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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

15/ It was an amazing experience. Wilderness medicine people are some of the best people.

Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

14/ After a long time at the Dragon’s Tooth, we hiked down to the bus and back to the WAEL for a celebratory dinner. The WAEL food was so good that even though I burned 4,000 calories every day on the trail I did not lose any weight because I loaded up on good eats before and after the trek.

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

13/ In the morning we broke camp and hiked to the Dragon’s Tooth. The trail was too steep to take our packs, so I left everything except my chest harness and water at the trail intersection.

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

12/ We camped that night on the mountaintop. For Steve’s birthday, Tom made two bunt cakes using a cake pan that he packed with him from a design he patented in the 1990s. It was my first time having trail cake.

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

11/ The med students and residents supposed us with a Mass Casualty Incident scenario. Since I had a wilderness SAR background, I got to serve as team lead. It was a great exercise.

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

10/ We resupplied our water with a cache placed at the McAfee Knob trailhead and continued over the Sawtooth Ridge, across a cow pasture, and refilled our water again.

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

9/ We camped that night at the nearby Catawba shelter campground. A different group of fellows discussed splinting and evac. In the morning I was asked to explain map & compass use in the backcountry.

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

8/ Mid-afternoon we arrived at McAfee Knob. It’s the most photographed part of the whole AT. I got a pictures, but most importantly, I was able to filter two liters of water from a murky pool on the cliffs

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

7/ We hit Tinker Cliffs the next morning and kept moving. Water was scarce up here, and I’m glad I packed 4 liters for the day.

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

6/ We camped at Lambert’s Meadow. A nice place sheltered from the wind with a stream nearby to filter water. We got a lecture from several wilderness fellows who hiked in chat about hazards in the woods. Afterwords, my mates asked if I could demonstrate fire-starting techniques.

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

5/ We started on the Appalachian Trail at Daleville, VA. The hike went straight up. It was hard with a fully loaded pack, but the view from the top of the Shenandoah Valley on one side and the Carvin’s Cove area on the other was worth the effort.

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

4/ We met at the Wilderness Adventures at Eagles Landing on Sunday night to cover trip basics. This place is amazing, and they fed us well on Sunday night and again on Monday morning. None of us knew each other. It was a mix of MDs, PAs, NPs, and me as the lone EMS provider (paramedic).

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

3/ Trip planning was intense. I know my gear well, but I have not had to plan for four nights on trail in almost two decades. Meal planning to ensure I had enough food while not overloading the weight was the main challenge.

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

2/ Background: I’ve been a WMS member for a while and completed my WMS fellowship (FAWM) last year. This trip has been on my bucket list for a while, and the dates finally worked out this year.

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

1/ This week I completed the Wilderness Medical Society’s Appalachian Trail Adventure Ed Course through the AT’s Triple Crown area of Virginia. #MedSky #Wilderness #Trails

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Greetings from a very wet finish line med tent at the Army Ten Miler today. Happy to be present and ready if needed.

Me and my crew working the finish line med tent

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Multitasking is riding a stationary bike in the firehouse while reviewing ECG strips from the pocket guide I got for medic school a decade ago.

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I grabbed a stack of $1 comics for my son last night and was absolutely not prepared for the timewarp back to my 1990s adolescence.

Stack of Marvel comics from the 1990s. $1 each!

1990s baseball card ad. I have some of these cards!

lol, they knew their audience. I had these too.

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Upcoming backpacking trip. I need to pack 4 days/nights of food and 4L of water. My 20 year old pack is overweight because I insist on sleeping alone in my ancient North Face 2-man tent

My 8 yo son testing my backpack. It almost weighs the same as him.

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

lol, yes. I had this whistle on my swiftwater rescue PFD for years, and I absolutely do not ever let my kids use it.

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I ended up with a MA in PolSci because freshman year I had a professor who spent an hour talking about how he earned a scar on his chin in 1962 falling off a table, wine-drunk, imitating how a B-52 might bomb Cuba. He also had very vivid anecdotes about Otto von Bismarck.

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

8yo: “Dad, can witches from the old days come back on Halloween?” Me: “Let me start by explaining the Julian vs. Gregorian calendars…” 8yo: “Nevermind!”

Scene from “Hocus Pocus” we watched last night.

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Twenty years ago I was the sawyer and cook on a USFS trail crew in Wyoming. I was terrible at both jobs, but I’ve gotten better over time. #Trails #Backpacking #Wilderness

Meal planning by sorting out all my meals, bagging them, and then weighing the entire lot

55lbs in the pack is too much. Gotta drop weight!

