Alaskans are proud of our self-sufficiency. We’ve gained our skills through experience and training.
There’s often a gap, though. Most Alaskans don’t have training in emergency health care. Remote living, back-country travel, and roads blocked by snow or debris can put many of us hours to days away from a hospital.
Dorothy Adler has been teaching Wilderness Medicine for nineteen years. Her training center is located near of Palmer, off Buffalo Mine Road. She teaches through SOLO.
SOLO stands for Stonehearth Open Learning Opportunities. SOLO is the oldest continuously operating wilderness medicine school. They have offered courses for fifty years. Courses advance from Wilderness First Aid to Wilderness First Responder to Wilderness EMT. EMT stands for emergency medical technician.
Adler took her first Wilderness First Responder course in 1998 when she was a rock and ice climbing guide. Eventually guiding took her to McCarthy and the Wrangell Saint Elias mountains. She saw that mountain guides led remote area rescues, whether it was on Denali or in the Wrangells. She decided it was time to start teaching more people the skills she had learned.
Wilderness Medicine is a set of skills for backpackers, snowmachine riders, dog mushers, and other outdoor enthusiasts. It can be vital training for anyone that finds themselves cut off from professional medical help for hours or days.
At least three people in Glacier View have been certified as Wilderness EMT’s.
Petersville is far from a hospital. A couple from Petersville took Adler’s course. They wanted their son to take it as well. He drove his snowmachine to his truck to come in for the Youth Course recently.
Adler also teaches off the road system. These places have the greatest need for Wilderness Medicine training.
Over forty students took her Wilderness First Aid course in Kotzebue last year. An upcoming course in Noatak will teach a mix of high school students and adults. In March she will teach advanced wilderness first aid and ice and water rescue in Kivalina. This will help grow their search and rescue capacity.
The Wilderness First Responder course teaches how to take vital signs, how to recognize a stroke, how to make a traction splint or relocate a shoulder, and how to transport an injured person.
It also teaches how to talk to a patient and assess an injury in a calm and respectful way. Students learn how to deal with bystanders. How will a group of people act when they witness an accident? What will you do if a witness gets hysterical or wants to rush into a dangerous situation?
For Adler, the best parts are the community collaborations and when students return to teach a skill they have developed. LifeMed has taught students how to prepare patients for transport. A dentist talked about dental emergencies in the wild. A former student who offered to be buried in snow for an avalanche rescue scenario is a state trooper. He talks to classes.
If you are interested in taking a Wilderness Medicine course, the Mat-Su Health Foundation has vocational scholarships that cover the costs for a Wilderness EMT certification. Information can be found at healthymatsu.org/vocational-scholarships/.
More information on Adler’s courses can be found at akwildmed.com.
More information on SOLO can be found at soloschools.com.
Kendra Zamzow reported this Page Two article and yours truly, Lee Henrikson produced it. If you have an idea for a Page 2 topic, please email us at page2@radiofreepalmer.org.
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