Back40 Wilderness First Aid Training

11/03/2025

Releasing dates always gives me anxiety! But here you go! This is what I have planned so far for courses in the winter/spring! I can’t post beyond April yet because May and June are INSANE!

So if you are needing training or want it done before summer! Now is the time to pencil in dates in your own calendar!

Needing a recert this spring? I’ll set a few recertification dates but for the most part you can attend any 20hr at a reduced rate OR UPGRADE! You really should upgrade……😉

11/02/2025

Some of you think I over-pack/over-think things. But I dont make this s**t up….you dont pack for the day nothing happens! You pack for the day something DOES! No one plans to get hurt! Or attacked by a bear! But if you’re knowingly in bear country and you’re in a remote area….your preparedness matters!

From the article 💚:

“I had a tensor bandage, a first-aid kit so that I could wrap my leg, which had been bitten by the bear.”

She also put on a hood because she’d been bitten on the head and face and got herself into a plastic bag she had brought along.

“I also had my winter gear with me so I put on my mitts and I also had a fire starter, a lighter – all the essentials for a wilderness trip – including a bright blue jacket.”htr

PRINCE GEORGE — An encounter that nearly cost one hiker her life: Shauna Terai was in the McGregor Mountains area Northeast of Prince George on October 12 when she came face to face with a grizzly bear. Shauna’s husband Chris Terai says the conditions were nearly pristine – clear blue skies, m...

10/27/2025

Scenario: A person in your group severely sprained their ankle and is struggling to bear weight on it. Your OPQRST questions and focused assessment gives indication that this ankle is an ongoing problem for the person and today it’s hurt worse than they have ever had. You’re regrouping to make efforts to head home - slowly - hoping with help from the group that they can make it out on their own. It’s going to take much longer than you had planned - you may not be back by dark. As you navigate the first aid needs on the ankle and a group plan on how you will proceed - why would you want to start asking SAMPLE questions?

✅ Because sometimes what is not an issue right now could become an issue later!
✅ Because you want to know the whole picture of what you’re dealing with.
✅ Because the cause of their slip/fall wasn’t clumsiness it was dizziness that started this morning 🧐

SAMPLE & OPQRST actually come quite intuitively if you’re just being curious in trying to understand the person, their problem, and their needs.

But sometimes you need to be intentional. The acronyms are a guide through the process - a tool that might help you cover the majority of your obvious and not so obvious concerns before you make a plan. They might help you work through the mystery in front of you.

You might find out that the dizziness is because they haven’t eaten much because they are trying a new fad diet and that they are indeed menstruating which does make them feel low energy too. In fact - since you asked - they decide they should go take care of their bathroom needs right now before heading out. And you might convince them to have more food before you try the long walk out.

Questions can lead to more questions. When attempting to navigate injuries or illnesses in the backcountry - the more you know, the better you can plan.

While this acronym is an umbrella of question compartments - there is no right way to show curiosity in conversation to a person you’re trying to help. People tend to tell you more when you seem genuine and intentional. If you are just listing of questions like an interrogation or checklist - you might not have much luck.

10/22/2025

Winter is near. While wise adventurers are quick to acknowledge that this advice applies in all seasons - I wanted to remind you it is time to revisit your preparedness for the upcoming winter adventure season!

A ski on familiar trails can end in injury - leaving you wishing you brought more than a granola bar in your pocket.

A fat tire ride can end in gear failure leaving your sweaty body wishing you put more in your frame bags than you did.

A backcountry snowshoe ends in tragedy with a cardiac arrest in the middle of “no where”.

A beautiful day is extended with ease because you brought essential stuff to stay out past dark.

A hunter gets disoriented and spends an unexpected night out in the bush.

Your child breaks their arm falling X-Country skiing 8km from the trailhead.

I don’t make this s**t up. Your preparedness MATTERS. Don’t let every great day out fool you into thinking “it won’t happen”.

This list is not exhaustive. I try to be mindful of balancing practical with over-thinking. Add your advice in the comments.

Gear up or gear down. Most essentials can be downsized and upsized depending on your experience, location, group size/dynamics and risk assessment.

Yes - I can pack essentials in a bottle belt bag for xcountry skiing, a frame bag for fat tire riding, a 20l backpack for most everything, and a larger bag for group stuff/leadership. Going with “nothing” is not an option!

No one plans to get hurt.

10/22/2025

While this post is a good summary - I strongly encourage you to go read the entire review document (link in comments).

This topic fascinates me and I am excited every time I sense we are one step closer to removing the C - Collar and changing how we train spinal injury management especially in pre-hospital and remote settings!

