As a Mountaineering Instructor I, and everyone else who works in the outdoors or is the registered first aider at work has to undergo a renewal of there first aid certificate every three years. It never seems like three years until you get on the course and everything has invariably changed.
I was lucky enough to get on a course with a local first aider and member of the Llanberis Team Kath Wills. Who runs REC first aid courses. For those that don’t know, or perhaps who are just getting into the industry a REC course is Rescue and Emergency Care, the course was originally designed for ski patrollers, but an off shoot of BASP made REC. What these courses offer are an extremely practical and ‘outdoor’ oriented system for first aid.
It is putting the first aid in context of the mountains, sea or rivers that have made these courses become the most popular choice for outdoor enthusiasts and instructors. As such Kath offers the REC courses through her business Active First Aid.
However Kath’s knowledge doesn’t end with the syllabus, as for a few years now she has been qualified to a higher level of first aid through the team, but also Kath has been writing a book on First Aid in the Outdoors, and particularly mountains. As such she has researched all areas of First Aid extensively, to the extent that some of this research into the importance of various treatments comes from the consultants that she has quizzed that are specialists in their field.
Now to me today was great because not only did I find out the new CPR protocol, but interestingly the training now needs to include the knowledge of an AED, or Automated defibulator. Seeing that they are now commonplace around town and cities, and of note there is one now sat in the summit cafe on Snowdon.
Beyond this Kath has also looked into the area of trauma response, and where esle do you go to see what is current best practice but the US military. So rather than just wound dressing, we were shown a variety of what is the current gold standard for patching up bullet holes, as well as discussed how clotting powder may well a new way to treat the most catastrophic of bleeds.
All in all, and excellent course so far, and one that has certainly developed over the last three years, as Kath knowledge grown through researching her book.