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Wilderness First Aid Course (WFA)
16-18 hours over 2 days
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Course Description
Wilderness First Aid is an excellent introduction to wilderness emergency care. The program’s goal is to equip participants with the basic knowledge and skills to adapt standard first aid techniques to the demands of wilderness locations. This course has two primary goals 1) to equip participants with lifesaving skills-ABC’s 2) to develop basic skills to handle common wilderness injuries. Wilderness First Aid courses has two optional components: CPR certification and anaphylaxis workshop. If either or both are added to a course program becomes 18 hours in length.
Course Highlights
- How to save a life—ABC’s
- Preventing sickness and injuries in the wilderness
- How to handle environmental emergencies
- Introduction to caring for the sick or injured in a remote setting
- Anaphylaxis signs/symptoms and treatment including hands on instruction in the use of injectable epinephrine (ana-kits, epi-pens)
Course Target
- Day Hikers
- Teacher’s leading local day trips
- Personal adventures in accessible areas—eg. Algonquin Park
Sample Course Outline
| DAY 1 | 0.5 Hours | Registration & Introduction |
| 12 Hours | 0.5 | General Concepts and intro. to the Big 3 Body Systems |
| 2 | Patient Assessment System and CPR | |
| 2 | Other Initial Assessment Problems –Respiratory, Circulatory and Nervous Systems. | |
| 1 | Lunch | |
| 0.5 | Patient Assessment Drill | |
| 0.5 | Fractures, Stable injuries, Dislocations | |
| 1 | Splints I Extremities | |
| 1 | Small Group Rescue Simulations | |
| 1 | Allergies and Anaphylaxis | |
| EVENING | 2 | Assigned Homework and Reading |
| DAY 2 | 0.25 | Review Quiz or Homework Review |
| 9 Hours | 1 | Focused Patient Assessment |
| 1 | Hypothermia | |
| 0.25 | Frost Bite and Local Cold Injuries | |
| 0.5 | Heat Illness | |
| 1 | Wounds and Burns | |
| 1 | Lunch | |
| 0.5 | Near Drowning | |
| 1 | Backcountry medicine | |
| 0.5 | Injection Workshop and anaphylaxis review | |
| 1 | Lifting, Moving, Patient Carries, and Improvised Litters | |
| 0.5 | Patient Packaging | |
| 1 | Large Group Simulation |