Wilderness First Aid Training
I asked an experienced group of people what I should carry in my first aid kit, and they responded, “What do you know how to use?” A little reflection showed that it has been 20 years since either of us had formal first aid training. We decided that was not a good thing and signed up for a Wilderness First Aid course. This 2 day course is an introduction to first aid. The “real” serious wilderness medicine course is an 80 hour course. We don’t have time for that this year, so we’ll get by with the 16 hour course.
The course focuses on identifying the severity of injury or illness so you can decide do you “stay and play” or “load and go”. Treat what you can, stabilize what you can’t treat. More than half a day was spent on just patient assessment. CPR is not covered. (Did you know that only about 5% of the people who get CPR outside of a hospital survive?)
The course uses scenario based training, where students take turns being victim and responder. So we got to have had wounds, road rash, broken limbs, and hypothermia.
The training was very valuable. The instructors were excellent and, most impressively, the students were all engaged and knowledgeable. All of the questions that were asked were thoughtful, probing questions. Nobody asked about something that had been answered 10 minutes earlier. It was a pleasant surprise. We highly recommend the course to anyone who spends any time more than an hour beyond the range of emergency help.
