Case Studies

A member of your rafting party loses a tooth partway through a 4-day trip. How do you respond?

A fall partway through a sea kayak trip deep in the wilderness poses unique issues. How do you apply your wilderness medicine skills to this incident?

Ouch! Your friend gets stung by a jellyfish while you're out surfing. How do you respond?

While climbing in Greece with a friend, you witness another climber takes a fall. She swings hard, feet first, into the wall. The rope stops her, but she is clutching her ankle and screaming. what do you and your friend, a WFR and a WEMT respectively, do?

You witness someone fall from a horse; they are unresponsive. How do you use your Wilderness Medicine skills in this situation?

After a strenuous hike, you and your team find a tent just off the trail at 11,300 ft. You call out, “Hello, is anyone in the tent? This is search and rescue. We have a report of someone who needs assistance?” See what happens next in this case study.

Test your wilderness medicine skills to see how you would respond to this first-aid scenario.

Your hiking partner slips on a snowy slope and slides head-first into a tree. What do you do next?

On a paddling trip in Big Bend National Park, a participant starts having leg spasms. What do you do?

A student gets a hot water burn deep in the backcountry. What do you do?

See what you would do to respond to and treat a possible snakebite.

A climber collapses at the crag. What do you do next?

What would you do to help a patient with hypothermia while winter camping?

A skier hits a terrain feature and goes flying. They land hard and don't immediately reply when you ask if they are ok. How do you respond?

Test your wilderness medicine skills with this case study!

Test your wilderness medicine skills with this case study! You are guiding a 7-day wilderness trip. One of your participants, Stan, is an insulin-dependent diabetic. At 5am, Stan's tentmate wakes you up saying, 'Stan is really sick.'

Two days into a picture-perfect autumn backpacking trip in the Wind River Mountains, your companion slips and falls on rocky terrain. His chief complaint: pain in his swollen and tender knee. You’re at mile 5 of a planned 20-mile loop. What do you do?

Test your knowledge with this case study about a patient with an ankle injury on a backcountry hunt.

Test your knowledge with this case study about a patient having breathing difficulty in a remote mountain setting

This case study focuses on how responders must be creative and thoughtful to adapt plans as they care for patients on a wilderness—not city—timeframe.

At 6:30 in the morning some of your participants come and tell you that their tentmate is complaining of abdominal pain. As the WFR-trained course leader, you go to their tent to investigate.

Five days into sea kayaking with friends in Prince William Sound, Alaska you feel lousy; some diarrhea, some vague abdominal cramping, not much appetite. You assume it's a touch of the flu and don't say anything. See what happens next and test your knowledge with this case study.

You and a friend are on a long run in the foothills of the Laramie Range in Wyoming. It’s a hot day. Four hours into the run your companion stumbles, slows, staggers, and sits on a log. He says he “feels awful.”

A trip participant has trouble on a rappel. When they are safely on the ground, you begin your patient assessment. Test your wilderness medicine skills with this case study.