As part of my progress towards the Mountain Leader (Summer) qualification I am required to undertake a 16 hour First Aid course with a bias specifically towards the types of injuries and illnesses that may be encountered when exploring the mountains and moorlands of Britain.
I (along with 11 other friendly folk) did mine with Peak Mountaineering at The Hollowford Centre in Castleton over the Saturday and Sunday of last weekend. The course was very thorough, highly professional and used a good mixture of theory and practice. We covered a wide range of subjects including CPR, dealing with fractures and wounds, hypothermia, hyperthermia, stings and bites, protecting the casualty from the elements, improvised slings and splints and what a First Aid kit could/should contain. In order to cement our learning, we spent the last afternoon dealing with a variety of scenarios which required us to put into practice the skills we had been learning over the previous sessions.
First Aid is one of those rare skills where once you have learned it, you never ant to have to use it....none-the-less after this weekend of instruction I feel much better prepared should the occasion arise at some stage in the future!
