My, what a long weekend! But a fun one filled with new friends who are just as outdoor obsessed as myself.
I have just completed the Wilderness Medic 2 course with Wilderness.
Unlike normal first aid courses where the vast majority of time is spent sitting rigidly in a classroom and reading badly written notes on an overhead projector, we had fun. Yes we still had the formal teaching, but it was done outside. Instead of the usual impatient, impassioned instructor we had 3 very patient, professional and extremely enthusiastic instructors. Nothing was too much hassle for them and they put up with all the teasing and banter that our group of 11 could throw at them.
So, I hear you ask, how was it different from normal?
Well, as any outdoor people who have done a standard first aid course know – almost everything you learn is irrelevant. In the outdoors there is often no mobile phone reception, there are no phoneboxes, there are few passersby, small injuries can quickly become fatal, there are no ambulances and helicopters aren’t always available even if they could reach you. The majority of time when there is an incident in the great outdoors or a wilderness environment it is down to you, there is no quick fix, you can’t just walk past and hope someone else will find them – and if you did, could you really live with yourself afterwards?
Each day was split up into sections, in the morning we had breakfast cooked over an open fire (with the biggest packs of bacon I’ve ever seen) followed by a morning session of teaching – all hands on. Then it was tea time (kettle over open fire), then another teaching session and more hands on work, we were shown how to make stretchers, neck braces and splints from only what we would normally carry. We also learnt how to make emergency shelters although that is normally part of a different course.
Practical scenarios are the order of the day. All too easy it is for the things you have learnt to go in one ear and out the other but on this course that is impossible. Walking through the woods you suddenly see him – unconscious, bleeding, cold – all too easy it is to forget that this is make-believe. Then the adrenalin rush starts as you try to remember everything you’ve learnt, thoughts of hypothermia, fractures, CPR, shock trauma e.t.c. swimming around your head. Then all of a sudden the mist clears and you know what you have to do, surprised at how much you’ve managed to learn already.