We live in a community rich in opportunities for outdoor recreation. We have parks you can walk to, trails you can bike to, and fishing, hunting, climbing, kayaking, and camping all within a 30-minute drive. We know that both moving your body regularly and spending time outside are integral to health and wellbeing, so developing an affinity for one of our many available forms of outdoor recreation is one of the very best things you can do for your future self.
However, accidents can happen when recreating outside, and some of those activities put you in places where getting back to a hospital or even the road for an ambulance could be a challenge. The field of wilderness medicine exists for situations like this – using available resources (first aid kits, gear, and natural tools like sticks or stones) to stabilize and evaluate accidents and injuries in the field to either continue the adventure after a minor issue or get back home rapidly and safely for a major one.
Three years ago, Dr Stewart Decker of the Sky Lakes Wellness Center started teaching Wilderness First Aid (WFA) classes to local high school students so they can learn to recreate outdoors safely. Working with Career and Technical Education (CTE) teachers at Mazama, Henley, and Klamath Union high schools, Dr. Decker has offered a hybrid WFA model where teachers spend a few weeks teaching classroom skills like water purification, treating snakebites, triage theory, etc, culminating in a seven-hour clinical skills field trip day.
On the skills day, Dr Decker teaches the students patient assessment, hemorrhage control, fractures, dislocations, splinting, litters, carries, and hypothermia packaging. Students learn the skills in a large group then practice with scenarios in which one partner plays the rescuer and the other plays the victim, complete with fake blood, fake bruises, fake broken bones, and a backstory; one set of victims had a parachuting accident, while another set were part of a skateboarding race that went disastrously awry.
The event was originally conceived for high schoolers, but as awareness has grown, so has the audience: this year we had participants from Oregon Tech, Bend, Grants Pass, and Talent. Participants were encouraged to interact and pair up with people from all walks of life, hopefully leading to some inspiration mixed in with all the fake wounds and real techniques. One thing is for sure – as Klamath develops its focus on outdoor recreation, people who participate in outdoor activities regularly will be healthier, and they can also keep themselves safe by learning some wilderness medicine!
