Stayin' alive!

Complete with stage make-up! 

Nick and I just finished certification with the NOLS* Wilderness First Aid course. Excellent! I've had various first aid courses over the years, though the last substantial study I had was in boot camp, I think. The NOLS folks have a whole different approach, starting first with exactly that: the approach. Before learning any specific first aid techniques, you consider the approach to the situation and sizing up. Ben, one of our instructors, guided us through taking out a can of calm and drinking it first when an injurious incident presents itself. From there, we thoroughly discussed the "grammar" of first aid: gathering all of the information before moving forward with any treatment. As dire and dramatic as many first aid situations seem, he emphasized several times throughout the course, there is not only time to gather intel, but it is necessary in order to be able to make appropriate decisions.

We spent most of the morning discussing and practicing the NOLS Patient Assessment System (PAS). A much more thorough treatment of assessment than I've seen in other first aid courses. Afterwards, we talked through various scenarios and potential issues that one might encounter in the backcountry, all the while keeping in mind the main question: stay and play or load and go.

Overall, 16 hours excellently spent. While these are skills we hope never to need, they're skills that are absolutely imperative when needed. They're also skills that need to be practiced, so feel free to ask me to assess you at any moment. I'd like to become fluent in this practice.

Ryan's teammates practice a passive shoulder dislocation reduction with cravats and water bottles. 

One other quick note: the classmates. With 29 students, class size was just right. And an excellent room of folks, it was! The feeling being around these folks reminded me of being around the excellent MR340 crowd: a reminder that I should be spending more time farther from cities.


*NOLS: National Outdoor Leadership School