ARC Wilderness First Aid course

[mt_goodrich]

I am going to sign up for this course to be held at Sid Richardson Scout Reservation in November. Our council's web site stated that beginning in 2008, each Philmont Trek is required to have one person certified with this training.

Below is what was sent to me from the person responsible for the training:

The course is about 20 hours long and will be taught in one weekend at Sid Richardson Scout Ranch near Bridgeport Tx in November. It will cover basic first aid plus changes in injury care that are required because of conditions. No CPR will be presented - that is a separate course.

The course is an aggregation of 2 older Red Cross courses; Wilderness First Aid (16 hours) and When Help is Delayed (6 hours). To earn the 3-year certification you must demonstrate the ability to perform the required skills taught during the course plus pass 2 written exams each with a score of 80% or better.

[FrankJ]

That is pretty much the course description. It assumes you already have first aide skills & doesn't cover CPR, but still crams a lot into 22 hrs. My only criticism is it still has too much of the don't do anything until the pros get here mentality.

I thought is was worth my time when I took it last year.

[WVBeaver05]

I took this course a couple of years ago and didn't get much of a "wait for the pros" message. In fact, we focused several discussions and exercises on how to get injured back to civilization to the pros. There was a lot of document the condition so you can provide that info when you return.

To me a lot of the course was focused on the different mindset from First Aid as it is currently taught. That is, as you mentioned, immediate care until professionals arrive in around 15 minutes max. This course seemed to try and prepare folks mentally for that not being the case so they didn't just use that first aid and sit 15 miles out in the wilderness waiting.

As always, it wasn't a perfect course, but well worth it for all Scout Leaders (IMO).

YiS

[scouter01]

wait for the pros can be pretty dnagerous. what if youre canoing in canda or soemthing. it would tkae a while