The American Red Cross is pleased to announce the national release of a new Wilderness and Remote First Aid program. This program replaces the Wilderness First Aid Basics course from the Transylvania County Chapter in North Carolina and all other similar chapter-developed courses. This new program continues the proud tradition of teaching people how to deal with emergency situations by using first aid skills in a delayed-help environment. It is based on the 2010 Boy Scouts of America (BSA) Wilderness First Aid Curriculum and Doctrine Guidelines and offers enhanced content and topics to meet OSHA’s Best Practices for Workplace First Aid Training Programs.

The Wilderness and Remote First Aid program is appropriate for audiences from youth-serving organizations as well as adults who participate in outdoor recreational activities or who work in wilderness or remote settings where EMS response is more than 1 hour away. New and unique to the Wilderness and Remote First Aid program is that the course emphasizes experiential learning and major portions of the course are meant to be taught in outdoor settings.

Wilderness and Remote First Aid Instructor Course

The purpose of the Wilderness and Remote First Aid Instructor course is to train instructor candidates to teach the Wilderness and Remote First Aid course which provides individuals with a foundation of first aid principles and skills to be able to respond to emergencies and give care in areas that do not have immediate emergency medical services (EMS) response. This includes wilderness and remote environments, including urban disasters, such as earthquakes and hurricanes.

To be eligible for the instructor course, individuals must:

• Be at least 17 years of age on or before the final scheduled session of this course.
• Possess a Fundamentals of Instructor Training certificate issued within the last year or a current Health and Safety Services Instructor Authorization.
• Possess valid basic-level American Red Cross Wilderness and Remote First Aid certification or equivalent wilderness first aid training from another agency, such as
  • American Safety and Health Institute (ASHI).
  • Emergency Care and Safety Institute (ECSI).
  • Mountaineers. National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS).
  • National Ski Patrol.
  • Remote Medical International (RMI).
  • Stonehearth Open Learning Opportunities (SOLO).
  • Wilderness Medical Associates (WMA).
  • Wilderness Medicine Institute (WMI).
• Successfully complete the pre-course session Included in this training.