Students Learn Wilderness First Aid

Immersion leaders as well as other students and community members gathered in the Center for the Arts (CFA) for Wilderness First Aid (WFA) training on March 5 and 6. This certification program, led by the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), provided attendees with skills in first aid, communication and the ability to cope with difficult or dangerous situations.

Assistant Director for the Center for Sustainable Communities for Leadership and Engagement Emily Neal was the faculty member responsible for organizing this training session.

“Wilderness First Aid is basic first aid on nature’s time,” Neal said.

WFA certification, valid for up to two years, provides people with a basic knowledge of outdoor first aid. According to Neal, this training gives attendees training to assess situations and administer first aid in a resourceful way.

“It’s not ‘Wilderness First Responder,’ you’re not a paramedic, but it gives you first aid and the ability to handle things in a resourceful way with the kit that you have,” Neal said. “[WFA] also provides students with the training to recognize when a situation is not minor and they need to call for help.”

Neal spoke specifically on the class and how it was structured.

“We are allowed to have 30 people in the course, and it is taught by the Wilderness Medicine Institute (WMI), which is a division of the National Outdoor Leadership School,” Neal said. “You have a lecture on different protocols for different injuries, and then there’s the practical part.”

In addition to listening to lecture, attendees were able to practice the first-aid skills they learned. The students worked together through a variety of in-class simulations that mimicked injuries.

“[WFA] makes all of the situation look real through makeup and fake blood,” Neal said. “It’s pretty amazing how the theater of it all actually makes you feel the intensity of it.”

In addition to having realistic make up, students were also encouraged to practice real first-aid reporting etiquette. According to Neal, communication is another vital skill gained through the WFA course.

Read the full story here.