Wilderness First Responder training course at MSU
Contact: Anisa Abid, News Writer for Environmental Science and Policy Program: (517) 432-3823 or abidanis@msu.edu
March 12, 2008
If you have ever wandered in the wilderness, far from medical help, you have probably wondered what would happen if you or a companion got seriously injured. Who would come to your rescue? MSU recently began offering a course to train students and others how to respond to such emergencies, and it's already become hugely popular.
MSU is offering the Wilderness First Responder course through the National Outdoor Leadership School's Wilderness Medicine Institute (WMI). The ten-day course is offered annually, either during spring break or the first week of summer, and can be taken for credit. The course covers treatment of frostbite, hypothermia, dislocations, wilderness wounds, spinal cord injuries, poisoning and many other wilderness- related predicaments.
The Wilderness First Responder course fills up very quickly, says Joseph Arvai, assistant professor in Community, Agriculture, Recreation and Resource Studies and ESPP, who sponsors the course. The course has 30 spots and is open to the public but MSU students receive priority. Pre-med students, graduate students, and students enrolled in study abroad have had the highest enrollment in the course. Some students need to get WMI certification for certain jobs that require work in the outdoors, such as park or forest rangers, or work with the Bureau of Land Management.
Having taken the course himself, Arvai says the skills he learned were handy, especially during a climb on Mt. McKinley in Denali National Park, Alaska, when one of the climbers on the trip had a heart attack. Several members of Arvai's group also had wilderness medicine experience, and worked together to keep the climber alive for seven hours until help arrived. "The MSU course was instrumental in teaching the skills I needed to be an effective part of this emergency team, and not just a bystander," Arvai says.
Stephen Aldrich, graduate student in Geography and ESPP, says that the course "gave me the tools to evaluate my own medical issues." After taking the course last spring, he was able to use his training in the Brazilian Amazon when he acquired Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. His training in symptoms of bacterial infections, and discovery of a tick bite, helped him identify his illness.
WMI certification is a step below EMT training and is good for two years. Recertification is then required, which can be fulfilled by taking a 2-day refresher course (offered each year before the full course). Those interested in taking the course should contact Arvai before registering: sknkwrks@msu.edu
For more information visit: http://www.nols.edu/wmi/courses/wildfirstresponder.shtml
