When Erika Remington was a freshman at the University of Denver, she took two breaths while swimming the 50-yard freestyle, the most high-intensity sprinting event in the sport. It’s a race that relies heavily on breath control to maintain proper hydrodynamics, and reaching the pinnacle means no breathing for roughly 25 seconds of heavy exertion. Three years later, through focus and breathing techniques, Remington covers the entire distance without turning her head “most of the time.” Many of her younger sprinting teammates now mimic her breathing exercises, and that’s because Remington understands lung health better than most. The high-level swimmer will graduate this summer with a dual major in biology and Spanish and hopes to become a doctor. In the same way that lung health was crucial to her athletic competition, it also played a big role in her education. Beyond her traditional studies in biology, Remington worked in the University’s Spit Lab during the COVID-19 pandemi
As darkness descends on the Kennedy Mountain Campus, a man lies in the brush with a bone protruding from his arm, flashes of red glimpsed in the semi-blackness. Don’t worry, though. The man is Matt Jensen, director of Outdoor Experience and Programs at KMC and one of the instructors for a wilderness first responder interterm course hosted on the University of Denver’s slice of northern Colorado wilderness. Both the bone and blood are fake. The goal, however, is to create an elevated response in the students who could potentially treat such injuries. In Jensen’s case, it was a simulated crash of a utility task vehicle resulting in a victim with a compound fracture. While students focused on the gruesome fake injury, Jensen was portraying a diabetic, something that further complicated the simulated treatment and helped open their eyes to the endless wrinkles that can happen emergency medical care. The next day, with several inches of snow on the ground, the class simulated a ski ac