Mankato doctor will assist U.S. Alpine ski team internationally

MANKATO, Minn. (KEYC) - A little over 20 hours of flights lay ahead for Dr. Wade Johnson, the director of Sports Medicine at Mayo Clinic Health System in Mankato.
Johnson has worked with different U.S. teams for other occasions, but never for something like this.

“So, my work with U.S.A. Hockey for both the women’s national team and the under 18 women’s team was just located in Blaine. So it was not much travel for that. I was able to stay locally and and help out with those camps, but this yeah will be a different experience entirely,” said Dr. Johnson.

Dr. Johnson will be caring for the Women’s World Cup for Ski jumping athletes with acute medical care, trauma emergency care, and for any potential major accident.

“To have any kind of medical illness or anything like that, I’m in charge of kind of helping take care of them while they’re there and then coordinating care if they do need to seek services like in a hospital or those type of things,” explained Dr. Johnson.

If that happens, he’ll work with his Japanese counterparts to figure out the best course of action. Still, he’s not going empty handed.

“There’s some simple medications some dressings for if there’s lacerations some repair sutures surgical glue those kind of things but it’s pretty well stocked, but straightforward basic medical kit for little more advanced first aid needs,” said Dr. Johnson.

This will be Dr. Johnson’s first time traveling with the team, and his first time in Japan.

When asked if he’d take in the sights while traveling, Dr. Johnson said, “Yeah, I’ll try I’ll try and see some sights of in between things. But but yeah, it should be a lot of fun, but probably be pretty busy.”

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