---

Medics on Call

03.05.2006

As the Challenge heads towards the end of its second stage, there has been a catalogue of minor injuries including bruised ribs, strained muscles and bleeding legs – and that’s exactly the way the Medical Director likes it. ‘We have had lots of cuts, abrasions, sunburn and insect bites,’ says Dr Mike Irani. ‘We can handle those easily.’

‘The trouble is we’re going through big injury country. I’m more worried about this event than any other I’ve worked on. I say this every time but Laos and Bolivia trump all the others for risk of serious injury.’

His cautious, slightly gloomy forecast reflects both destinations’ dangerous cocktail of inaccessibility and limited medical facilities. ‘Look in Lonely Planet,’ he says. ‘For serious medical injury in Laos it says go to Thailand – and in Bolivia it says go to Brazil.

‘Isolation and adventure are always hazardous; you can’t have one without the other. Our competitions for the Challenge are designed to discover if the participants are up to it – and then we try to be as prepared as possible.’

For the 2006 Land Rover G4 Challenge, preparation includes the most comprehensive event team ever assembled. Along with Dr. Irani, a consultant rheumatologist and general physician who recently returned from working at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, there is a consultant neurosurgeon, Professor Nik Patel, who also performs general surgery. ‘I don’t know of any other event that takes a neurosurgical consultant,’ stresses Irani. ‘But with brain and spinal injuries, time is vital.’

The two men are working alongside trauma and orthopaedic specialist Hans Bhinda, airomedical repatriation expert Dr Dominik Doerr, and leading dental doctor, Martin Joergens. Between them they’ve provided care in every corner of the world from Australia to Siberia to Argentina.

See All Stories On This Race