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Today my wife had a scary episode. On her way back from the gym, she stopped by the mailbox to pick up the mail when she suddenly felt dizzy, started shaking lost strength in her legs and went down on the curb. She remained conscious but unable to move. Our neighbor saw her and ran over to our house to let me know. I ran out, lifted her up and put her and our 20 month old in the car and rushed to the ER. She got an ekg, IV fluids, X-ray and all they could say is that it was likely physical exhaustion and dehydration. We'll follow up with doctors to make sure there isn't an underlying condition.

I've been thinking about getting some medical training beyond basic first aid and this episode reminded me that an emergency can happen at any time and I need to be prepared. It's easy to forget the importance of medical skills.

Thought it would be helpful to share some resources and training opportunities I've found:
- crisis medicine has online courses

- REI has wilderness medicine courses in partnership with NOLS

- Bellevue gun club has a TCCC course

- remote medical training in Bellingham has wilderness first aid and wilderness first responder courses
 
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I was originally trying to schedule time to go back east to take a trauma class from Jonny Carlson @ SIG (dude is a stud, and hilarious - he teaches lessons that you just learn and they stick) but I'm finding that there are more classes offered locally than I had seen before, so I'm looking forward to taking more than one or two to get variety and perspective.
 
I found Wilderness First Aid to be the most versatile emergency medical training for me, a non-medical type. It covered the things I might need when outdoors in remote places and gave me a better understanding of handling trauma injuries in general. I can extrapolate much of it to SHTF conditions.

I have also been fortunate to have taken a wilderness first aid course which was tailored for my CERT team: it focused on disaster medical treatment in an urban environment. Very useful for post-Cascadia response.

Red Cross first aid training these days (and for the last 16 years) is worthless. They basically teach you site safety (which is good), but otherwise it's just "dial 911".
 
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You're much more likely to use medical than a firearm. In my eyes medical is almost more important hence the reason I have an IFAK in every vehicle and a TQ on my body as part of my "edc." Glad your wife is doing ok.
 
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I found Wilderness First Aid to be the most versatile emergency medical training for me, a non-medical type. It covered the things I might need when outdoors in remote places and gave me a better understanding of handling trauma injuries in general. I can extrapolate much of it to SHTF conditions.

I have also been fortunate to have taken a wilderness first aid course which was tailored for my CERT team: it focused on disaster medical treatment in an urban environment. Very useful for post-Cascadia response.

Red Cross first aid training these days (and for the last 16 years) is worthless. They basically teach you site safety (which is good), but otherwise it's just "dial 911".

Helpful to hear your experience with wilderness first aid. I've been thinking of doing the wilderness emergency responder course, one step above first aid but below a full EMT. I thought about CERT but all local options are shut down since Covid started. I agree Red Cross training is very basic.
 
I've been looking into this on and off. A lot of classes cancelled during the past while due to Covid. The "Stop The Bleed" classes look good and are typically quite inexpensive or even free. I'll look at my old notes and post anything that might be interesting.
 
One thing about wilderness first aid (WFA) is parts of it focus on a group response (a team of responders, perhaps a search-and-rescue team) which for me wasn't relevant. The coverage of CPR was another.

I don't see myself and one other person doing CPR on a third person at, for example, Mann Lake on the Alvord Desert in SE Oregon. Completely impractical and way too far from any modern advanced life saving equipment or personnel.

But WFA has good instruction on heat and cold injuries as well as sprains, breaks, and trauma (not specifically gun shot) and I felt that the lessons could be extrapolated to less civilized conditions.
 

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