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I was familiar with the Aleutian Zero story and was surprised to recently read this book authored in the 1960s noting that the US and Brits knew in early 1942 that the Zero was superior to the P-40, Hurricane, and Spitfire. Chenault worked out the “shoot and scoot” tactics well before the Coral Sea.

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I had a structured scenario-based interview in the mid-2000s where a water pitcher was placed on the table and I was asked to pour myself a glass. I’m convinced that the fact I poured the glass above the floor and that the inevitable splash did not land on the table was how I got the job.

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

The opposite is joking about PD using a “copological indicator” on HAZMAT calls to keep clear of the incident. It’s a powdered donut. Stay far enough walkway to see the firefighters through the donut hole, and make sure the wind blows the sugar away from your uniform so you remain upwind.

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Rejoice at the beginning of Jobshirt Season. So. Many. Pockets.

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Maple trees are great until the soft limbs sheer off and lawn dart into the roof of my shed. This has happened more than once.

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

We make pumpkin pie in my house year-round.

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Had to dissemble the dryer lint holder thing, vacuum out the space underneath so the lint screen would sit properly, and then reassembled the whole thing. I was able to complete this task and didn’t even have any leftover screws. Sunday chores are awesome.

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

10 mile training hike today for an upcoming backpacking trip. Not pictured is my hiking buddy who traded 35 year old Simpsons references the whole time with me and the Taco Bomba tacos + nachos I destroyed afterwards.

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Spent a long day working as paramedic at the H Street Festival and then at the DC United game. The evening ended late so that I could support the Special Olympics game afterwards. Event medicine is fun. #MedSky

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Bob-on-Bob violence must be avoided at all costs. There are too few of us.

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

It’s a very diligent team, especially when the incentives are right. Giving me a hard time is an excellent incentive

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

A co-worker brought a copy of the book to work one day with every swear word marked by one of these pink tabs. Not surprisingly, this group of folks found all the cursing hilarious.

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Amazon let me give away free copies of my trail crew & wildland firefighting memoir. It’s story about a clueless rookie who nearly dies every day but learns a few things along the way. But be warned. Firefighters curse, and exactly one reviewer hated that. #BookSky #Wildland #Trails #Author

This is perhaps the the greatest and most unintentional compliment I’ve ever received. I typically don’t curse a lot at work or at home, but I wanted every part of my memoir to be brutally honest about me and about work out on the fireline. It’s tough work done by people more tough than me, and I felt it served us best to be honest about all things including the harsh language expressed in harsh terrain.

That one person was shocked to learn these things tells me that I did a fair job exposing people to some of harsh realities of the work.

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

I have a backpacking trip this fall, and I’m going back to basics for the meal planning.

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Kids: “Dad, can we camp in the backyard?” Me: “It’s going to rain. Let’s do it anyway.”

The kids made the “bed.” Two of them plus Radar and myself in there. Hot and rained all night. Was worth it

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

All I want is a cordless 12-lead ECG. Why can’t I have this?

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

I spent the weekend working as a paramedic for a large athletic event, and I remain amazed at how quickly an altered hyperthermic patient with unstable vitals will return to somewhat normal after rapid cooling. It’s amazing. Cool your patients, y’all #Medsky #paramedic

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

My mom planned a get together at a hotel in Iowa City for my brothers and me simply because it was March and had it an indoor pool for our kids. She rented an SUV and filled it with snacks and her crockpot hamburger cheese dip.

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

I played football and fight fire. I hope my kids pursue whatever brings them joy, and for safety reasons I hope they do not choose football.

Me in the center with the busted practice jersey some years ago.

It was a miracle that I survived high school football without suffering lifelong injuries.

It’s not worth the risk.

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Hurricane Harvey was nine years ago. Time flies

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

I’ve been swimming since I was little and served for years on a swiftwater rescue team, but it wasn’t until two weeks ago that I attempted a flip-kick in the pool. Getting older is so rad because it’s cool to learn stuff without worrying about looking ridiculous.

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Throwback to a VRBO rental few years ago where I found and played these vinyl treasures. “Kids, you going to love this!” Kids: “Be quiet. We are watching ‘Minions.’”

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Bob Roller @emergency-bob.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

But were they able to deliver it to Atlanta within 28 hours to claim the prize money?

static.klipy.com

Bandit Driving with a Smile

ALT: Bandit Driving with a Smile

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