This is a course review of the Wilderness Medicine Institute of NOLS' Wilderness First Aid course as taught at REI in Reading. This is a 2-day course taught over the weekend(9-6 Sat/Sun) and completion of the course results in a Wilderness First Aid certification good for two years. The course is $200 for REI members, $220 for non-members. (This is a trick, since membership is $20 for life and you get 10% back on purchases. Join.)
The purpose of the course is to provide the novice with the ability to assess a patient, stabilize them, and determine a course of action, should someone in their group be injured in a rural area. This has practical applications beyond camping, and is useful in any situation where you might find yourself having to treat an injured person should 911 not be available.![[hmmm]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/009.gif "Hmm [hmmm]")
Given the length of the course, only the basics are taught, but it's a start, and it instills in you a degree of comfort with the physical evaluation and Patient Assessment System that your Red Cross First Aid class just doesn't provide. Further, since the assumption is that you are in the wilderness, not 5 minutes from Mass General, the assumption is that you are going to address any critical issues yourself, not just wait for the ambulance to show up. Again, this is a very useful ability.
The course is taught by WMI-certified Wilderness EMT's who are quite knowledgeable and friendly. The students ranged from 21 year old granola and dreadlocks girl getting ready to trek South America to the 60 year old scout master who helps run the Jamboree, and just about everything in between. Introductions over, we jumped right into the Patient Assessment System. We learned to Assess the Scene, Identify Life Threats including ABC's, perform a complete physical exam, take vitals, and get a history. We spent a few hours on this, then went to lunch.
Coming back from lunch, we ran our first 'scenario'. A 'scenario' is WMI-speak for having one group of students go outside and pretend to have an injury, and the rest of the class has to find them, assess them, and determine the appropriate treatment/evacuation plan. I think this was the most useful aspect of the class, and we ran 8 total scenarios over the two day course. After the scenario, we covered spine injuries, head injuries, shock, and began wilderness wound management. And ran more scenarios.
We broke for the evening promptly at 6 PM.
On Sunday, we greeted the day with a scenario. Then we covered more on wound management, taped some ankles, made splints, ran another scenario, covered athletic injuries, fractures, dislocations, and heat illness. After lunch (with those crazy kids slack-lining) we ran another scenario. By this time, I was a bit tired and not feeling like doing it, but was comfortable enough that I was playing lead rescuer for my scenarios so that I would get to do the groping, er, head-to-toe evaluation. We then covered cold injuries, lightning, altitude sickness, The Medical Patient, anaphylaxis, and unfortunately, only very briefly covered first aid kits before we closed the course with spirit fingers and patchouli handshakes.
Overall, I liked the course a lot; I learned a lot, although I was familiar with a lot of the material from experience(climbing, hiking, camping, etc) it was a good refresher. While we couldn't go into each topic in great detail, the focus on the patient assessment, and the determination of whether the injured person could stay in the field or needed to be removed, and how quickly, was very good. It also highlighted for me the reality I recently experienced myself: When you have a patient, and you know both what is wrong with them, and how to treat them, but don't have what you need, you have to make a decision quickly and take action. In this example, it meant riding out(leaving my friend with heat exhaustion at a trailhead) and coming back with my truck to take him out.
In the wilderness, or in a SHTF scenario, you can only count on what you have, and your own abilities. This is obviously just the first step down the path towards medical preparedness, and is well short of making you a fully-trained medical doctor, but what you learn in this class could save your, or another person's, life. And that is a pretty good start.
Rating: 4.5/5 Glock 19's.
The purpose of the course is to provide the novice with the ability to assess a patient, stabilize them, and determine a course of action, should someone in their group be injured in a rural area. This has practical applications beyond camping, and is useful in any situation where you might find yourself having to treat an injured person should 911 not be available.
Given the length of the course, only the basics are taught, but it's a start, and it instills in you a degree of comfort with the physical evaluation and Patient Assessment System that your Red Cross First Aid class just doesn't provide. Further, since the assumption is that you are in the wilderness, not 5 minutes from Mass General, the assumption is that you are going to address any critical issues yourself, not just wait for the ambulance to show up. Again, this is a very useful ability.
The course is taught by WMI-certified Wilderness EMT's who are quite knowledgeable and friendly. The students ranged from 21 year old granola and dreadlocks girl getting ready to trek South America to the 60 year old scout master who helps run the Jamboree, and just about everything in between. Introductions over, we jumped right into the Patient Assessment System. We learned to Assess the Scene, Identify Life Threats including ABC's, perform a complete physical exam, take vitals, and get a history. We spent a few hours on this, then went to lunch.
Coming back from lunch, we ran our first 'scenario'. A 'scenario' is WMI-speak for having one group of students go outside and pretend to have an injury, and the rest of the class has to find them, assess them, and determine the appropriate treatment/evacuation plan. I think this was the most useful aspect of the class, and we ran 8 total scenarios over the two day course. After the scenario, we covered spine injuries, head injuries, shock, and began wilderness wound management. And ran more scenarios.
We broke for the evening promptly at 6 PM.
On Sunday, we greeted the day with a scenario. Then we covered more on wound management, taped some ankles, made splints, ran another scenario, covered athletic injuries, fractures, dislocations, and heat illness. After lunch (with those crazy kids slack-lining) we ran another scenario. By this time, I was a bit tired and not feeling like doing it, but was comfortable enough that I was playing lead rescuer for my scenarios so that I would get to do the groping, er, head-to-toe evaluation. We then covered cold injuries, lightning, altitude sickness, The Medical Patient, anaphylaxis, and unfortunately, only very briefly covered first aid kits before we closed the course with spirit fingers and patchouli handshakes.
Overall, I liked the course a lot; I learned a lot, although I was familiar with a lot of the material from experience(climbing, hiking, camping, etc) it was a good refresher. While we couldn't go into each topic in great detail, the focus on the patient assessment, and the determination of whether the injured person could stay in the field or needed to be removed, and how quickly, was very good. It also highlighted for me the reality I recently experienced myself: When you have a patient, and you know both what is wrong with them, and how to treat them, but don't have what you need, you have to make a decision quickly and take action. In this example, it meant riding out(leaving my friend with heat exhaustion at a trailhead) and coming back with my truck to take him out.
In the wilderness, or in a SHTF scenario, you can only count on what you have, and your own abilities. This is obviously just the first step down the path towards medical preparedness, and is well short of making you a fully-trained medical doctor, but what you learn in this class could save your, or another person's, life. And that is a pretty good start.
Rating: 4.5/5 Glock 19's.
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