Anyone who ’s even justpeekedat my blog knows that I ’m anadventure nut . If you ill-treat inside my garage , you ’d severely retrieve you were inside an REI store … shelf and hook full of climbing , camping and backpack gear ; bin after bin fill up with watersports equipment ; snowboard , downhill skis and cross - country ski leaning against the bulwark ; surfboard of all sizing and a stick out - up paddleboard hanging from the ceiling ; kayak posture on the base wherever there ’s still place and my beach cruiser hide out in a back niche next to my married man ’s labor BMX wheel . It really is staggering how much can fit inside what ’s essentially a one - motorcar service department .
Though I ’m a lover of the outdoors , it ’s almost slaphappy that I ’ve continued to stake into the backcountry without any formal first aid grooming , save for what I ’ve learned watching Bear Grylls ( and yes , I roll in the hay , he still has a camera work party out there to rescue him if shit really hit the fan ) .
I ’d been wanting to take a course from the Wilderness Medicine Institute for a while , with one excuse after another for why I could n’t hang ( usually it involved me gush off on another escapade the same weekend ) .
But last weekend , I was receive to audit a class propose by REI Outdoor School and I jumped at the fortune to finally attend their two - day Wilderness First Aid programme , taught in connective with WMI .
The class covered worldwide grooming for in - the - field hand brake like bites and stings , sprains , fractures , dislocations , concussions , heat and insensate injury , altitude sickness , anaphylaxis , even unconscious tramper collapse on the track . A lot was packed over the course of study of two days and there was so much more I require to learn at the end of each mean solar day .
Wilderness medicine is different from urban medicine in that you ’re wedge to utilize the tools you have on you . There are no ambulance and no pharmacies ; oftentimes in my suit , the near help is hr away . you could only carry so much with you in a backcountry first aid kit , so you pick up to improvise with what you have in your pack – trek pole , T - shirts , even tampon .
We engage in scenarios each day that allowed us to apply our new accomplishment in a more realistic site – a climbing iron on Mount Whitney that was hit in the head word with a rock and roll , for instance . Or a hiker on Mount Wilson with a blue leg injury due to a fall . We learned how to properly tax our patients and take actions to stabilize their conditions .
In one of the object lesson , the instructor ( who were both splendid ) demonstrated a leg splint using a quiescency pad and ace bandages .
When it was our turn , I used my whitewater kayak paddle ( which broke down into two pieces ) and made a splint by padding it with under / out layers and wrapping it with webbing — all thing I unremarkably gestate in my large number . accord to my “ patient , ” it was super poor boy and he could n’t move his wooden leg at all !
Hopefully it ’s not a science I ’ll have to put to utilise any time soon ( or ever ! ) , but it ’s reassuring to acknowledge I can handle most emergencies in the wild when it comes down to it . As of last week , I am officially certified in wild medicine !
WMI ’s Wilderness First Aid course is offered byREI Outdoor Schoolseveral times a year in different cities . I extremely recommend it for anyone who move in the backcountry a handful of time a year . For unclouded options , there are also things like map and range classes and paddling excursion – include a guided kayak tour of my neighborhood around the Palos Verdes Peninsula . Maybe this winter you ’ll need to examine a new activity ? ( It also earn a capital natural endowment for an outdoor - get it on friend ! )
