Sarah Hudson '69
Her Students Are Real Lifesavers

Contrary to what you may have heard, the biggest threat on the high seas is not "The Perfect Storm." For the crews of the tankers and cargo ships that traverse the world's oceans, the real threat may be heart attacks, burns, injuries suffered in falls or explosions–hundreds of miles from possible rescue.

That's where the knowledge imparted by Sarah Hudson '69 can make the difference between life and death. A trainer of emergency medical technicians and a professor of ship's medicine at Maine Maritime Academy, Hudson teaches future merchant seamen and officers to provide medical treatment at sea. "With EMT stuff, we train them to take care of the patient, get rid of the patient in half an hour," she said. "The students who go to sea have to learn to take care of the patient for four or five days in the middle of the Atlantic."

That's how long it can take a deep-water ship to come within reach of even the most far-ranging rescue helicopters. Until help arrives, Hudson's students, trained as ship's medical officers but usually doing other shipboard jobs, must perform tasks that would fall to an entire hospital staff on dry land. "They have to start IVs and suture and catheterize people," Hudson said. "They're it."

At Maine Maritime (enrollment about 700), all students take basic ship's medicine, she said. About 20 students each year take advanced ship's medicine. Hudson said she also teaches the course to veteran deep-water captains and transatlantic sailors in intensive week-long sessions during Maine Maritime holiday breaks.

Hudson came to ship's medicine through her work on dry land. An economics and business administration major at Colby, the Pittsburgh native moved to Blue Hill with her parents soon after graduation. She trained as an EMT at Blue Hill Hospital that year and started working with Blue Hill Ambulance. She moved to nearby Castine, home of Maine Maritime, in 1975 and two years later started Castine Ambulance Service. "They didn't have one and I got tired of my car being used as the ambulance," Hudson said.

She joined the faculty at Maine Maritime in 1986 and began teaching the more complicated medical procedures required. "My gift is that I can simplify things," Hudson said. " You just treat the human body as a machine–I teach the kids, if there's a hole somewhere, plug it. If there's not enough fluids, put more fluids in."

And they do. With ships typically at sea with one ship's medical officer, a fully stocked pharmacy and satellite links to doctors on shore, Hudson's students cope with myriad medical emergencies. She hears about their cases by e-mail, phone calls and letters from all over the world. "They'll say, 'Oh, gosh. You won't believe what I had to do,'" Hudson said.

As on land, some shipboard patients don't survive. But so far the smallest patients have made it. "We've actually had seven students who had to deliver babies at sea," Hudson said. "They've all been refugee babies, so they've been in terrible conditions, but, knock wood, they've all survived."

While her former students ship out, Hudson stays in port. She lives with her sister in Castine in a house overlooking East Penobscot Bay. She continues to train students for land duty (Maine Maritime supplies EMTs for Castine Ambulance) and to dispense common sense advice: "Just slow down and fix what you can fix and if you can't fix it, you just have to take a deep breath and do the best you can and give the patient TLC. Handholding is important. Handholding is probably the most important thing people do."

Hudson prescribes handholding; in return she gets the not-so-occasional pat on the back. "I guess you're always surprised when you have a student who does a great job," she said. "It makes you stand back and think, 'Wow. I gave them a gift and they've used it well.'"

–Gerry Boyle '78