ESEE/RAT Wilderness Medical Course

T

trakker409

Joined
Jan 16, 2007
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10
Those of you the least bit interested in wilderness medicine/first aid can do no wrong by signing up for the RAT course on 8/26 - 8/27. It is a pleasure and special treat to learn from Hugh Coffee who is arguably one of the best in the business. It seems that everyone wants to be runnin', gunnin', and survivin' but without basic knowledge of what to do when they go down. Wilderness first aid is a must if you want to stay healthy and survive in the woods. If you don't take it here please take a course somewhere.

Jimmy Dunn
 
Woah, "the" Jimmy Dunn? Awesome to see you on BF.

I hear the tracking part of the Woodland Ops course was pretty impressive too. :D Love to do some training in AL.
 
Looks like in addition to Hugh Coffee we may have a National Park Service paramedic with loads of wilderness medical experience teaching and assisting on this class as well.
 
I would love to take the class!
I just have other priorities right now.
Depending on a new job and knee surgery, I may or may not be able to sign up only the future will tell. It would suck to be laying on the ground learning the techniques while being the patient!
 
Being a medical professional, I've always been interested in wilderness med. Great skills to have for the backcountry but also great knowledge to possess in the event of natural disasters, etc. I've found that during large scale incidents, the WFA people were a bigger help to me and my team than the traditionally trained physicians and nurses who came to volunteer their time. Knowing how to do a little with nothing is better than knowing how to do all kinds of fancy lifesaving treatments with millions of dollars of equipment and unlimited supplies. It was hard for us to "retrain" many of the physicians and nurses because they had never learned to improvise, something that people on this forum are accustomed to doing on a daily basis.
 
R.A.T. said:
It is very difficult to cover tracking in one day and get anything out of it. We are working on a 2-day tracking course for October.
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Thanks, Jeff. I don’t know why (well I kind of do, because it’s just cool) but tracking has really peaked my interest as of late.

Don’t want to hijack the thread but can you elaborate any on some of what the tracking course entails? Tracking is kind of a two way street right? By learning how to track and what to look for, you also learn what not to leave behind in the event you’d rather NOT be tracked. :D
 
Jimmy is the tracking guru, not me. I'll let him elaborate on this. I'm lucky if I walk through the woods without falling down!
 
R.A.T. said:
Jimmy is the tracking guru, not me. I'll let him elaborate on this. I'm lucky if I walk through the woods without falling down!
Click to expand...

That's why you like the jungle, eh? Lots of stuff to brace yourself on. :D

Paging "The" Jimmy Dunn: Tracker Man.
 
Goddamit! :mad: I could make-up for presently being a few dollars short, but I'm still a world away!
 
adaman04,
The tracking course will cover the usual "how to find the next track" but will go into other subjects as well. No E&E per se but if you know what a trained tracker is looking for you also know what not to leave. I'll get into ways of overcoming that problem as well. For example, on the Mexican border smugglers typically attmpt to hide their tracks. The trick is not to look for tracks but "brush outs" or bits of broken vegetation used to cover or brush out the footprints. Same thing in water. People try to flee using creeks and waterways. It rarely works. We can overcome that too.

We'll also go over sign tracking which isn't tracking as most people see it. It's simply evidence that a human or animal has passed or used the area. I l like to use an incident I worked several years ago to illustrate how that works. I "tracked" a guy who had fallen off a cliff simply by looking at some leaves sticking out of the rock face. We found him quite deceased at the bottom.

Having only 2 days on a tracking course is tough. We could easily do a 5-6 day/60 hour course and only cover the basics. While I'd love to teach a class like this I'm not sure if there's enough interest.
 
I think I'm gonna have to to try to make this one. I'll have to ;;) at the Mr. Ohhh and its mothers day. I'll be good to go. :D
 
Look who's back :)

+1 on this course, I think this will have to wait until next year though!
 
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