Mountain Rescue Doctor

Christopher Van Tilburg, MD is an emergency room physician, a ski patrol doctor, an emergency wilderness physician, and a member of the Hood River Crag Rats, the oldest mountain rescue team in the country. When Dr. Van Tilburg's beeper goes off, the call may take him racing up a mountain peak to rescue an injured hiker, scaling a rocky ledge to intubate a hiker who has fallen over a cliff, into a blizzard to search for missing skiers, or to a mountain airplane crash scene for body recovery.

Dr. Van Tilburg's work requires a unique combination of emergency medicine, survival skills, agility, and extreme sports. In Mountain Rescue Doctor, Van Tilburg shares personal stories of harrowing and suspenseful rescues and recoveries, including the recent Mount Hood disaster, which claimed the lives of three climbers. We learn about the tools and techniques of emergency wilderness medicine, as well as the feats of human strength and delicacy required to treat patients under extreme conditions. And finally, we confront some of the ethical challenges a wilderness physician faces in making tough choices about who can be saved and at what cost. Mountain Rescue Doctor is an exhilarating tour through the perils of nature and medicine.