For the past 10 days, Team Medical (Faye and Liam) has been camping at the Harriman Outdoor Center, in Harriman State Park, NY, where they have been being trained as Wilderness First Responders (WFRs). The 80-hour long course was with the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) and as part of the course, they learned about all of the topics listed below. Each day class was from 8 am-5 pm with an hour break for lunch and there were two days that had night sessions lasting 4 hours; this meant that over the ten days (with one day off), Liam and Faye received 80 hours of training. They covered everything from how to assess patients, to how to make splints and slings, and how to perform psychological first aid. The class was very hands-on, and for each topic, there would be a short lecture where the students learned causes, signs and symptoms, treatments, and vacuation guidelines for different types of wilderness injuries. After (or sometimes before) each lecture the students would then have to put the skills to use in a scenario. In scenarios, some of the class act as patients and are told what symptoms and injuries they have, the other students in the class are then expected to do a full assessment on the patients to figure out what injuries or illnesses they may be suffering from, and then provide treatment. A lot of the learning happens during these scenarios since the students are able to put their knowledge into practice.

One of the highlights from the class was the mock rescue which was on the night of our eighth day of class. The idea behind the mock rescue is that after dinner the instructors send the students out into the wilderness in small teams of 4-5. The students have no idea what they are going to encounter, but it is supposed to be a very realistic scenario that is will take multiple hours and require them to use all the skills that they learned in the class so far. There was a thunderstorm forecasted for the night of our mock rescue, but it still went ahead as scheduled. As we marched into the woods with the rain starting to come down, we were prepared to be out there late into the night; however, after about 45 minutes the lightning became a safety hazard and since the forecast didn’t seem to be improving, the instructors decided to call the rescue off early. Even though it was shortened, it was still a very valuable experience and one of the coolest parts of the 10 days. Another highlight was Liam laying down in a cold lake while fully clothed to simulate a hypothermia patient, his group had to rescue him from the lake and put him in a hypothermia wrap (see below) to keep him warm. Faye also got to be a patient; seen below is her leg with makeup on for the wounds topic in the course (the makeup is a squished banana with food coloring).

The last day of the class consisted of two exams. One exam was a multiple-choice test that covered all the different topics from the course. The second exam was a practical exam in which the students were broken up into teams of two and had to perform an assessment and treat an injured patient. The instructors watched the practical exam and gave feedback immediately following. Liam and Fay both passed both of the exams and are now certified WFRs! Since IGEA will be doing research in a very remote setting it is crucial to have team members who are trained in what to do in a wilderness emergency medical situation. Before leaving to go to Alaska, Faye and Liam are using their new knowledge to improve upon the existing medical kits and will train everyone on how to use items in the medkits.

Sorry for the inconvenience: pictures from the WFR Training are not available due to momentary technical difficulties with uploading media to the UMass Blogs. Photos will be posted as soon as this is resolved.