Friday, August 19, 2011

Wilderness First Aid for Surfers!


Wishing you will be in Costa Rica this November??? If you are come visit us November 17-18 during our free Wilderness First Aid Clinic for Surfers in Nosara. WMC will be offering this course for free to locals in the community. We are so excited!!

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Wilderness Medical Services

Wilderness Medical Consultants now provides wilderness medical services to remote locations across Canada. We can staff your remote work site, expedition or recreational group with hard working, rural medics. Our medics are familiar with wilderness environments and delayed transport to hospital care. Click here to visit our website to learn more about this exciting new service.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Vancouver Sun Interviews Dr. John Peachell About Recent Survival Story.

VANCOUVER — Two days after Rita Chretien was found alive in northeast Nevada's remote high desert, her son — still wearing a look of disbelief on his face — told reporters at the hospital he didn't know she had it in her.

Just goes to show, Raymond Chretien said, "miracles happen."

Even the doctor sitting next to him was stunned the 56-year-old Penticton woman had survived seven weeks alone with little food or water.

She beat some "overwhelming odds," he said.

But wilderness survival experts say while Chretien's case is extraordinary, it is not unprecedented. The human body has an amazing ability to adapt to sudden change, they say. It's just that few of us realize it.

"We spend so much of our lives having our needs taken care of, we don't really suffer anymore. We're always in these controlled environments," said Sarah Brown, a wilderness survival instructor at Mount Royal University in Calgary.

"People have lost touch with their relationship with the land. They don't realize what their capacities are."

Whether marooned on the ocean, caught in a blizzard or stranded at the bottom of a ravine, those who have lived through harrowing, stuck-in-the-middle-of-nowhere scenarios share common traits: They made smart choices and never lost the "will to survive."

Experts say in order to make smart choices, you first have to remain calm. Panicking will only lead to poor decisions.

Next, take stock of what's around you and what you have. In the case of Rita Chretien and her husband, Al, who apparently were led astray by their GPS device and ended up driving into the mud, it doesn't appear they were ever in any immediate peril.

The weather was neither extremely cold nor extremely hot. They had a water source (from a nearby stream), a bit of food (trail mix, candy) and shelter (their 2000 Chevy Astro Van).

Believe it or not, some people have lasted for several days without water and several weeks — about 60 days — without food, said Gordon Giesbrecht, a professor at the University of Manitoba who studies human responses in extreme environments.

The next step is to plan: do you stay or go? The general rule of thumb is to stay put and wait to be found but there may be occasions when you have to bail — if, for example, there is an imminent threat of death and there's no chance of immediate rescue.

According to Giesbrecht, the key questions to ask yourself are: How long do you expect it'll take for someone to initiate a search and find you? How long do you expect to be able to survive by staying put? How far do you have to travel to get help? Are you certain you know where to go and that you can make it there?

There's a tendency, Giesbrecht said, for people to underestimate how long they can survive and overestimate how far they can walk.

While many details of the Chretiens' decision-making have not been revealed, Giesbrecht said it appears that Albert Chretien's decision to leave after three days to seek help may have been premature. "You want to provide some reasonable opportunity for rescue," he said.

Albert Chretien remains missing. While officials continue to look for him, they admit that it is unlikely he will be found alive.

Once the decision is made to stay or go, the next step is to keep a positive attitude, experts say. It is critical, they say, to fight against letting uncertainty — not knowing when help will come, not knowing whether you'll survive — wreak havoc on your mind.

"We have a choice where we can slide down the slope of negativity, victimization and self-pity or you can do everything to stay positive," Brown said.

Staying positive can manifest itself in many ways. Humour is one, Brown said, recalling the Tom Hanks movie Cast Away in which a FedEx worker gets marooned on a desolate island and spends most of the movie interacting with a volleyball-friend he names "Wilson."

Aron Ralston, the mountain climber who got trapped by a boulder in Utah and eventually amputated his arm, said his spirits were lifted when he had a premonition of a boy he believed to be his future son.

In the Nevada case, it appears Rita Chretien took strength from her faith.

She read the Bible each day, including Psalm 86, which reads in part: "Hear my prayer, Lord; listen to my cry for mercy. When I am in distress, I call to you, Because you answer me."

"She felt Jesus was sitting next to her in the van," said Rev. Neil Allenbrand, the Chretiens' pastor for the past 12 years.

Others have found strength from finding beauty in their surroundings.

That's what Charles Horton says got him through eight nights in the bone-chilling cold after he broke his leg while cross-country skiing in Colorado in spring 2005.

During the day, he napped in the warmth of the sun and marvelled at the sparkling snow. Horton says he remembers being brought almost to tears the first night by the stark beauty of the near-full moon and the shadows of the trees.

"Each night, the coyotes were singing. It was almost like they were singing, 'We've lived another day!'"

That's not to say there weren't low moments. Horton, then 55, who survived on melted snow, an energy bar and a bit of dried fruit, made a decision on his third day to try to crawl to his vehicle which was a few kilometres away.

By the sixth day, however, his energy was sapped and he couldn't go any further.

He entered what he describes as "that wonderful spiral of self-pity."

"I started crying. I'm going to miss my friends, everyone I love, and die here alone."

But he was so dehydrated that he couldn't shed any tears. The discovery made him laugh.

