Roving correspondents Judi and Peter Burleigh experience stressful third degree
as they Carry On Up / Down Canals
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Burleigh bateau, Butterfly.
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This
morning Judi and I arrived in Epinal, France, a small city on the edge of the
Vosges Mountains. Over the past few days we have struggled to bring our boat
through dozens of canal locks which cascade in ‘flights’ down the slopes of the
Vosges. This is the region in which Hitler launched his Ardennes Offensive.
This offensive, in hiatus since 1944, has now been renewed by the VNF, the
French authority which manages the canals.
Their so-called automatic flights of
locks are now subject to the vagaries of electronics and the subsequent telephonic
shrugging of their employees when you call to register a plea for
assistance. The locks are no longer operated in person by the devious,
unmotivated and spiteful French lock keepers who could be bribed by a Euro or
two to do their jobs. But this is a diatribe for another time.
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Deck and rope hand Judi
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At
the Port in Epinal, where canaliers can stay overnight at a wharf, the Croix
Rouge Francaise had set up their ‘Caravan of Summer’. This was not a mobile
home as we know it in Australia, but a caravan in the sense of a line of
camels. Not that there were in fact camels, I’m simply trying to explain.
Inside seven or eight scarlet-topped tents were displays of the Red Cross at work.
SANS
MAMMARIES
We
were approached by a nice young man with red stripes around the bottoms of his
trousers. He took our names and excitedly consulted his colleagues who were
impressed by our exotic travel credentials. Being the only people wandering
around the exhibition area, we were firmly invited into a tent where several
truncated bodies lay on the ground.
A
Red Cross nurse instructed us to each select one of these life-size torsos and
kneel beside it. My plastic torso was that of a man, as were all the others. In
the interests of equality, liberty and fraternity I think I should have been
given a torso with breasts. Accidents can happen to anyone regardless of sex.
On
closer inspection the legless torsos could be identified as plastic models, not
discarded corpses from the previous night’s murders in Epinal. After a while I
concluded there would have been lots of blood and entrails if the scenario had
been real. I saw Judi speaking softly to her plastic ‘patient’ but didn’t hear
any reply.
First
we were given a keyring printed with a series of Emergency Phone Numbers should
we witness or be involved in an accident. In truth, if I was confronted by
several dismembered human bodies I’d be too busy throwing up to make a phone
call.
BARBIE,SANDRA
BULLOCK
The
‘face’ of my ‘man’ was moulded soft plastic. The eyes did not and could not
open. No wonder he was seriously injured if he’d been wandering the streets
with his eyes closed! The nurse said our first move was to make sure our victim
was breathing.
We
did this by poking him with our fingers and asking him questions like “did you
get the number of that low-flying aircraft?”, “did the hovercraft ignore the
red light?” or some such. Yes, we reported, he was breathing, although this was
not true.
Yes, he’s breathing, she insisted as she pointed
at his soft breath caressing her cheek. “Check what’s in his mouth”, she went
on. I forced open his lipless, toothless, tongueless mouth and spotted a kind
of mutated epiglottis transplanted from a Barbie doll.
By
now two new learners had joined us ; a spotty little girl with braces, and a
young Sandra Bullock look-alike wearing an Hawaii baseball cap. We nodded to
each other over the strewn plastic carnage.
The
nurse demonstrated how to place the heel of one hand on the man’s sternum and
press hard and rhythmically. When done correctly you could hear a mechanical
clicking inside the chest which may have been symbolic of breaking the rib
cage. We did this for several exhausting minutes under her supervision.
PACKER
WHACKER
From
a small bag lying beside the body we then removed a training version of a
‘Packer Whacker’, or defibrillator. From a secret compartment we peeled off and
placed two sticky electrodes on the chest and plugged them into the Whacker,
which now spoke to us in French through a built-in loudspeaker. The gist of its
instruction was not to touch the body while you were Whacking high voltage
through it.
Pressing
the yellow ‘Whack’ button generated an appropriate frying sound but the plastic
torso remained inert – no Hollywood-style arching of the spine or urgent
beeping from a heart monitor and no classic Dr Frankenstein moment: “Eaarrgh,
Igor! It’s alive!”
Nevertheless,
the nurse deemed the revival of the torso a success, but no colour had shown in
its cheeks nor had its eyelids, if there had been eyelids, flickered. This was
a dead torso, as John Cleese might have said. These were all late torsos,
irredeemably extinct of life. Judi and I shared a glance with the little girls,
who covered their mouths to stifle their giggles.
Exhausted
from our extended chest-pressing and wondering if we’d offend by standing up
and running away, our course came to an abrupt end. The nurse congratulated us,
and mentioned that more than forty people a year are saved in Scandinavian
countries by the very same techniques in which we were now experts. In France
only seven or eight people are saved because the public is scared of hurting
the victim, getting electrocuted or missing their dejeuner, hence the ‘Red
Cross Caravan of Summer’ touring the country on an educational mission.
PLASTIC
DEGREE
In
the Reception Tent we were congratulated and formally presented with our Degree
in Appeler-Masser, and Defibriller, that is ‘Phoning for Help, Heart
Massage and Defibrillation.”In part, my frameable document reads:
‘Je soussigne, Professeur Jean-Jaques ELEDJAM, President
de la Croix-Rouge Francaise atteste que BURLEIGH Pierre a suivi success
une session de formation de Appeler-Masser, and Defibriller.’ Jean-Jaques’
signature appears below, a bit faded, as if his Biro was running out. Surprisingly,
Prof Jean-Jaques himself was not present at the bestowing and I wondered what
he could possibly have found to be a higher priority.
Judi
and I intend adding our new Degrees to our CV’s. French degrees are respected
in several countries and ex-colonies, and we were pleased that the two girls
received their degrees as well. Perhaps they will be called on to revive a plastic
torso one day.
