Northern New England's cold, snowy winters and rugged terrain make this area an attractive area of the country for people who enjoy winter sports, like hiking, snowshoeing, skiing and snowboarding. Like any outdoor recreation, these activities come with risks. The extreme conditions they're conducted in—and often alone—mean that in order to do them safely, certain precautions and skills should be learned to avoid mountain tragedies like those that have occurred over the past several months. These are also critical skills for the region's medical professionals who often are called upon to treat individuals who are injured outdoors in the winter in this region.
On January 20 and 21, nurses and emergency medical technicians (EMTs) from Dartmouth Health and beyond took part in Dartmouth Health's first-ever Winter Wilderness First Aid training seminar. Through indoor activities at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) and exercises on the Boston Lot trail network adjacent to DHMC, participants were trained in a cold/winter wilderness or austere setting to use critical thinking, assess situations, make decisions, intervene, manage, communicate with others, and safely care for themselves and/or a distressed person.
"The purpose of this course was to take multiple medical professionals, or those who have some medical background, and help them feel more confident on how to respond and make good decisions in circumstances involving extreme weather," said Debra A. Goodrum, RN, a nurse educator at DHMC who facilitated the seminar. "Our participants also learned how to care for themselves in these situations. These true-to-life scenarios give people the tools to save a life."
The outdoor portion of the two-day training—which happened to fall on a cold and snowy Saturday—included hands-on "Wilderness Olympics" exercises, including simulated scenarios of finding an injured person in a forest, creating "hypo wraps" to treat hypothermia, and building shelters in the woods. Nurses and EMTs who took part in the seminar said they came away from it more confident about how to respond should they or others need assistance in similar situations.
"I was excited to see the Winter Wilderness First Aid class offered," said Lisa Bradshaw, APRN, a palliative care nurse practitioner at Dartmouth Hitchcock Clinics Manchester. "My family and I are pretty active and try to get outside as much as possible during the long New England winters, and safety is always a concern. The class was awesome, the instructors were very knowledgeable and the opportunity to do hands-on activities during the scenarios actually on the trail was excellent. Discussions around preparedness and decision making were so helpful. I felt like I learned some new skills and will be more prepared and confident in the future for our outdoor activities."
Dartmouth Health also offers first aid training courses for healthcare providers in other seasons. The next course will be held in summer 2023. For information, contact Continuing Nursing Education Sr. Program Coordinator Amanda Sanchez at amanda.e.sanchez@hitchcock.org.
About Dartmouth Health
Dartmouth Health, New Hampshire’s only academic health system and largest private employer, serves patients across New England. Dartmouth Health provides access to more than 2,300 providers in nearly every area of medicine, delivering care at its flagship hospital, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) in Lebanon, NH. Its network of hospitals, outpatient centers, clinics and home care facilities, spans a broad geographical area. Year after year, DHMC is named the #1 hospital in New Hampshire by U.S. News & World Report, and is consistently recognized for high performance in numerous clinical specialties and procedures. Dartmouth Health includes Dartmouth Cancer Center, northern New England’s only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers and one of less than than 60 total nationally; Dartmouth Health Children’s, which includes the state’s only children’s hospital (Children’s Hospital at DHMC/CHaD) and more than 20 locations around the region; eight member hospitals in Lebanon, Keene, Claremont, Hampstead, and New London, NH, and Windsor and Bennington, VT; Dartmouth Health Home Care; Dartmouth Health Connected Care Center for Telehealth, serving patients as far away as Texas; and more than 30 primary and multi-specialty clinics across New Hampshire and Vermont. Through its partnership with Dartmouth College, Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine and the White River Junction VA Medical Center, Dartmouth Health trains nearly 400 medical residents and fellows annually and performs cutting-edge research and clinical trials with international impact. Dartmouth Health and its more than 16,000 employees are committed to serving the healthcare needs of everyone in the communities it serves and to providing every patient with exceptional, state-of-the-art, personalized care. Learn more at dartmouth-health.org.