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Janet Wells	More NurseWeek Features   Smoke-Free Zone   Nurses and patients tackle nicotine addiction   Bloodless Survival     Surgical techniques to use when transfusion drops out of the equation
Rock Med volunteers such as Joel Williams, RN, Michele Ferreira, RN, and Kathy Ferris, RN, are often so busy treating concert patrons that they don’t get to see or hear any of the shows at which they work.

A young woman — face pale, eyes wide and frightened — crouched in the corner of a small side room at Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, Calif. A few steps away in the concert arena, The Grateful Dead played one of their signature songs, “Uncle JohnBand,” but the woman didn’t listen to the music. She clutched a blanket with one hand as the other hand fluttered in front of her face. Her breathing was shallow and rapid.

“She’s tripping for the first time in her life,” said Michele Ferreira, RN, a volunteer with Rock Medicine, a nonprofit group that provides medical treatment at concerts in Northern California. “She did not intend to [take drugs], and she’s not comfortable with it. She’s starting to hyperventilate.”

Ferreira sat next to the woman and talked quietly, holding her hand and telling her she was safe and that the drug would eventually wear off. Apparently, Ferreira told Kathy Ferris, the head nurse on duty, the woman and her companion had inadvertently bought an LSD-laced cookie in the parking lot just before the show.

Ferris responded with a knowing smile: “Don’t buy anything in the parking lot of a Dead show, especially if it’s called a ‘Kindness Cookie.’”

Ferris, RN, should know. She has been a Rock Medicine volunteer for more than 24 years. She has attended hundreds of shows and treated thousands of concert patrons. She’s seen it all, from minor to serious: headaches, bruises, cuts, sprains, broken bones, drug and alcohol problems, insulin shock, heart palpitations, head injuries, and asthma attacks.

During the busy concert season — from April through October — Ferris volunteers to work one to three concerts a week. That’s in addition to her full-time job as the infection control coordinator for the Contra Costa Regional Medical Center and Health Centers.

“Rock Med gives me a great chance to combine my two passions: nursing and music,” said Ferris, wearing a vibrant purple and blue tie-dye Rock Medicine T-shirt. Dozens of concert tour pins adorned her ID lanyard.

“It’s a chance to do patient care again. And for many of us volunteers who have been around a long time, it’s a chance to see your friends. And you have patients come to see you because you helped them in the past.”

Fortunate fans

Mass gatherings — whether it’s a four-hour rock concert or a weeklong festival in the Nevada desert — are, in effect, temporary cities. At these events, volunteer nurses like Ferris and Ferreira form the backbone of an emergency medical system that cares for participants.

Although most large music and sports venues in the country provide some level of first aid, the majority don’t have the staffing or resources to do anything but “rack and roll” — stabilize patients long enough to send them by ambulance to the hospital. That can mean, at the least, a ruined evening — and at worst, big medical bills and run-ins with the police if a patient’s condition is drug-related.

“Our goal is to take care of the patient right here, right now and avoid getting them into trouble with the law,” Ferris said.

Northern California concert patrons may not know how lucky they are. Few other programs in the country provide medical care at large events, and none come close to offering such a broad spectrum of services for about 2,000 people at nearly 200 events a year.

Rock Med started in 1973 when Bill Graham, the late concert promoter, asked the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic in San Francisco to staff a tent at Grateful Dead and Led Zeppelin concerts. Still an arm of the clinic, Rock Med evolved into a mobile triage program with a full array of medical personnel — including more than 100 volunteer nurses.

At each show, Rock Med sets up a triage area — at Shoreline, a cluster of three small rooms for intake, treatment and recovery. Close by is Rock Med’s famous tie-dye-festooned “space tent,” where nurses and counselors trained in psychiatric care “talk down” patrons who have an adverse drug response. More than 100,000 concertgoers a year stop by Rock Med’s “convenience items” table and help themselves to free aspirin, Advil, Band-Aids, tampons, Maalox, condoms, Sudafed, Jolly Rancher candy, and the ever-popular earplugs.

Many patients end up at Rock Med because of drug- and alcohol-related illness or injury: vomiting, dehydration, cuts, and bruises from fights or falling down. “Alcohol is involved in more stupid behavior than anything else,” Ferris said, “because it is legal and sold at the venues.”