Sussex nurse swaps A&E for Everest
Christopher Smith is joining The Last Ride project to raise awareness of climate change
An A&E nurse in Sussex is swapping the hospital for the world's biggest mountains.
Christopher Smith is taking part in the Last Ride project, where he and four others are aiming to become the first people to climb and ski the tallest mountain on each of the seven continents.
It's all to raise awareness of the impacts of climate change on our planet.
The team consists of professional skiers, Ed Salisbury and Will Tucker, film director and cinematographer Jon Moy, and Chris, who provides the medical skills.
Chris, an A&E nurse at University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust, said: “I found out about the project through Jon – a good friend. It had always been an ambition of mine to climb these high altitude mountains.
“With my A&E skills and my mountaineering and skiing experience – I found my way in as expeditionary medic. Though I have climbed Kilimanjaro (5895m) and been to Everest Base camp (5364m) – this is a whole new challenge.
“I’ve worked in A&E at the Royal County Sussex Hospital for 10 years – progressing from healthcare assistant to resus nurse.
“I feel like the skills you acquire in A&E and resus at a major trauma unit really equip you well for this kind of expedition.
’I’ve also had extra training in wilderness and expeditionary medicine with a company called World Extreme Medicine. Their courses provide you with a really strong background for these kinds of adventures.
“This course really made me think about how to adapt the skills that we have in A&E to extreme environments like mountain terrain. Unfortunately on a mountain you do not have all of your resus equipment – so we will have to improvise.”
Chris added: “I’m looking forward to using these skills that I’ve developed and honed at University Hospitals Sussex to keep the team safe and healthy because a healthy team is a successful one. I am so grateful to UHSussex for allowing me timer off to complete the expeditions when I am needed.
“Other than acting as first responder on the mountain, my job involves a lot of planning and preparation. Each team member will have a prompt cards to cover most of the eventualities that we may come across – much like The Royal Sussex County hospital’s resus prompt cards. So for example, if anyone, or even myself were to get injured – the team would know what to do as directed by the prompt card.”
The expedition will conclude in 2024, and has already started with Mt. Elbrus, in Russia, completed in September 2021, with Kilimanjaro, in Tanzania, next on the list in April.