🚨 What if everything you thought you knew about spinal immobilization… was wrong? 🚨

You’ve got a trauma patient. Maybe they fell. Maybe it’s a rollover. You strap on a c-collar, secure the backboard, and feel like you’ve done everything right.

But what if that collar is hurting them more than helping?

What if the backboard is doing more harm than good?

An important review from NAEMSP just dropped, and it challenges decades of prehospital dogma.

📚 The Study:
Over 3,900 papers screened
115 studies included in analysis

Topics: spinal immobilization, motion restriction (SMR), delayed neurological injury, and associated harms

🧠 What They Found:
• Zero studies showed a clear clinical benefit to spinal immobilization or SMR
• 55 studies showed patient harm
• Immobilization may actually increase spinal movement during transport, especially at the c-spine to thorax junction
• Stronger evidence links hypoperfusion, not movement, to worsening neuro outcomes

⚠️ One study claimed a benefit, but had major flaws:
• Included patients with moderate disability as a "favorable outcome"
• Did not control for blood pressure
• Excluded patients with traumatic brain injury

✅ Takeaway:
• There’s no high-quality evidence that immobilization prevents spinal cord injury
• There’s plenty of evidence that it causes harm
• Focus should shift to resuscitation and perfusion, not strapping patients to boards

🛑 Bottom line: It’s time to rethink the collar and backboard. Use them only during extrication, not transport. And don’t let old habits cause new harm.

📖 This review from NAEMSP is a must-read for EMS medical directors, educators, and field providers alike.https://www.handtevy.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Prehospital-Trauma-Compendium-Prehospital-Management-of-Spinal-Cord-Injuries-A-NAEMSP-Comprehensive-Review-and-Analysis-of-the-Literature.pdf

10/21/2025

STA AGM - November 3rd at 7pm

Join us for our Annual General Meeting and Social Night! 🌲🚵‍♀️🥾

It’s that time of year to celebrate another great season on the trails, catch up with fellow trail users, and help shape what’s next for our community.

📅 Date: Monday, November 3rd
🕕 Time: 7pm
📍 Location: High Key Brewing Company (Back room), 102 23 St E, Saskatoon

We’ll share highlights from the year, plans for upcoming projects, and elect our new board - plus enjoy some snacks, good company, and plenty of trail talk.

Everyone is welcome - members, volunteers, and anyone who loves our trails!

10/17/2025

Aging. It snuck up on me. I’m still 27 in my head but my body and grey hairs say otherwise.

Add in about 10 years of a slow and steady decline in my investment in my own health. Every year I lost just a little more of the strength I built to stress, depression, excuses, doom scrolling, s**t eating,and life. I let the fact that I still fit into most of my clothes hide my body changes. And then when they became obvious I let depression eat through the self hatred. As the years passed, I rode my bike less, ran even less, and let work justify my lack of energy. I’d make goals in my head, plan out my efforts to renew my fitness, buy the gear or clothing I swore would make it easier….and then not show up.

But I hiked. And walked. I went outside. It was about the only thing that didn’t make me feel like s**t - physically and mentally.
It was better than nothing.

But it’s not enough. Not for me anyway. The truth is - I am lucky that I built my body, strength and endurance when I did. I’ve lost it….but not all of it. Without that hard earned foundation I would not be where I am right now. I’d be fatter, slower, weaker - there is no doubt about that. So as I sit here, humble and self disapproving in front of this mirror - I am at least grateful for my past. Where I start now is not at zero. But the hardest struggle I have is NOT comparing then to now. It is what it is……start where you are.

Strength training is proven to be a large contributing factor to how fit, able, and safe you are in your later years. Middle age, probably early peri-menopause, and a decline in my previous fitness has scared the s**t out of me. I want to be hiking when I’m 80, carrying groceries with ease, able to get off the ground myself, and less prone to falling. That doesn’t happen without the input now. I’m more afraid of losing my future ability than I am of what I let slide to this point.

Every effort put into strength training will renew and protect me in my outdoor activities now and in the future. I’ve always known this. I have a few trail races next year and hopes to the West Coast Trail. So…….I’m starting where I am today. It’s a future forward gift to myself.

10/10/2025

Meg has done an EXCELLENT job of sharing real life lessons learned and advice for Garmin InReach users based on her recent rescue! I also strongly encouage you to watch her more detailed video I’ll share in comments.

