Student Feedback

In order to establish guidelines for comprehensive, thorough, and more consistent wilderness medical training, AORE and other organizations that hold a respectively large place in the field of wilderness medicine have signed off on the Wilderness First Responder SOP (Draft), a document that complements the Wilderness First Aid Scope of Practice.

Please consider helping AORE make a difference by reviewing this document if you have ever sponsored a WFR course, attended at WFR course, or instructed a WFR course. Does this document include the topics that you want your staff to know? As a participants of a Wilderness First Responder course, is this training enough to prepare you for backcountry medical emergencies? Are the elective topics sufficient? Please be clear, professional, and thorough.

Click here for the Wilderness First Responder Scope of Practice.

Please send your comments to Tim Mertz (mertzt@uwstout.edu). Comments received will be consolidated and then presented to the wilderness medical providers for consideration in the final document.

A Wilderness Medical Associates graduate of a Wilderness First Responder (WFR) course utilizes his training and helps a climber by performing a shoulder reduction at 10,000 feet!

“I thought that I would share with you an event from this past weekend in which I was able to use my WFR training.  While Deanna and I were climbing a 5.7 route on Cathedral Peak in Tuolumne Meadows, a climber above us suddenly screamed out in pain.  He felt said pain while trying to make a mantle move onto a ledge.  He immediately asked me for help; knowing the scene was safe, I climbed up to him, got him to a safe place on the ledge and helped him sit down.  I told him that I’m a [Wilderness First Responder] and asked if he wanted me to take a look at what might be going on with his shoulder.  During my bilateral eval, I determined that his shoulder was likely dislocated.  Since it was an indirect injury of the joint, I told him that I could reduce it, and explained to him the process and pain relief benefit.  He asked me to do it, so I helped him to a lying down position (thankfully it was a big ledge) and started the reduction process. It only took two minutes or so to reduce the injury, and as expected, he felt immediate relief from the pain. I told him that I wanted to sling and swathe the arm, and then haul him the remainder of the way to the top.  (Thankfully I was only looking at 40 feet or so, which with a 5:1 mechanical advantage pulley system isn’t all that terrible.)  He didn’t want to be rescued any more than necessary, so he said he was going to try to climb the remainder by himself.  I told him that my offer stood if he changed his mind.  He was able to make it the remainder of the climb (a 5.6 crack).

I’ve thought a lot about this situation since then only to realize how things would have been very different had Deanna and I not taken the WFR course.  Not only did that course give us the specific tools to deal with such emergencies, but I have never felt more competent to provide medical care in wilderness context or otherwise. (And I didn’t even suffer any ASR, sympathetic or otherwise! {smile})  That said, I want to thank you once again for the great training.  I’m sure you’ve heard more than enough such stories, but I thought that you might like to hear another.  I hope this finds you well.”

This story was also featured in the August 2009 issue of Journal of Mountaineering on page 18.

Ann Dunphy, a lead instructor for Wilderness Medical Associates, submitted this story to us regarding a student from a recent Wilderness First Responder Training:

I just needed to share a beautiful WFR story.  In the morning of day 4, my student Mike came in and told me we saved his mother’s life. He started with “Ann you always say, saving a life one drill at time.”

Mike is in his mid 50′s and called his folks the night before as his mom was scheduled for minor heart surgery.  His dad told him, “your mother fell and hit her head, she’s got a pretty good goose egg.”

Having just learned about TBI/ Increasing ICP, Mike told his dad what to watch for.  Sure enough,  within two hours, she developed a severe headache and vomiting.  His dad would have just let her go to sleep without monitoring her.  She was air lifted out, had neurosurgery, and is doing fine so far.

You just never know when you can impact a student.  As tired as I may get while teaching, this is why I teach for Wilderness Medical Associates.

Ann Maureen Dunphy
WMA Lead Instructor

Sometimes you need to be careful about what you ask for, but when launching a new website, you gotta do it!

We wanted to make our new site easier to navigate, chock full of wilderness medical information, and featuring real people in videos. So we asked a recent group of WMA course graduates and this is what some said:

“Hey! Nice job with the web site. I like the eye catching header, the link to courses near me and the YouTube video. I keep describing to people how the course simulated real life situations and helped desensitize me to serious injuries, especially disfigurement, blood and guts (and Cabot’s projective vomiting!). It is great to have the YouTube clip to have my peers view and gain a better understanding of how I was trained.”

“New site looks great! I really like the Q & A and blog sections. Keep up the good work!”

“Like to new website, it was easy to navigate. I enjoyed the questions and answer part with Dr. Johnson the most.”

“The look and feel is really good. I like the Find a Course feature.”

Thanks to all the recent WMA grads who gave us such useful feedback.
Anne Rugg
General Manager

“My name is Chris and I have recently taken the WFR class at Ohio University Dec. 13-21. I just wanted to let you know how amazing my experience was. It all started with my absolutely outstanding instructors Darren “Daz” and Gary. My attention never strayed the entire week as I listened to every word. I was thrilled to go to class everyday and even dreamed about it every night. I wish my high school and college career were this interesting my classes would have been a breeze. Not only was I able to learn how to be a WFR but I also feel I learned something about myself too. This is one of the best weeks I have had and I hope your program continues to grow. Please continue to chose people like Daz and Gary to teach your classes and I am sure your program will have limitless success.”