so somebody was doing compression. I did both for a while, until somebody else for a while it was just probably less than five minutes. But then somebody was doing compressions and I was doing the rescue breathing, but the gal did not make it and in fact there were four people in the vehicle and two of them survived. Oh, and then we went to the ski patrol party, oh wow, and the people in the car that wrecked had been drinking and I was doing rescue breathing on a gal who'd been drinking wine and so I had a and she regurgitated, so I had. I couldn't drink wine for several weeks after that.

Murphy: 26:02

Yeah, I wouldn't blame you for several years after that.

Jodie: 26:06

That is so hard to switch from. Here's a tragedy trying to deal with all that, the people that did make it, and then you just switch and trying to put stuff behind you. Yeah.

Carol Fountain: 26:23

And of course it took us an hour or more to clear the scene. By the time the police got there, the ambulance got there, we relayed what we had been doing, et cetera. They loaded the survivors up and the non-survivors, and you know, we had to process all that with those individuals before we could go. And then at the patrol party, we were all processing it there too, that's hard.

Murphy: 26:58

Yeah, anyway. Yeah, I was just gonna ask you know what's the long-term effect of that? Have you, you know, ever had flashbacks, or how long did it take you to deal with that, to process that? And then you know, for lack of a better way to say it kind of put it behind you in your memory.

Carol Fountain: 27:18

Probably not as long as it did some of the other individuals because of my healthcare background Right, because I had taken care of people who died before. So that was not an issue, but it was that I couldn't help this person. She was dead before we started, I'm pretty sure, and it probably just for me a few weeks or months, but I'm sure for the other patrollers it took longer because they didn't have that kind of experience that I did.

Jodie: 27:56

And Carol, even though I mean both of us have been in health care for decades, et cetera, and even though we deal with it, there's always sometimes one or multiples that seem to creep back or surprisingly hit you. So it's a hard one to try to ever predict that, et cetera.

Carol Fountain: 28:17

Yeah, that's correct and I remember every time I've taken care of a patient that either died or almost died. So you know, that is something that is a big thing in your memory. It's a big balloon in your memory. Yes, you know, you're a saver at times, or a non-saver when you can't save them.

Murphy: 28:41

Yeah.

Murphy: 28:44

It is a tough thing to go through. I've talked to some people where that's happened and it is a rough gig. So you know, what has Ski Patrol taught you about yourself life? You know that you didn't really expect. I mean you kind of come into this thing having some you know views about what it's going to do, but you know you have a lot of experience in the patrol. I mean, what has it taught you? What has it taught you to do? But you know you've have a lot of experience in the patrol. What I mean, what has it taught you? What has it taught you about yourself too?

Carol Fountain: 29:15

One of the things that I really appreciate from the ski patrol from the time I joined was uh, I call it the community or the family. I have friends lifelong lifelong, you know, 50-year friends of the ski patrol and I still do a lot of things with some of the ski patrollers. We have an old-timers lunch once a month and I get to, you know, visit with other old-timers, although I'm usually the one with the most years there. But, you know, talk about things and it's a family and I have appreciated that because I don't have a family here in Boise anymore. So that's one of the nice things that I appreciate about. So that's one of the nice things that I appreciate about it. One of the other things was just the value of ski patrol to the communities, the fact that we go up on the hill and we're taking care of, you know, preventing accidents or treating accidents or whatever. And I've always been pleased to say, yes, I'm a member of the National Ski Patrol, how's that?

Murphy: 30:39

That's fantastic. That puts a little something in your heart.

Jodie: 30:43

Definitely.

Murphy: 30:44

Yeah. So I mean, did the Ski patrol kind of mold you in any way? It's kind of different, because you work in healthcare during the week and then on the weekends you wind up. You know you just take those skills up to the mountain. But did it teach you anything about yourself?

Carol Fountain: 31:05

you know, up on the mountain you know, up on the mountain I can't remember or think of anything that stands out on my mind about it. I just appreciated the ski patrol for everything, all right, for all that I was able to accomplish in it and the things that the ski patrol does.

Murphy: 31:33

Well, that's. You know. One of the things of talking to a lot of alumni and people who've got decades into the patrol is that you keep seeing this common thread that ski patrol is a community where you get lifelong friends, people that you can associate with, you know, not to mention built-in skiing partners but you know it is. It's that sense of community that really gets people after they've joined. They don't really think of it that much in the process, but it's something that they really take away from it really take away from it.

Carol Fountain: 32:12

Yes, and I think that is again, one of the values of the ski patrol is that they foster that kind of environment and interaction.