BACKCOUNTRY SAFETY: Expect the Unexpected
The Wilderness Medicine Reference is a comprehensive offline guide designed to help recognize, treat, and manage evacuation for traumatic injuries, medical conditions, and environmental illnesses commonly encountered in the backcountry. It also emphasizes prevention strategies and the critical decision-making skills needed to avoid potential risks.
This app provides in-depth content on risk reduction and education while offering detailed guidance on medical assessment, diagnosis, treatment, and evacuation for a wide range of backcountry scenarios. It’s an essential tool for anyone venturing into remote environments.
This app is mainly geared to the person with little or no medical training, up to a person with a Wilderness EMT, but even people who routinely practice medicine may find useful information within regarding environmental illness, subjective decision-making errors, and checklist functions when venturing into the backcountry. Commonly accepted wilderness protocols normally considered outside the scope of non-physician or pre-hospital care providers are contained within.
App Overview
The main medical content is separated into 3 topics:
- ENVIRONMENTAL ILLNESS
- MEDICAL CONDITIONS
- TRAUMATIC INJURIES
Within each topic, there are divisions into basic background physiology, assessment and diagnosis of the patient – with signs and symptoms of the illness or injury, treatment of the patient, evacuation urgency, and prevention tips. The evacuation section also includes whether evacuation most likely is appropriate for air rescue helicopter or, if ground Search and Rescue will be utilized, any specific equipment or personnel to request.
There is also a section called CHECKLISTS, which is meant to aid you in more emergent and/or important situations, (landing a helicopter, performing CPR, avalanche resuscitation, medical treatment big picture, pre-trip partner and guide checklist, ongoing partner and guide checklist, and retrospective review checklist) with step- by- step skills or discussion to perform and check-off.
In addition, a MEDICATION REFERENCE divided into non-narcotic pain management and rescue medications for serious medical conditions, FIRST AID KITS for different endeavors, how to do a complete PATIENT ASSESSMENT, with a quick reference guide link, SUBJECTIVE DECISION-MAKING ERRORS section, CARDIAC ARREST management including specific protocols unique to avalanche resuscitation, lightning, and drowning, and CASE STUDIES to illustrate key points of the content.
“Most of us are not on expeditions employing medical personnel and rarely practice our training. Even a chill backcountry day can go awry quickly. This digital gem may stack the odds in your favor with an eye towards lightweight—as in you’re not likely to carry that wilderness medical emergency textbook tome. However, you can, for $1.99, spot yourself an app that may come in handy.” ~ Editors of Wild Snow
Download the app now to ensure safety and peace of mind in the backcountry!
