Unfortunately, since my last blog post, my heath has declined… no more morning runs for me. Deciding what to do in a group setting like this is always difficult because the stakes of getting sick are higher than normal. Normal anxieties about illness are brought up, but with our trek 6 days away, not being able to go because I’m not feeling well would undeniably be a disappointing outcome. Even more, some guilt arises because not taking proper precautions could cause more people to get sick and change their opportunity of going on the trek. After taking a detour to Landour Community Hospital though, I’m reassured that it’s nothing serious and crossing my fingers, I will hopefully be healthy again in time for the trek. (yay!)

While I’ve been dealing with the onset of illness, we have also been continuing the intensive Wilderness Advanced First Aid training. The WAFA training mixes lectures with a variety of different scenarios. The scenarios range from mild cases, like treating a patient who is suffering from heat exhaustion to serious cases, like a multiple causality incident caused by a lightning strike. Most of the scenarios are about situations which have not yet been covered in the lectures, exemplifying how the training is meant to set the course participants up for failure. While learning about all the possible things that can go wrong in the backcountry is kind of scary, the information we learned was actually incredibly helpful in not only helping me better prepare for trips in the future, but all the skills we learned can also be applied to situations that aren’t just our 10-day trek. For example, I don’t personally have Diabetes, Asthma, or any allergies, but I have family and friends that do, so knowing how to help them in a time of crisis is a skill that I’ve been able to gain from the training. 

What skills, abilities, and processes have you learned from the Wilderness Advanced First Aid Training are most transferrable to the theory and implementation of leadership? 

One of the most satisfying moments of the WAFA was when all twelve of us on the program banded together to complete a patient move around the whole school which took about 15 or 20 minutes. Lilly courageously volunteered to be the patient, Ramsey led the move, holding Lilly’s head and ensuring that the 8 people holding Lilly were lifting her at the same time, and Thomas and Chris gave the people carrying Lilly directions. When we successfully completed the move, we got feedback that this was the most focused we have all been during the WAFA training. This scenario was unlike the rest because it was the most real out of all of them. In the others, you knew in the back of your head that it was a simulation so if you didn’t make the right decisions, there would not be serious consequences. In the patient move, however, we were carrying a live person and one wrong move could have ended with Lilly seriously hurt. 

In this scenario, we showed how leadership can be shared among many different people in a team. The move would not have been successful without everyone’s contribution, whether they were one of the eight people carrying Lilly, the person leading the move, or if they were one of the two people giving directions. Since the move involved lots of team cooperation, our ability to communicate with one another shined. We checked in with one another halfway through the move to go over any changes we felt we needed to make and to discuss the next steps. Knowing how to effectively communicate and cooperate with others on your team is not only helpful in outdoor scenarios, but are also transferrable to any situation, whether that be professional, personal, or academic and is important if you really want to harness the power of each and every individual on a team.