Rodeo contestants, spectators, volunteers and more can get medical help at the Round-Up in the new medical headquarters.

Dr. Brad Adams is the Round-Up director of Room 17 and medical. An orthopedic surgeon, Adams said this is quite the upgrade.

The facility is a renovation of old bathrooms in a separate red building just behind the north grandstands. The space effectively quadruples the number of patients who can be treated.

“Before we had a sports medicine, gooseneck trailer where we treated the athletes coming out of and into the arena,” Adams said. “But over time, it wasn’t enough. We also treated people in the stands and in the Indian Village.”

Adams said the Round-Up initially pitched a tent near the trailer to increase space, “with the intent to build a building over there,” where the sports medicine trailer used to be.

“It morphed into a plan to get rid of the nasty, old bathroom that was here,” he said.

This new building, Adams said, is 40% bigger than what the building would have been had the Round-Up stuck to its original plan, and a larger space is what was needed with increasing crowds and increasing needs for medical services.

The building is divided into two rooms, each having five exam beds: the west side for contestant sports medicine, including taping and suturing — and the east side for general public first aid, such as heat exhaustion, cuts, insect bites and stings, diabetic needs and more.

“Our equipment is good,” Adams said. “We have monitors, we have (automated external defibrillators) and medicine.”

While space for patients has been an issue, Adams said, the Round-Up has a strong volunteer base of medical personnel.

On any given day of Round-Up, there are 20-25 medical professionals available in addition to the physicians and nurses in the medical facilities themselves — three medical facilities spread out around the Round-Up grounds, the new headquarters along with two first aid stations.

“We coordinate through radio, and we also have rapid response teams out in the crowd, too,” Adams said.

One first aid station is at the east end of the south grandstands — the oldest of the three medical facilities, dating back to the 1940s — and the other is in the west side of the grandstands.

The goal with the three medical facilities and with the medical professional volunteers is to treat people on scene to alleviate a crowd from going to the hospital or urgent care because there is such a huge influx of population to the city during Round-Up week, Adams said, but obviously for a medical emergency, people would be taken to the hospital.

An ambulance is stationed at two of the three medical facilities — the new medical headquarters and the first aid station at the east end of the south grandstands.

That first aid station also has a small, private room for mothers to breastfeed or pump — something Adams said a lot of people have expressed appreciation for.

The Pendleton Whisky Music Fest was the first to put the new medical headquarters to use, treating heat exhaustion among other issues and even helping provide and procure further medical care for two heart attacks.

Adams said he looks forward to being able to provide high-quality care for people during Round-Up, and he also hopes in the near future to lease out the building for sports medicine classes.