#wrfa

[macgyvermedical]

WILDERNESS AND REMOTE FIRST AID FOR WHUMPLINGS

Hi All,

I'm doing a WRFA course 3/9-3/10. I'm putting it up here last minute because we lost a few people and I need to get to a minimum number of students. It's going to be in SE Ohio, USA. If you want to take a WRFA course for less than $100, here's your chance!

All food, supplies, the certification, and a place to pitch a tent are included in the price.

Contact me through my fandom email [email protected] to sign up.

[macgyvermedical]

There are still a few spots left in the Wilderness and Remote First Aid course I’m co-teaching scheduled for April 26th-28th!.

Check out the link for more information (don’t worry about having all the gear- people bring extra and stuff like water purification isn’t as essential as the sign-up makes it seem. if you want to go but need a tent, let me know and I’ll bring my big one.)

The cost is $60 for youth (14-18y) and Boy Scouts and $75 for adults. The price includes course, certification, textbook, campground, snacks, and one meal.

The course will be held in Kensington, OH and runs from 5pm (6 if you already have a CPR certification) Friday to 12pm Sunday. There is some stress inoculation integrated into the course and it does require several miles of hiking per day (but it kinda depends on a lot of things how much we actually do). Hit me up if you have any questions or if you plan to register! I look forward to meeting you!

(as @disappearinginq noted, WRFA is not fandom, but it is really good to know if you’re writing this stuff or just want a better feel for what remote medical situations are like)

[macgyvermedical]

Hey Whumpers!

I just saw a post that there’s a ton of you living right here in my home state of Ohio. Meaning you’re within a 4 hr drive of ME!

So, if any of you Ohioans (or even peeps from PA or IN, I’m not picky) want to spend a few of your waning winter break days (namely evening of 1/3/18- noonish of 1/5/18) at a farm in Medina County learning how to do cool medical things without medical equipment, hit me up!

I’m a certified Wilderness and Remote First Aid (WRFA) instructor, and together with the awesome Remote EMT @alliemackenzie28 we’re offering a whump-and-writing themed WRFA course just for you guys. The class will include some meals (lodging TBD) and be free*.

Come join us for a fun, informative, and whump-filled course!

If you’re interested, message me ( @macgyvermedical ) or send me an ask!

*textbook provided during course. We will not be offering WRFA certification due to the modification and associated liability issues

[macgyvermedical]

Hey Ohio Whumpers, Again!

The good news is @alliemackenzie28 and I got a lot of interest in a whump/writing themed wilderness first aid course! Unfortunately, most people who wanted to come had a scheduling conflict for the days of the course.

No issue! We talked it over and wanted to see if there would be any interest in a shorter course (6-8 hours instead of the normal 18) on January 6th (a Saturday) instead? 

I’m a certified wilderness first aid instructor and alliemackenzie is a remote EMT. The course would still be free, with some food included. Located Medina County, OH. About 50/50 outdoors/indoors.

Message me/send an ask for more info!

[macgyvermedical]

The Saturday Night Scenario

My WRFA students kicked ass this weekend.

The Saturday night scenario is designed to push students to the edge of breaking- and, sometimes, past it. Everyone is tired, freezing, on information overload, and ready to quit- and put in a situation where if they do, someone dies. It takes as long as it takes to assess the situation, treat to the best of the group’s ability, and come up with a plan for evac or shelter. There are no right answers, but many, many wrong ones. Even though they know it is a simulation, I’ve seen people cry, scream at each other, even storm out and refuse to come back the next morning.

The first time I took the course, the end of this scenario was the fourth worst I’d ever felt emotionally in my life. Like, there’s only so far you can push people in 24 hours, but if you do it right, its pretty damn far.

The goal is to get everyone to recognize the stress, put the crap aside, and work the problem.

