During January 2019 Nick spent 3 days completing a Remote Area First Aid course with Keith McReynolds from Remote Safety Solutions. What an eye opener it was!
Nick has done several first aid courses in the past from the usual providers but none really had content that was particularly relevant for motorcycle riding, especially in remote environments. Providing first aid care in remote environments is exactly Keith’s specialty.
Realism Helps
It is clear Keith McReynolds has a passion for teaching first aid. What is also clear is Keith is a sick and twisted individual that derives pleasure from making his accident scene scenarios as realistic and confronting as possible. Fake blood (moulage as it is known in the trade), vehicles, latex rubber “injuries”, make up, props are all tricks in Keith’s kit that he uses to make the scenarios as realistic as possible. And it bloody works!
His piece de resistance though was the six pack of sausages employed in the final scenario to replicate a somewhat severe torso injury!
Confidence Builder
The course certainly helped build our skill set and confidence with managing sick or injured people in remote settings until definitive care arrives. Keith creates a bunch of scenarios for students to play out and he specially designed a couple for us which involved motorcycle accidents. Helmet removal was just one of the motorcycle specific skills we covered.
Although they were “make believe” scenarios, Keith makes it as realistic as possible which heightens your anxiety and can cloud your thinking. All of this was intended to unsettle us a little and emphasis the importance of working through scripts to manage a first aid situation to the best of our abilities.
Keith was brilliant at retelling stories from ski patrol days or Westpac helicopter rescues which helped reinforce the lessons. We also covered how emergency search and rescue services will respond to a distress signal being fired off.
A few of the key learnings we got out of the weekend:
- It’s incredible how time “compresses” in an emergency scenario. What you think was just 10 minutes in reality can actually be more like 30 minutes.
- In a multi casualty scenario it’s great to have a “scene commander” -one person in charge of managing the overall scene without getting hands on with patients. This helps prioritise patients and keep all important notes.
- SAMPLE – a great acronym to remember to asses and begin treating ill patients.
- The difference in using PLB/EPIRB vs GPS tracker in alerting emergency services.
If you’ve got a big outback trip planned we strongly recommend doing a course like this one with Remote Safety Solutions. It will help you prepare so much better if a real emergency scenario presents itself.
Keen to learn?
Check out Remote Safety Solutions course calendar here: http://www.remotesafety.com.au/course-calendar/
If you are interested in doing this course reach out to us and let us know and we can perhaps organise a Maschine group to go together and Keith can deliver training more relevant to motorcycle riding.
Nick will include some of his learnings around accident scene management from this course in the curriculum at our upcoming Adventure Academy courses this year. First aid education is something we feel every adventure rider should undertake and even better if you can do it with a professional like Keith who is so experienced in real world scenarios.
Thanks Keith for an enlightening few days! We will be back.