Call of the wild

Most boys leave their mothers behind when they go to Boy Scout camp. Not Eric, 17, and Ian Chapin, 16.

"They've never complained about my going. I've always served as camp nurse, and I'm more like one of the boys. I can squish bugs, kill scorpions, raft and cave with the rest of them. I guess it's good I had sons," said Karen Silverthorn, a nurse in the medical-surgical unit at WellStar Kennestone Hospital in Marietta.

Silverthorn, RN, BSN, M.Ed., is better equipped for the rugged outdoor life than most mothers. The youngest of five children, she grew up in Canada, where her family often camped. This was not RV camping; it was sleeping in old-fashioned tents, she said.

After she graduated from nursing school in 1976, "there weren't that many nursing jobs available, and I always had itchy feet. I was always a traveler, and I knew I wanted to go north," Silverthorn said.

She trained at Moose Factory General Hospital (now part of Weeneebayko Health Ahtuskaywin on James Bay in Canada) and then served in the Canadian Arctic as an outpost nurse with Canadian Medical Services.

"I lived and worked for five years with the Inuit (Eskimo) and Cree Indians, who live in villages of about 400 to 500 people on the northern tip of Quebec province. I provided their health care, and the experience was unbelievable," Silverthorn said.

A physician visited her outpost about three times a year, but, most of the time, Silverthorn was on her own.

There were no roads; the area was accessible by boat in the summer and plane in the winter. Planes could land on the wind-swept, frozen river in front of the village in winter.

"In summer, you could take a boat seven miles down a fjord to a summer landing strip, but no one came in the spring or fall. There would be no fresh food, no mail and no emergency planes then," she said.

Silverthorn drew on all her nursing skills to deliver babies and to treat broken bones, gunshot wounds (from hunting) and illnesses.

She remembers once being down to her last bag of IV fluid with the weather too harsh to evacuate anyone.

"They (the natives) are pretty hardy and lived through more than we would," she said.

Once the natives got to know her, they would share traditional foods, Silverthorn said. Once, a family invited her into its home to eat raw seal.

As keepsakes of her time in the wild, Silverthorn has seal-skin boots and other artifacts that she shows to school groups.

"As I tell the kids, eating raw seal wasn't something we would do, but I had to be very aware that I was in a different culture, and the fact that they invited me was a sign of respect. It was a gift," Silverthorn said. "I learned a lot more from them than I ever gave them."

Since 2000, Silverthorn has found a new use for her outpost-nursing skills. She teaches wilderness first aid to older Boy Scouts and adult Scout leaders who are going to high-adventure camps.

"These are places where it would take longer than a half-hour to get emergency help from a 911 call," she said. "What you know how to do in a situation like that can make a big impact."

Scouts earn wilderness first-aid certification by attending two-day training sessions. "It goes way beyond normal first-aid techniques," Silverthorn said.

After the boys learn how to assess and treat injuries, she divides them into groups for emergency-training scenarios.

"They will be hiking along and hear screaming and come on the site of a mountain-bike accident," she said. "Two people have collided and are injured, and the boys have to figure out the puzzle of what to do — how to send for help, prepare someone for evacuation and treat what injuries they can. It's very hands-on learning."

Silverthorn and her husband, Brian Chapin, are assistant Scoutmasters. They plan to continue working with the Boy Scouts, even though Eric left for college this fall and Ian will go next year.

"Scouting is a wonderful program. It teaches so many skills for life," she said. "We've learned a lot and done a lot through Scouting."