Recently, a small group of adult leaders and older Scouts from the Cobra Patrol completed the requirements for certification in Wilderness First Aid under the tutelage of First Responder and instructor Ian Pleet. Most first aid courses teach you the immediate steps for dealing with an injury and instruct you to seek professional medical assistance. Wilderness First Aid is an advanced course that teaches what to do when professional medical care is not available.
All students took extensive online training, several weeks of discussion and a day of skills demonstrations to become certified. The knowledge and skills gained build upon those that are learned in rank requirements and the First Aid Merit Badge. Students must learn primary and secondary patient assessments to include creating written notes, called SOAP notes. The patient is looked at as an entire system and the first aid provider must look beyond the obvious injury to assess secondary affects and prioritize the care given.
Advanced skills taught included re-aligning compound fractures, closing lacerations, and use of tourniquets. The types of injuries and afflictions addressed are also expanded on. Students had to learn how to identify and treat altitude sickness, diabetic emergencies and anaphylaxis. Students must also be prepared to provide longer term care. A fractured arm may be splinted but now must also be checked for progressive nerve damage. An open wound may have been bandaged but must now be monitored for infection. Students must also learn when a patient can continue on, must be moved to a location to seek professional treatment, or requires emergency evacuation, i.e. a helicopter rescue.
Wilderness First Aid certification comes with some responsibilities. The nature of most BSA high adventure opportunities is that Scouts may be hours or days away from professional medical assistance. There is no phone signal when canoeing in the Canadian Crown Lands of Northern Tier. If someone gets injured, there must be someone trained to provide the proper care. For this reason, BSA requires at least one individual in any high adventure crew be certified in Wilderness First Aid. Some of the adults taking the training were simultaneously working on becoming certified Wilderness First Aid Instructors. The troop will now have a small cadre of certified instructors to provide this training to leaders scheduled for our yearly High Adventure trips.