WFA Training
Hoo boy! A busy trio of days for me. Thursday and Friday were devoted to an intensive 16-hour Wilderness First Aid training course (WFA). And today I led a twelve-hour field trip to Shenandoah National Park.
As you may recall, I got a grant to cover the tuition for six instructors (four from NOVA, two from Thomas Nelson Community College in Hampton, VA) to get WFA Training. Because he is totally cool, my dean also threw in $500 to cover an additional two instructors from our division on the NOVA-Annandale campus.
So, thanks to the grant and my dean's add-on, eight people who lead field trips for the Virginia Community College System got free Wilderness First Aid training! I'm pretty excited about that. Now, I think we stand a much better chance of saving a student's life if something were to go wrong on a trip.
The training was pretty intensive. Nancy Chamberlain of our Parks & Recreation program organized the event (assisted by geology student Quinn F.), and kept us well fed. The training itself was provided by Wilderness Medical Associates. They did a great job.
Here's the crew:
Pete and I are both products of the undergraduate geology program at William & Mary, he in 2001, and I in 1996. Here, Pete splints my simulated "broken leg":
Do you lead field trips? Do you know what to do if a student breaks a leg? ...or goes into anaphylactic shock? ...or gets a stick through their eyeball? I'm sure glad I have answers to these questions now, and would recommend this (or more?) medical training to anyone who takes students more than 2 hours away from professional medical help. There's some serious @#%* that can go down in the backcountry. I feel like field trip leaders have an obligation to get trained in how to handle that @#%*.
As you may recall, I got a grant to cover the tuition for six instructors (four from NOVA, two from Thomas Nelson Community College in Hampton, VA) to get WFA Training. Because he is totally cool, my dean also threw in $500 to cover an additional two instructors from our division on the NOVA-Annandale campus.
So, thanks to the grant and my dean's add-on, eight people who lead field trips for the Virginia Community College System got free Wilderness First Aid training! I'm pretty excited about that. Now, I think we stand a much better chance of saving a student's life if something were to go wrong on a trip.
The training was pretty intensive. Nancy Chamberlain of our Parks & Recreation program organized the event (assisted by geology student Quinn F.), and kept us well fed. The training itself was provided by Wilderness Medical Associates. They did a great job.
Here's the crew:
Pete and I are both products of the undergraduate geology program at William & Mary, he in 2001, and I in 1996. Here, Pete splints my simulated "broken leg":
Do you lead field trips? Do you know what to do if a student breaks a leg? ...or goes into anaphylactic shock? ...or gets a stick through their eyeball? I'm sure glad I have answers to these questions now, and would recommend this (or more?) medical training to anyone who takes students more than 2 hours away from professional medical help. There's some serious @#%* that can go down in the backcountry. I feel like field trip leaders have an obligation to get trained in how to handle that @#%*.
Labels: conferences, field trips, grants
1 Comments:
I don't always have duct tape while hiking about in the field, but one can always use a ripped shirt and a juniper or pinyon branch (other trees outside desert areas probably work better!) for a very crude splint if needed.
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