Emergency rooms are often burdened by people who are not ill or injured enough to truly need an ER, which is especially true today with the COVID-19 pandemic. As a NOLS Wilderness Medicine graduate, you can use your training to alleviate strain on healthcare services.

Topics: Wilderness First Responder, First Aid, NOLS Wilderness Medicine, Wilderness Medicine, flu-like illness, Illness and Injuries, Leadership, Covid-19

Throwback to the sweet hot summer of 2015: The USA Women’s team won the World Cup, Taylor Swift’s 1989 was topping the charts (I sang every lyric to every song), and I was an energetic, sunburnt, 19-year-old working at a camp in West Virginia.

Topics: wfa, WFR, Wilderness First Responder, First Aid, Wilderness First Aid, Wilderness Medicine, Stories

NOLS Wilderness First Responder grad Ned Morris is a volunteer ShelterBox Response Team member (SRT). SRT members deploy to areas of natural disaster or conflict-based migration, and help families who have lost everything due to natural disaster or violence. ShelterBox provides shelter solutions, including tents or house repair kits, as well as water purification systems, solar lighting, cooking sets, and much more. There are just over 100 active Response Team members in the world; less than 40 in the U.S. Read the following Q&A to learn more about Ned's humanitarian work with ShelterBox and how his WFR helped prepare him for this role.

Topics: Wilderness First Responder, First Aid, NOLS Wilderness Medicine, Wilderness Medicine, Wilderness Medicine Stories

To get into the Halloween spirit, NOLS is exploring how wilderness medicine skills apply in an apocalyptic setting. You may be surprised to learn that you're prepared to survive the walking dead (and also to remove impaled objects when it’s not the end of the world)! Have a spooky, happy Halloween!

Topics: Wilderness First Responder, First Aid, Just for Fun, NOLS Wilderness Medicine, Wilderness Medicine

Hiking to Head Injury

During the summer of 2017, when I was 14 years old, I took part in a 21-day NOLS backpacking course in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming. Just halfway through the course, I watched what (at the time) I considered to be an incredible feat of medicine. Another student on my course tripped and fell while walking across a burned-out section of forest and—under the heavy weight of his pack—hit his head on a rock. In the days that followed, I watched my two incredible instructors treat a possible concussion.

Topics: Wilderness First Responder, First Aid, NOLS Wilderness Medicine, Wilderness Medicine

The Setting

You’re a biologist working out of a remote ranch on the sagebrush plains of southern Idaho. It’s early May. You ride and walk daily to survey herds of pronghorn as part of a research program. One of your classmates goes to bed feeling lousy—achy, nauseous—and wakes up feeling worse.

Knowing you have training as a Wilderness First Responder (WFR), your colleagues ask you to take a look at this poor fellow.

Topics: Wilderness First Responder, First Aid, Case Studies, NOLS Wilderness Medicine, Wilderness Medicine, flu-like illness

At age 41 I have repented of some of the bad behavior of my youth. No longer will I leave fish around the tents of my friends when we camp in bear country. Nor will I begin my pre-trip safety talks with the phrase, “What could possibly go wrong?”

Topics: Wilderness First Responder, First Aid, NOLS Wilderness Medicine, Wilderness Medicine

The Setting

You and a companion, both proud and confident Wilderness First Responders (WFR), are hiking a wilderness trail when you are passed by a horse pack string led by a young cowboy. You exchange pleasantries and fishing tips.

Suddenly, one horse nips at another, a horse kicks, and then horses seem to be going everywhere. The rider’s horse rears and bucks; he falls off and lands on his head and shoulder.

Topics: decision making, Wilderness First Responder, First Aid, Case Studies, Wilderness Medicine

The Setting

You are on a Search and Rescue (SAR) team whose members are Wilderness First Responders (WFRs). You and your team members hike on a rugged trail into Wyoming’s Wind River Range, responding to a vague report that came in at midnight of a “very sick person” camped “near the trail near tree line.” Your team’s role is to sweep the trail in the dark in the hopes of finding out exactly what is going on. A second SAR group is gathering to hike up the trail later in support.

Topics: Wilderness First Responder, First Aid, Case Studies, Wilderness Medicine

The Setting

You are the leader of a hiking group at a summer day camp. Today, you allowed some of your campers with good navigation skills and expedition behavior to walk 3 miles back to your camp on a well-marked trail without a camp leader present.

When the campers arrive, you notice one of them has a bandage on their forehead. You learn that about an hour ago and a mile back on the trail this camper tripped, fell, and knocked their head.

Topics: Wilderness First Responder, First Aid, Case Studies, NOLS Wilderness Medicine, Wilderness Medicine

This is a tale from the early 1980s. Reagan was President, the internet and cell phones only a dream, and disco thankfully on its last legs. Two friends and I had recently learned wilderness medicine skills through an advanced first aid course, which was an early generation of the Wilderness First Responder (WFR).

Read along to see how you would react to a similar first aid situation today.

Topics: Wilderness First Responder, First Aid, altitude illness, Case Studies, NOLS Wilderness Medicine, Wilderness Medicine

The Setting

You’ve been leading an outdoor skills course for young adults, most of it taught indoors or on day hikes. This weekend is the culminating overnight snowshoe trip where you plan to sleep in hollowed-out snow shelters, called quinzhees.

The snowshoe hike went according to plan and you and your group arrive at your planned campsite. Everyone appears weary, happy, and healthy. You note that it is much colder than any previous trip you’ve led, with temperatures hovering near 0°F (-18°C).

Topics: Wilderness First Responder, First Aid, Case Studies, winter, Wilderness Medicine, frostbite

Photo by Brian Fabel.

Editor’s Note: This case study is based on an actual incident that NOLS Wilderness First Responder and Wilderness First Aid graduates responded to.

Topics: Wilderness EMT, Wilderness First Responder, First Aid, Case Studies, winter, Wilderness Medicine

The Setting

You and three friends are hiking through a sandy wash in the desert. Even though it is fall, daytime high temperatures have been 100°F (37.7°C) with no clouds in the sky.

Your group encounters another party of two hikers, one of whom is lying on the ground under the only small juniper in the area. The other hiker seems worried. You ask if everything is ok. One hiker is fine but asks if you can help with the patient, who he worries is dehydrated or having a “heat stroke.”

Topics: Wilderness First Responder, First Aid, Case Studies, Wilderness Medicine, hydration

As a medical provider in the wilderness, it’s important to not make judgments or assumptions. For example, rather than assuming a patient is low risk for a spine injury, you can use a focused spine assessment to gather information relevant to your decision.

Topics: WFR, Wilderness First Responder, First Aid, Inclusion, communication, NOLS Wilderness Medicine, Wilderness Medicine