Bushcraft First Aid: A Field Guide To Wilderness Emergency Care
Picked this up last week, and flipped through it over the last few days.
Fairly complete, well-explained, and designed for laymen, not medical practitioners.
It's not perfect, but it's a great first aid text to start out with, coming from nothing.
Overall, I give it a solid B to B+.
Short of my recommendation: take a full basic EMT course - which would be a requirement to graduate high school or start college, if I were emperor for a day - this book will get you off on the right foot.
Skip the Red Cross abortion that passes for basic first aid (tl;dr version: "It's an emergency! Dial 9-1-1!), and instead invest $12-17, and the time it takes to read the book. Then assemble the basic kit, and practice the skills. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I got stuck with the so called "First Aid" Red Cross class a few years ago. For some one that taught the First Aid Merit Badge, and helped the coach teach the 70's Red Cross First Aid course in High School Gym class (co-ed, and for once I got an A while the jocks all got Cs and Ds, good memory) not to mention various first aid, self aid, buddy care and survival schoos in the .mil it was race between staying awake and not hurting my eyeballs from all the rolling they were doing.
ReplyDeleteI understand the Red Cross "Wilderness First Aid" is closer to an actually useful course, but have never felt the need to search it out and take it.
Below the EMT course level, I think the CERT basic course is a good primer, and if you have an active team run by an FD, you get stuff more advanced than in the CERT manual taught by EMTs and Paramedics. I once was able to get an SF medic team to do some training for us as part of a pre-depolyment exercise they were holding in my area.
There are opportunities out there for good hands on training that doesn't break the bank (time or money), but you have to look for them.
Hey Aesop,
ReplyDeleteI already have a hard copy of "Where there is no Doctor", do you think this is a good addition?
http://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2013/02/lesson-five-medical-reference-books.html
ReplyDeleteFind a NOLS or SOLO wilderness first aid course and take it. Best way to spend a weekend and with the coming weirdness, you'll have some skills to do some good.
ReplyDeleteThank you, gentlemen.
ReplyDeleteAt one point ARC did a class called either "Responding to Emergencies" or "Emergency Response" (Taught both of them years ago and don't remember which one was the better of the two) One was a damn good DOT Standards First Responder course.
ReplyDeleteMight consider hunting it up.
ALSO,in certain ARC Chapters, you can get a DOT Standards EMT course. They just don't hype them as a course they teach. Just be sure you don't get stuck with a Para-god or Para-goddess as an instructor.