If you have a medical emergency in the wilderness, you’ll want to know some outdoor first aid that can help save your life or that of an injured person.
Practicing survival skills and first aid in the wilderness might seem dry and boring until you have an emergency that requires a calm mind, fast thinking, and basic knowledge. Understanding first aid and applying those skills to the situation at hand could be the difference between life and death for some people and could help the injured person avoid infection or a lost limb in some cases.
Here are some essential outdoor first aid skills you should know before trekking into the wilderness.
Tourniquet Application
It’s pretty easy to strike an artery when you get a deep cut in the wilderness. For this reason, it’s important to carry a ready-to-use tourniquet. It should be part of your wilderness first aid kit and will be the difference between life and death in some cases. If you think you’ll make one out of the materials you have on hand, the person could bleed out before you get the bleeding stopped. Keep a trail tourniquet on hand and understand how to put it on.
Wound Packing
Sometimes, you don’t need a tourniquet, but you still need to pack a wound with an appropriate dressing using clean bandages that are enough to stop the bleeding. If you’re dealing with a significant injury and the bleeding won’t stop with simple wound packing, you should elevate the injury above the heart, if possible. Also, use direct pressure on arterial pressure points to help slow and stop the bleeding until you can properly pack the wound.
Avoiding Hypothermia
Some people love to go hiking or camping in the winter. The cold air and fresh snow can be refreshing, but the cold comes with its own challenges. One of the most important outdoor first aid skills is understanding how to fight hypothermia. This is the chilling of the body’s core temperature and can happen when a person doesn’t dress for the temperatures, falls into freezing cold water, or is exposed to cold for too long. Many times, you can solve this issue by bundling into a sleeping bag with the victim and using body heat to warm them.
Addressing Dehydration
Dehydration can be extremely dangerous in the outdoors. Many people don’t realize they need to drink plenty of water when it’s cold out, not just during the summer heat. If a person complains of headaches and hasn’t been drinking water, they could be dehydrated. If they pass out, you’ll need to act quickly by inserting a tube from a hydration bladder into the victim’s rectum and allowing the water to flow down and into their body. It sounds crude, but it can work to save their life.
Sucking Chest Wound
During outdoor first aid classes, the topic of a sucking chest wound is covered extensively. Strangely, most of us have never seen one of these wounds, but it can certainly happen if you’re hunting and one of your buddies gets shot in the chest. The wound is caused by an air pocket between the lung and chest wall, which could result in a collapsed lung, but if you have a chest seal in your first aid kit, you can handle this problem.
Making A Splint
One of the most common injuries while in the wilderness could require a splint. With uneven ground, rocks, dirt, and gravel, it’s pretty easy to sprain an ankle, and some falls could result in a broken leg or arm. As long as the bone isn’t sticking out, you won’t have to rush to handle this wound. If you don’t have a splint in your first aid kit, You can make one out of branches and materials you have around you. The trick will be getting the injured person out of the woods and having medical experts treat the wound.
Allergy Issues
Some people are allergic to various plants and insects. Some people will carry an epi-pen to handle this situation if they are stung by a bee or come in contact with plants they are highly allergic to, but a few of these devices should be part of your outdoor first aid kit. This will help ensure people in your group who have allergies can be cared for. Understand how and where to administer the medication in the pen.
Understanding some outdoor first aid skills could mean the difference between life and death for someone in your group. Hopefully, you’ll never have to use your skills, but it’s better to have them and not need them than to need them and not have them.