The 3-day, 16-hour course is designed to develop good assessment and scene leadership skills. Further your risk benefit and decision making skills. Understand real shock. Learn to safely move spine injured patients. Treat ugly wounds and broken bones with greater confidence. Administer epinephrine for severe airway constriction. Recognize situations you can manage alone and when you need to scream for help.
Each day is devoted to classroom interaction and outdoor practical skills. You should expect scenarios with made up victims and simulated wounds to occur continuously throughout the course.
Day 1 :What is wilderness rescue? Who is in charge of wilderness rescues in New Hampshire?
Throughout the first day of the project “Wilderness First-Aid”, the group learned a boatload of new information. We began the day by watching the documentary “The Rescue”, which was about a highly known cave dive rescue case that happened in 2018 involving 12 soccer players and 1 coach in Thailand. A lot of the students in our project had never heard of this before so it was very informative. Some large takeaways from the documentary were how many people were involved the rescue, how many different specialists it took, and how many different countries worked together to put a plan in place.
After lunch we met Conservation Officer Towne who is a New Hampton town native. We learned a lot about the different regions in New Hampshire and where the most search and rescues take place. Officer Towne had some very interesting stories to share with us about his different roles as a law enforcer, fish and game commissioner, and search and rescue officer. We learned that he has a large skill set and is specialized in a lot of different areas of his profession. We are very thankful for him coming in to speak with us and teaching us more about his job. -Abby
Day 2: What is Wilderness First Aid? How do you assess a patient?
For the second day of Wilderness First Aid, we had instructor Paul Marcolini come in for the first of three days to teach us. He has significant experience and is here to teach us everything we have to do and everything we should know to help someone. In the morning, after his introduction, we learned some important word definitions that we need to know to be the best we can be in these kind of critical situations. During the rest of the morning, we learned about the primary and secondary assessment on a patient. During this, we also learned how to write an SOAP note for future reference on a patient.
After we broke for lunch, we started out with an example of a primary assessment. After watching the primary assessment being done by him, we broke out into partners where we also practiced the primary assessment. Once we practiced that on our partner, we then learned how to take pulses and respiratory rates. We went back into the classroom to learn about the secondary assessment that you had to do, which is almost like a full body check. Once again, we got a demonstration and then we demonstrated that on our partners. To finish off the day four students were chosen for a fake scenario, and the other four students rescued them. We ended in a circle to talk about something important that everyone learned. There will be a lot to learn in the following days to be prepared for any future wellness rescue. -Ryane D.
Day 3: What are some of your rescue stories? What's anaphylaxis? What are the signs of TBI? How to you perform high quality basic life support?
For our third day of Wilderness First Aid, Paul was with us for his second day. We started the day off by setting up our account with wildmed.com for our training. After that we got into learning about allergic reactions and anaphylaxis. We learned how to use an Epi-pen and we practiced this with our partner. After that we learned about TBI’s (traumatic brain injury) with the symptoms and what to do.
After our break for lunch, we watched a presentation by Paul and his experience in the Alaskan mountains as part of the National Park Patrol on Denali. We learned a lot of information about frostbite and other illnesses such as altitude sickness. After learning about Denali, we went outside and learned how to do CPR and pracriced the skills on mannikins. Our final exercise we did for the day, like yesterday, was doing more assessments on partners. We came back together for the final question about what everyone learned today. Tomorrow will be a day full of information and our final day with Paul. - Ryane D.
Day 4 : Who runs helicopter evacuations in New Hampshire? What are some legal considerations when using my skills? How do you keep someone warm? How do you move someone? How do you splint injuries and treat wounds? What scares you? What can you do?
This an image of what is the medical form of a burrito wrap. When a patient is wrapped in this two-layer burrito they are extremely protected from the elements and can be used to help keep the patient safe and comfortable while being moved. We learned today how to take and injured patient and move them into a sleeping bag and wrap them like a burrito while causing minimal body movement of the patient.
This is a arm splint, today we learned how to splint someone's arms in case they break either their forearm or their upper arm. This is a very crucial thing to know when you need to move someone from point a to point b and want minimal arm movement.