The Experience

After setting up camp and eating dinner, my head really started to pound and I started to get nauseated. I thought I was suffering from exhaustion, dehydration or something else hiking related. My lovely campground neighbors tried to help out by sharing snacks and salt pills. However, I wound up vomiting up all of my dinner. After about a half hour of not being able to keep any water or food down, we decided it was time to seek help as we didn’t bring enough food with us to account for me throwing it up. That’s not really something I thought to account for when packing.

We went to the Ranger station and a ranger named Hunter helped us out. Hunter was a great help! (Sorry if your reading this Hunter, I can’t remember your last name)

While going through this experience I asked lots of questions to share with you now. First, meet the people. Park rangers are a combination of police and paramedics/EMS and they provide the medical care in the Grand Canyon. So Ranger Hunter was able to put on his EMS hat to ask me lots of questions about what I ate that day, what I drank, what symptoms I was experiencing, etc. Once he did, he became concerned that I was experiencing symptoms of hyponatremia. Hyponatremia is basically over-hydration from continued hydration without the necessary salt in your system to retain the water. 

So we first tried the “outpatient experience”.  This involved Ranger Hunter giving me a Ramen noodle packet, loaded with salt, and seeing if I could get it down and keep it down. I could barely eat a mouthful. So then Ranger Hunter decided we needed to “admit” me to the medical station. This involved me filling out a sheet of paperwork, and probably lots of paperwork on Ranger Hunter’s end too. Thanks Ranger Hunter 🙂 

However, this was completely FREE. What! Medical care in the USA for free?!?! But yes, these are my park dollars (and donations) hard at work. I used to think that my yearly America the Beautiful Pass was such a good deal. But now I think it is a total STEAL. My 2021 American the Beautiful Pass got me in to Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Isle Royal, Grand Canyon, Death Valley AND got me free medical care at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. For $80. Support the parks people 🙂

So once I got “admitted” to a cabin with a cot in it, Ranger Hunter started an IV line to test my blood and start treatment. Turns out my blood results all came back normal. It was here that I realized I was an idiot that was having a migraine at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Cue hand to forehead and Hommer Simpson D’oh! I also didn’t pack my migraine meds in my first aid kit so I knew I wasn’t going to be able to eat anything that evening. Double D’oh! However, after Ranger Hunter did a phone consult with a doctor, he was able to treat me with some anti-nausea medicine through the IV line that had me wolfing that Ramen down in minutes. 

Then he asked me if I needed help with anything else. That right! A medical provider offered additional services! Such great care. So I took him up on it and got my blister popped and some tape to cover it with. Because I also forgot to pack that stuff. Moral of the story, pack your first aid kit for your backpacking trip better than me.

For a full Grand Canyon backpacking packing list, check out our post here.

I did ask Ranger Hunter what would happen if I had needed a helicopter out. That would have incurred a steep fee. But he did say that the medical services in the Grand Canyon have a pretty good success rate of fixing people up so they can walk themselves out of the canyon, especially when people seek help when their symptoms first start.