We were tasked with assessing their status and treating their hypothetical ailments as best we could. When I took my Wilderness First Aid training course, we spent an entire day rehearsing scenarios in which we came across hikers with unknown medical emergencies. This cliché is great advice for backcountry medicine. Lastly, drink until your pee is clear and I can guarantee you are one step closer to preventing dehydration. Your body can only absorb a certain amount of water at once.
While you are hiking, take a sip or two of water every ten minutes or so, but do not guzzle your whole Nalgene at once. If you are planning a long day, definitely bring along a way to purify water (we recommend the Sawyer Squeeze, the Platypus Gravity Works, and Aquamira). Always start your journey with a few liters in your pack.
So, what is the best way to ensure proper hydration in the backcountry? The answer is obvious: prioritize hydration. Throw some altitude in the mix, which expedites the dehydration process, and you have concocted the perfect storm for a mountain emergency. Outside you are burning calories, sweating, and urinating without consciously thinking about the amount of water you take in.
The issue with camping, hiking, backpacking, and pretty much any other energy-expending outdoors activity is that you lose water far quicker than if you were just working your 9-5 desk job. Proper hydration, however, allows the body to heal quickly and healthily. Dehydration can lead to nausea, headaches, diarrhea, and a slew of other unfortunate outcomes. The human body needs a certain amount of water each day in order for it to function properly. The list goes on! The reason your parents force-fed you those drinks, weather they realized it or not, was to ensure you were staying hydrated. You know how your doctor/parents always made sure you were taking in liquids when you were sick as a kid? Gatorade. In the arena of first aid kits, location awareness is a key ingredient. Take out the items you don’t need and outfit your kit with items you know you need. I highly encourage you to pack your own kit from start to finish. Knowing where every piece of bandaging is in your kit allows you to calmly assess a situation and treat wounds like a pro. If you don’t know where items are located in your first aid kit, you won’t be able to quickly address medical needs. For all that is good, please open the kit, empty it, and repackage it yourself! Unfortunately, many hikers fail to open their freshly purchased kit before stuffing it into their pack. And, for the most part, those kits do have everything (sometimes too much everything) that you need. For many beginners, most folks will go straight for the incredibly convenient prepackaged kit advertised to have everything you need. If you go to the first aid section of an outdoors store, you will find two main types of equipment: individual first aid items and prepackaged first aid kits. On the topic of wilderness first aid, I wanted to share three pieces of advice to ensure your next journey into the woods or mountains is as safe as possible.
To this day, I am quite proud of Morgan and I’s first aid kit.
#Tampa wilderness first aid 2017 how to
I sat down with my parents as they reminded me of which medicine did what, how large a dosage you should give and how regularly, how to clean and bandage those pesky bear attack wounds, etc. I remember how obsessive I was over my first aid kit when I first took on backpacking as a hobby. As a result, I also subconsciously retained a decent amount of information regarding first aid. Growing up with a doctor for a dad and a registered nurse for a mom, you can guess our dinner table conversation was…interesting! I had the privilege of hearing all kinds of exciting stories from the operating room.
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