Nine days into his ordeal, Horton — who had lost 30 pounds — was able to flag down a snowmobiler with his whistle.

By all accounts, Rita Chretien, who continues her recovery in a Penticton hospital, has managed to keep her spirits high.

Not everyone is so fortunate.

Dr. John Peachell, medical director at Wilderness Medical Consultants in Golden, B.C., said he's seen people who survived near-death experiences suffer from post-traumatic stress and recurring flashbacks.

Others, however, come out of such experiences feeling extremely empowered.

Tanya Rider, of Maple Valley, Washington, was driving home from work in September 2007 when she crashed down a 25-foot ravine. For eight days, she lay trapped sideways in her SUV going in and out of consciousness without any food or water. Her collar bone was broken and she was suffering from kidney damage.

Rider, 36, says she made it through her ordeal by focusing on her family and her future.

"I wanted to get back to my husband. We're a team. What is it you want out of life? You have to aim for it," she said.

"We have a tremendous amount of power within ourselves."



Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/Rita+Chretien+wilderness+survival+amazing+unbelievable+experts/4782076/story.html#ixzz1MM0gKv7F

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

CBC Consults Wilderness Medical Consultants on Recent Survival Story

Rescued B.C. woman returns to Canada

Rita Chretien now being treated at a B.C. medical facility

Posted: May 10, 2011 10:02 AM ET

Last Updated: May 10, 2011 10:58 PM ET

A B.C. woman who was stranded in the Nevada wilderness for 49 days has been transferred from a hospital in Idaho to an undisclosed B.C. medical facility.

Rita Chretien, 56, and her husband, Albert, 59, got stuck on a logging road in mid-March after taking a detour during a trip from their home in Penticton to Las Vegas to attend a trade show. Her husband, who went to look for help, is still missing, and bad weather on Tuesday stalled the search for him.

The couple originally tried to seek help together shortly after getting stuck, Rita Chretien told police.

The couple walked about seven kilometres, but turned back and returned to their van, presumably because they were tired, according to the Elko County Sheriff's Department.

Two days later, Albert Chretien left their van and headed out to look for help by himself.

Rita Chretien was rescued Friday when a group of people out hunting for elk antlers spotted the couple's brown van.

She was treated at St. Luke's Magic Valley Medical Center in Twin Falls, Idaho, where she was reportedly in "high spirits," eating solid foods and receiving physical therapy.

The hospital confirmed that she was discharged Tuesday.

"As the Chretien family makes the journey home with the mother, the family wishes to extend their sincere appreciation for all the prayers and well wishes [they have] received over the past few days," a statement from the hospital said.

"They are grateful for the respect for their privacy during their stay which has allowed their family time to celebrate and reconnect."

'Right place at the right time'

A Nevada woman said it was a "miscommunication" between her family members that led them to the B.C. woman.

Whitnie Sill-Herman, Troy Sill and Chad Herman spotted the van Friday while they were out riding ATVs and looking for antlers.

"We were at the right place at the right time. It's funny, because it was actually a miscommunication between me, and my husband and my dad," Sill-Herman told CBC News.

"Usually we'd go for a little bit, and stop and meet, and kind of talk, and have drinks or whatever and continue on," she said. "For some reason, he just kept going. We couldn't catch up to him, and when we did, there she was."

Sill-Herman said Chretien signalled to them that she needed help.

"Just her opening the van and saying, 'No, no, I'm not OK' is what I remember most," Sill-Herman said.

"She just told us she was hungry, she was very hungry, or she was starving."

Call rescue helicopter

Sill-Herman said they knew they needed to get her out of the area. But after spending weeks stuck in the van with a limited supply of food, Chretien wasn't strong enough to ride out on an ATV.

Sill-Herman and her family offered Chretien snacks and then rode to a point where they could call in a rescue helicopter.

Troy Sill told ABC's Good Morning America that Chretien packed up her items and was ready to go by the time they got back from the nearby ranch.

"It was amazing when we got back there what the adrenalin had done for her," he said Tuesday.

Sill-Herman said that Chretien actually asked her for a business card or a phone number so she could thank her rescuers.

"And I told her, 'Don't worry about that, you just take care of yourself,'" Sill-Herman said.


Friday, February 4, 2011

WMC Winter Update




Well, we hope everyone has been out enjoying the winter. This is “supposed” to be our slow time but the demands for custom course keep rolling in! At WMC, we started the New Year with a visit to Bragg Creek (outside Calgary) to run a workshop for the Rural Alberta Family Medicine Residents. Following this, a week up at Sol Mountain Lodge to visit with friends, ski and certify the staff in CPR and wilderness first aid.

We are attending the WMS winter meeting in Park City, Utah, next week and then a custom course for the Bow Valley Kayak Club in Canmore. Then a custom course for the Department of Oceans & Fisheries on the West Coast, followed by a course for the medical students in Edmonton. Pretty soon our regular spring course schedule will be up and running. A lot of bookings have been coming in so it is looking like a fun and busy spring! We are also training several new instructors to add to our team. Enjoy the rest of the winter, looks like more snow on the way!

John Peachell MD

Pictures from top to bottom: Shelley in the pow at Sol Mountain Lodge, Alberta Rural Family Medicine Group, Member of the Rural Family Medicine group hamming it up for the camera