And man, my instructor-trainer and I came up with a hell of a problem for them:

We set up the following: They were on a multi-day backpacking trip on an established trail. They were 7 miles from the previous checkpoint, with 2 miles to go to the next one. They’d stopped to rest, and one of their group, K, had gone ahead to use the facilitrees.

She didn’t return. The group would come upon her having fallen partway down a brush-covered hill. She had a compound fracture of the fibula that had severed an artery and a huge and spreading bruise (indicative of severe internal bleeding) on her abdomen. She was hypothermic, in shock (the initial symptoms of which were masked by the hypothermia), and only conscious enough to indicate severe pain in her back by crying or groaning during the assessments. We used a realistic amount of fake blood and moulaged a lamb bone sticking out of K’s leg. It was a pretty dire looking situation.

By only 10 minutes in, the group had already established scene safety, completed their primary assessment, controlled the bleeding in K’s leg, moved K to a more manageable location (while keeping her spine in line), and completed their secondary assessment. By twenty, they’d identified and treated for hypothermia, pitched a tent, and identified that she was going into shock.

Keep in mind that it was 20F in several inches of snow IRL.

By 30mins, they had reduced (set) and splinted the fracture, and realized the shock was being caused by internal bleeding- something we don’t even teach in the course.

But there wass nothing they could do course-wise, and we knew it. So we just started throwing stuff at them. They got caught in a surprise snow storm, K had to pee, their radio was broken and they couldn’t fix it. No, the cabin at the checkpoint 2 miles away had no backup radio. Yes, there was a 50% chance someone was in the cabin 7 miles behind them, less that they had a working form of communication.

It took them the next half hour to come up with a plan, between things my instructor trainer and I threw at them that they had to deal with. Each time, they succeeded- but the big problem remained. K was still bleeding out internally.

They had to figure out what to do.

If they’d chosen to carry her to the next checkpoint, we would have actually made them carry her 2 miles. If they’d chosen to send someone back to get help, that person (or people) would have gotten lost or hurt themselves. In the end, they chose to wait it out in the tent and send people for help in the morning after the storm passed and just hope the bleed clotted on its own and she made it that long. This was indeed the “correct” solution because while it was risking the victim’s life, it would have kept the other four people involved relatively safe.

It literally got to the point where the only way we could up the ante would have been to tell them she had died of her injuries (this is a 100% viable option for the instructor to use if the circumstances warrant it. Previous versions of the course included a Kobayashi Maru scenario, where the person dies regardless of care given- but where the participants are not told this until after it happens). My instructor-trainer and I decided we weren’t that evil, and ended the scenario. One student had already stormed away in frustration (she came back a few minutes later and continued to the end) and at least one other was on the verge of tears.

NOTE: After the scenario we always debrief and participants get the chance to talk about and have their feelings validated. It’s actually vital that people understand the feelings often associated with caring for people in dire situations, because its a LOT worse than a lot of people think and most people are utterly caught off guard by it, even in simulations. We’re not cruel. This all serves a purpose. We can’t pass people unless we know how they handle realistic, life-threatening injuries under high-stress circumstances.

Overall, this was the best group I or my instructor-trainer have ever seen go through this course. The best part? They were 4 college kids and a 26-year-old naturalist park ranger. And man, they rocked it!

[wittalworld]

Before Wilderness and Remote First Aid Test Day...After WRFA, 8 hours later...#wrfa #firstaid #scoutscanada #proudofmyself #usefulskills (at Indian Battle Park) https://www.instagram.com/p/B7haDUSJgvb/?igshid=1a5u3b3s2q7vw

[wittalworld]

Relearning some standard first aid as well as wilderness first aid. #wrfa #scoutscanada https://www.instagram.com/p/B7fAFUAJl2o/?igshid=7xmbxszsnfsa

[ridethedarktrail]

FYI - WRFA

I’m out of the loop so this may have been discussed, but WRFA is experiencing some problems from the last server update. New stories do post and appear in the Most Recent section(despite error messages), however any chapters added to an existing story will not appear in the Most Recent section.