Medical Skills are Essential in the Wilderness
02/27/2009
Featured in the San Diego Union-Tribune, SAN DIEGO ALIVE! by Peggie Peattie
June 17, 2008
As outdoor adventurers head into the backcountry for their summer vacations, they take themselves farther from the typical emergency medical response time available in the city. Savvy adventurers pack more than bug spray in their gear – they go armed with some level of wilderness or rescue medical knowledge. Environmental conditions like heat, cold, rain, distance or unstable terrain add considerable risk for both patient and rescuers when something goes wrong.
This week, the Union-Tribune's video health feature, San Diego Alive, demonstrates what goes into wilderness medical training by highlighting the group Wilderness Medical Associates (WMA).
Founded in 1981 to provide medical training and risk management to Outward Bound Schools, WMA offers courses at varying levels of intensity, including wilderness first-aid and wilderness first-responder. The courses cover the same essential issues as would urban medical care classes, such as wound management, asthma treatment and CPR. But they add the wilderness context, meaning definitive care can be hours or even days away.
During a recent wilderness first-responder training course, San Diego native Josh Jackson, a WMA instructor and program coordinator for UCSD's Outback Adventures Program, showed us some of the potential situations injured adventurers might be faced with, and how to deal with them.