One thing I will continue to stand behind is having an InReach for two way communication and will NEVER rely soley on my iphone Apple SOS. With inReach you will be talking directly to Garmin, RCMP, and the responders as required. With Apple - you talk to Apple only (and even then it appears a lot like a BOT and not a human). There are about a dozen other strong reasons why I firmly believe in having an InReach but I’ll save those for another day! For now - and until there are drastic changes - I will remain loyal to my Garmin inReach.

A few things I agree with and have done for myself that Meg suggests:
✅Put my inReach Mini on a locking carabiner
✅ALWAYS pack a 20000mah battery pack
✅Have bright clothing / signalling materials
✅Am familiar with helicopter signals
✅ Change my account details with each trip and update my Emergency Contacts with reliable people

Their incident could have been exactly what my cousin and I might have experienced if one of us wrecked a foot or leg on our descent down from Sentinel Pass to Paradise Valley a few weeks ago. HOWEVER - we would not have had shelter for the night as I didn’t pack much more than a small Bivy sack and minimal extra clothes. So we would have struggled for sure.

Watching her videos has also inspired me to either take my Durston XMid fly in alpine pursuits or my Rab Bothy. I know better but sometimes I just want a light day pack. For a 30km day I need to do better…..no one plans to get hurt! 🤭

I found these videos EXTREMELY helpful and informative. We can all learn from this and be more prepared if we ever have to use our own device for an SOS one day too!

Take note: Rescue services in the Canadian Rockies are far different than rescue services available in the Saskatchewan North. Align your expectations accordingly…..

Welcome to part 3 of 3 of my SOS experience series. Today, we’re diving into exactly what happens when you hit the SOS button on your Garmin InReach Mini. Th...

10/09/2025

I’ve had the privilege of being present at a few presentations and skills sessions that Miles has given. He’s a wise and inspiring person. This short post speaks to the importance of knowing and understanding hypothermia at a bystander/first response level. I will continue to advocate for a deeper understanding of hypothermia and a more realistic approach to CPR training so that we all have better awareness before being faced with a real incident!

Cold changes everything.

In most cardiac arrests, time is the enemy, but in severe hypothermia, time plays by different rules. When the body’s core temperature drops below 28°C (82°F), cellular metabolism slows dramatically. Oxygen consumption falls, and the organs enter a kind of protective hibernation.

In deep hypothermia, patients can survive hours of CPR with full neurological recovery, as long as they’re rewarmed properly. It’s not about how long they’ve been down, but how cold they are.

That’s why the saying in wilderness and cold-water medicine is:
“They’re not dead until they’re warm and dead.”

What This Means for EMS
Continue resuscitation, until the patient is rewarmed to at least 32–34°C (90–93°F).
Handle gently, rough movement can trigger ventricular fibrillation.
Prioritize rewarming: heat packs, blankets
Transport to an ECMO-capable center if possible, many “cold arrests” can be rewarmed and walk out of hospital alive.

In hypothermic arrest, the body isn’t gone, it’s on pause.

The key is patience, persistence, and transport to definitive rewarming.

Did you miss FASTCAN2025? No worries you can still get the notes 👉 https://www.masteryourmedics.com/products/done-for-you-speaker-notes

10/02/2025

Glad this man is ok!

1). PLEASE Just stay with your vehicle! The vehicle is ALWAYS found first!

2). Trip plans save lives. Your loved ones worry for you coupled with a pretty concrete plan you share with them is your FIRST success in being found. Stick with your plan, trust your family to start the process if you’re not back.

3) Having essentials in your vehicle means you can shelter in place if necessary while you wait.

As the winter season approaches - these critical pieces are important for all kinds of travel. Off-roading, highway travel in inclement weather, and rural travel for adventure etc!

On Sept. 30, 2025, at approximately 9 p.m., Crowsnest Pass RCMP received a call of a missing 50-year-old male. The male had been off-roading in his jeep up the Kananaskis Highway (Hwy 40) during the day, and had not returned home. Family had received videos from the missing male later in afternoon and had not heard from him since. Southwest Alberta Regional Search and Rescue Society (SAR SAR) was deployed during the evening to the areas where the videos had been recorded.

Search and Rescue was re-deployed the following day, at first light, and the male was located once intermittent communication was established. Grounds crew’s were able to rescue the male based off their intimate knowledge of the area and the description provided by the male. The male’s jeep had become stuck and he had walked away from the vehicle during the night. Thankfully, the male did not receive any injuries and declined medical treatment, although he was very cold.

A reminder to the recreational users of the backcountry: please ensure that friends or family are aware of your intended route, as well as an expected return time. The use of a GPS device would have provided searchers critical information that would have led to an expedited rescue.

-Shared by Crowsnest Pass RCMP-