Folks,
Over the weekend I attended the Wilderness First Aid class run by the Wilderness Medicine Institute (an offshoot for NOLS - National Outdoor Leadership School). It was a 16 hour course run by two instructors with 22 students.
My overall evaluaton of the course was very positive. The curriculum was well organized with about a 50/50 mix of instruction versus hands-on exercises. We had great weather which was good since we spent all of the time outside on the grounds of a local nature center. A lot of laying on the ground pretending to be a patient with bloody makeup.
The students were mostly young, mostly female, with good group dynamics (we shifted partners often). The majority of students were there as part of their job or college requirements. A few medical professionals were adding to their certs and one old codger (me) was there just for the learning experience.
The course was directed at those folks who might be leading groups of others on backcountry trips. The focus was on the decision making process of determining whether a patient needed to stay or go and whether to go slow or fast. So a lot of the instruction was in patient assessment and risk management. That aspect I found hard to become proficient at in a short time but certainly as valuable as learning how to improvise a splint or sling. The first aid stuff wasn't a lot different than that you'd find in a Red Cross course.
The hands-on, practical approach worked for me. It was great seeing a lot of young people with good leadership skills stepping up and taking control of the situations. We did one group exercise where 11 folks were involved in moving an unconcious person from the accident site to the helo extraction point. It was chaotic but we did it without dropping the patient using only our hands.
I signed up for the course thru REI. It cost me, as a non-REI member $220, $200 for members. I may never need to use any of these skills but I still think it was money well spent as it impressed the heck out of my daughter.
Andy
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In a crisis one does not rise to one's level of expectations but rather falls to one's level of training.
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