Wilderness First Aid

Description

Why it’s Important: Being prepared for the unexpected can save lives. The Wilderness First Aid (WFA) course teaches students the skills to anticipate risks and hazards, identify medical, traumatic, environmental problems, recognize life-threatening issues, initiate basic care and deliver a cohesive report. VOC projects and trainings often take place in remote areas, and participating in this training is a great way to increase the safety of your crew.

What you’ll learn: This learning experience forces students to think creatively, adapt to ever changing situations, and learn valuable leadership, decision making, and communication skills. Some topics covered in this course include:

• Rescuer, patient and bystander mental health
• Inclusive and compassionate patient care
• Prevention of potential problems
• Performing a basic physical exam, identifying abnormalities and life-threatening problems, obtaining vital signs, patient history, and writing and verbalizing a report for a walk-out evacuation or hand-off
• Treatment and stabilization of emergencies, improvising splints, bleeding and wound control, management of heat and cold illnesses, hydration problems, drownings, lighting injuries, spinal cord protection, basic patient lifts and transfers
• Cardiopulmonary resuscitation and special considerations for the wilderness, Epinephrine administration, and first aid kit planning for specific activities and needs