By ISAIAH FRIZZELL
When you encounter someone who absolutely gets it, the divine spark of life we all share crackles and you realize a beautiful and crucial happening. Connection. Community. Cohesion. Genuine spokes in the wheel of community suddenly appear from the mist. Humble, appreciative, generative and wildly attentive, this is Phil Rainey.
From Many to One, One Becomes Many
Rainey has lived in the Wood River Valley for over 45 years, with family throughout. Traveling as a child, he perhaps fortunately attended several high schools, encountering a wide range of cultures. From all known studies, and personal experience, we understand this type of exposure to a variety of peoples tends to instill a degree of empathy in the traveler. Empathy and compassion, completely, describe Rainey.
Trained in the U.S. Navy, he then for 11 years was a deep-sea diver for the U.S. Army. This diving experience would foreshadow a divine future. Community-minded, Rainey had a natural calling to become a firefighter—captain, in fact—even receiving the Hailey Firefighter of the Year in 2014. After 34 years of service in our community, Rainey retired just this month.
Oxygenated Elegance
You’ll directly meet and speak with Rainey at his Hyperbarics of Sun Valley clinic on River Street in Hailey. This is how he saved the life of his then wife. In Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT), injured tissue needs more oxygen and the chamber’s pressurization increases O2 absorption over three times higher than normal air pressure.
“My second wife ended up with osteomyelitis, a bone infection, from a surgery she’d had. I did research and found out that [HBOT] was a treatment for it. There weren’t any non-hospital-based [HBOT] facilities in Idaho at the time, so I decided, you know, shoot, maybe that’s something I should get into.” With great success, he did. He’s successfully treated extreme injuries in athletes, ex-military—anyone with distress that’s difficult to treat—while also becoming a Superman to his wife.
His business began in the year it was thought (via the Mayan calendar debacle) the world would end, 2012. “That was when I opened the doors,” Rainey laughs.
Upon entering his exquisitely captivating and calming center, you rightly understand his philosophy and vibe: the reverberating flow of intelligent care.
Forward Thinking as a Prerequisite
Where you might also meet Rainey is via his work as an active community member with strong, common-sense ideas and as an elected Blaine County Republican Central Committee (BCRCC) Precinct Committeeman.
Forward thinking is where Rainey lives. “Another little project I’ve got going on [is] there’s a focus group that is working on a power-grid-down scenario. So what happens if we lose the power grid? As far as we can tell—and we met the other day with one of the county commissioners—is that there is no plan.”
“The fire department doesn’t have a plan. Nobody really has a plan for the long-term, like, a week, two weeks, or more. If the power grid goes down, what do we do? You know, the whole medical side of it, supply chain, all of it.”
For people to even admit the reality of it is tough, understandably so as it’s a dark (pun intended), and ultimately unsettling, topic of conversation but a very real one. We’ve seen it during hurricanes, during large fires and now with threats from “hackers.” Electronic doors don’t open, refrigerators warm up, houses freeze in the winter. Shouldn’t we, as a strong and thoughtful community, have this discussion?
Ever the optimist and with a sharp mind, Rainey reminds, “You’re camping.” People move here for that very thing. However, there’s a lot that comes into play when everyone’s camping. And so, as intelligent, resilient people we come together with a plan, not necessarily for those who have their bug out spot, but for those who don’t. Seniors, the disabled, family members in need. It’s a fair and extremely compassionate consideration.
Phil Rainey’s Hyperbarics of Sun Valley
613 North River Street
Hailey, Idaho 83333
208-928-7477