Wilderness First Responders: Helping students adventure safely

In a state like Utah where anyone can backcountry ski, river raft and mountain bike all in one place, wilderness expertise is essential for outdoor enthusiasts. At Utah State University, students can take the first step into wilderness medicine via the Wilderness First Responder course.  

WFR certification is the standard for professional wilderness guides, instructors and those working in search and rescue. In a total of 80 hours, students learn how to handle medical emergencies in remote areas where access to a hospital is limited.  

Greg Davis is the assistant director of outdoor programs and an administrator for the Moab WFR course. Davis found his passion for the outdoors in backcountry skiing, whitewater rafting and backpacking.  

“Turning my passion into an actual career is what initially drove my desire to get involved with wilderness medicine,” Davis said.  

Davis has been teaching the course for 10 years.  

“We have two courses that we offer: wilderness first responder and wilderness first aid,” Davis said. “Wilderness first responder is a much longer course and much more involved. It goes into more depth as far as skills and treatments.”  

Students at both the Logan and Moab campus can register for a WFR class, which entails 80 hours in total of online coursework and hands-on training in the classroom and in the field.  

“The most beneficial thing students learn is skills that can potentially save somebody’s life,” Davis said. “The most important thing is how to recognize life-threatening conditions and situations and how to deal with those.”  

Harsh environments in remote locations offer unique challenges that require specialized knowledge to navigate. Through these courses, students learn crucial wilderness medicine skills, treatment options for a variety of injuries and patient assessment. 

Anna Rupper is a fourth-year student in nursing who completed her WFR through USU and is now a trip leader for outdoor programs.  

“The course has a lot of basic first-aid skills and in-depth first-aid skills,” Rupper said. “A lot of it’s tied to being in the backcountry. We went over CPR, sucking chest wounds, trauma injuries, illnesses, how to treat those and get someone out safely.” 

As a trip leader, treatments taught in WFR have helped Rupper ensure a safe experience.  

“I’ve had a few illnesses come up and a few minor injuries,” Rupper said. “I’m not excited for people to get hurt, but I like being ready to use my skills.”  

Becoming a trip leader was one of the main reasons Rupper completed her WFR and now leads backpacking trips, backcountry ski trips and kayaking. 

“I lead the National Bridges trip every summer,” Rupper said. “I’ve led it two years in a row now, and it’s super cool because you get a fresh group of people coming to college, and you hike them up into the mountains around Logan. Every time I’ve led that trip, it’s just been super engaging and exciting to bring new freshmen into Utah State.”  

Davis has utilized WFR skills both individually and throughout his 15-year long career as a team lead for Cache County Search and Rescue.  

“I’ve used these skills in my personal recreation and then I also do search and rescue,” Davis said. “I’ve definitely had some long rescues before that have taken all night.” 

Introductory courses such as Wilderness First Responder and Wilderness First Aid can represent stepping stones for those looking to become EMT’s, work in Search and Rescue or become guides.  

“It can definitely be a gateway and is one of the baseline prerequisites for going outdoor careers,” Davis said. “Whether that’s becoming a river guide or a climbing guide, the WFR course is the industry standard for guiding.”  

According to Health Care Pathway, Utah EMT licensure requires, at minimum, 120 hours of training and 10 hours of clinical experience.  

WFR courses, through USU and Desert Mountain Medicine, offer up to 70 EMT educational hours through the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians. Those aspiring to go into these fields can complete many of their hours through USU.  

“It’s also the baseline level course if you wanted to pursue the medicine side of things and go into search and rescue,” Davis said. “It’s a fundamental course for that as well.”  

Davis teaches courses and oversees wilderness trips both in Logan and in Moab. The most recent course took place in Moab on March 23-28, where Davis was one of the instructors.  

At the Professor Valley Field Camp, 20 minutes away from Moab, students can stay on-site and have an all-encompassing experience learning wilderness medicine. 

“In most of the WFR courses I teach we do a night scenario,” Davis said. “It’s this culminating experience where the students can put all their skills into practice. It’s dark, it’s cold, they have a challenging patient to deal with and they all have to work together as a team.”  

As an instructor, Davis values getting to see his student’s skills come to fruition through these scenarios.  

“It’s really fun and exciting to see students put everything that they’ve learned into practice, making some mistakes along the way and learning from those mistakes,” Davis said. “It’s really cool to watch as an instructor. That’s my highlight of every WFR course.”  

Every three years, participants must certify again through a refresher WFR course meant to update and review current wilderness medicine treatments and guidelines.  

Collin Appleby is a first-year student studying outdoor product design and development. Appleby is WFR certified and is currently in process of recertification through Desert Mountain Medicine.  

“It’s usually about every three years you have to get recertified,” Appleby said. “Instead of your seven day course you do it in two days.”   

Through USU, students can take their recertification in a three day span. Recertification focuses less on lecture and coursework and more so on scenario-based training, in which students jump into practicing their skills.  

Appleby took their first WFR course in Leadville, Colorado through Colorado Mountain College. As an aspiring wilderness guide, Appleby was motivated to take the course as part of reaching this goal.   

“A requirement for outdoor education and guiding jobs is some sort of wilderness medicine training,” Appleby said. “The standard, especially for multi-day expeditions, is WFR.”  

For Appleby, an imperative takeaway from WFR was patient assessment, and knowing what problems to look for.  

“The most valuable aspect I’ve taken away and used a lot in my work, when responding to anything from a spider bite to bigger injuries, is the assessment piece,” Appleby said. “Looking for problems to fix.”  

According to Rupper and Appleby, learning how to assess and effectively treat an injured individual is a crucial skill to possess.  

“The most beneficial thing is the primary assessment,” Rupper said. “If you come on the scene and you notice something wrong you go through everything systematically to make sure nothing is an immediate threat, then you fix it on the way. It’s like a stop and fix, before you move on to the next thing which creates a safe flow for how you approach medicine.” 

According to Appleby, insights gained through WFR have been especially helpful in managing situations where the solution isn’t always apparent.  

“It’s been really helpful in those gray area circumstances where an injury is not as easily treatable or manageable as a bigger, more obvious injury,” Appleby said. “The practices WFR focused on helped in those situations.”  

For students aspiring to become guides or wilderness medicine professionals, WFR courses prepare them to experience the backcountry without fear.  

“Knowing that I’m going into this setting where I’m not really going to have all the access and tools I might have in the front country or in an urban environment,” Appleby said. “It adds to that layer of, ‘How are you going to get this individual out of this situation?’ WFR helps with that next step thinking and with practicing those skills.”