Six days down, three to go for the Wilderness First Responder course that Marc and I are taking this week at UPS. (If you get your WFR, don’t let it lapse, kids. This is a good course and I am enjoying getting to know the instructors and my fellow classmates, but it is a brutal schedule that precludes just about everything else in life for the duration of the class. It’s not something to be undertaken lightly, for sure.)

Our motivation for getting certified once again is the South Kuiu Cleanup, scheduled for July of this year at Cape Decision, AK. The idea that we would be part of a group of volunteers operating in a remote location where hazards are many and medical attention is a long way off, is what drove us back to the classroom. We get fake blood and bruises for our training scenarios, we get soaked laying on the cold Washington ground but most of all, we get practice dealing with medical and traumatic accidents that will allow us to respond more quickly and accurately if the same situations should arise for real.

Perhaps more importantly, by being prepared for these accidents and emergencies to happen, we can actually learn techniques to prevent them from occurring in the first place.