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Best ski-related First Aid course?
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Hi all,
I'm currently based in the UK - but looking into what the best ski-related First Aid course is for interntaional instructors / guides.
Any recommedations? Planning on doing my AST Level 1 in sync.
Thanks!
Faith
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Do you guys have WFR (Wilderness First Responder) courses?
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Wilderness First Responder (WFR) is more specifically pertinent to back-country or pow skiing, but absolutely teaches the fundamentals of staying calm and providing care to the victim (yo friend) until better help arrives.
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Wilderness First Responder (WFR) or Outdoor Emergency Care (OEC) Is the bare minimum that outdoor professionals will have.
But the higher your medical certification the more desired you will be as a applicant. I think the highest you can be in the US with out going to doctor school is EMT-Paramedic. Not sure what the UK equivalent is.
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WFR courses are hella fun and exciting. Hard to find sometimes or hard to recert but soo worth it. Its good to see people on here aware and interested in one of the better things you can have if you plan on skiing in the back country besides understanding the risk and management of the situations you put yourself and friends in... yeah NS!
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From what I've read, OEC as others have mentioned is the bare minimum, and in many cases WFR (wilderness first responder) is expected if not required. That said, if you have the time and money I would go for a full W-EMT course, as that will give you both the wilderness component needed for guiding and the standard EMT component if you were to want to pursue things further - I've heard that a number of former outdoor professionals transition into paramedic and EMT type positions later on. That said, they also make it pretty easy to upgrade, so if you only go with the WFR now it'll be easy enough to do the EMT component later.
It's a international system from what I can see so I'm sure you can find places closer to home to take it, but I know in North America NOLS and IWLS are pretty respected for the first aid training, as is Rocky Mountain Adventure Medicine (although they only offer up to WFR).
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Thanks for the super helpful and supportive responses!
Have a great season everyone :-)
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