FAC U LT Y IN ACT ION
L U X E T L E X…
ET SNOCROSS All winter long, three UND-connected physicians put their training to great use by handling emergencies at the Snocross snowmobile racing championships.
Let medical schools in southern climes
2021 graduate of the UND medical school
high jumps, can fly on their sleds nearly
staff the first-aid tents serving the World
and an AMSOIL Snocross Championship
half the length of a football field before
Surfing Championships, say, or the
medic. After all, “you generally know what
touching the ground – take place outdoors
Parasailing Nationals.
to expect from a hockey game.
in at times below-zero conditions, and
For three UND-connected physicians
“It’s a little different when you have
with skills in emergency medicine,
450-pound sleds flying around the track,”
including the chairman of the Emergency
Paull said.
Medicine Department at the UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences, the place to be on North Country winter weekends is trackside at the AMSOIL Snocross Championship series.
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Dr. Jon Solberg, the chair of UND’s Emergency Medicine Department and Paull’s colleague on the Snocross Mobile Medical Team, agreed. Maybe rodeo is a closer parallel. “But the difference is,
you’ve got a series of very exciting but very challenging events, Solberg said. ‘World-class track-side medical care’ Watching over each race and running out on the track, when necessary, to recover injured riders is the Snocross Mobile Medical Team. The nonprofit organization was formed “to bring world-class trackside medical care to the athletes and crew
That’s where you’ll find them tending
we’ve got 15 rodeo athletes riding bulls
to injured racers in the Super Bowl of
at the same time and in the same arena,”
snowmobile racing.
Solberg said.
It’s not quite like providing medical backup
Add the fact that the races – whose riders,
The 13-member team includes physicians,
at a hockey game, said Dr. Zach Paull, a
propelled by 60-mph speeds and 30-foot-
EMTs, paramedics and other medical
North Dakota Medicine Spring 2022
of the national AMSOIL Championship Snocross series at no cost to the athletes,” the team’s website states.
