For those who suffer severe allergic reactions to everything from wasp stings to wheat consumption, getting help — and getting that medical intervention fast — may mean the difference between life and death.

Here at The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE), we train our Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) students and Wilderness First Responder (WFR) students in the use of EpiPen, an autoinjector for those suffering a sudden anaphylaxis reaction.

This somewhat imposing emergency medicine tool is an injection device that contains epinephrine, a chemical that narrows blood vessels and opens airways in the lungs. A promptly administered injection may reverse severe low blood pressure, a rash or itchy skin, an alarming shortness of breath, hives, nausea, vomiting, and other symptoms of an allergic reaction.

Anaphylaxis is a life-threatening allergic reaction that requires immediate treatment, whether within the city limits or deep in the backcountry.

And while most anaphylaxis reactions are mild and self-limiting, it is impossible to predict — at least in the beginning — whether a reaction will become life-threatening. As a result, rapid intervention is always critical. A hiker’s risk for anaphylaxis increases if they suffer asthma that is severe or not controlled. Medical conditions such as heart disease can also increase the risk of an episode.

What can trigger an anaphylaxis episode?

The following are among of the most common causes of anaphylaxis:

• Milk, peanuts, tree nuts, eggs, shellfish, wheat, and soy
• Stings from bees, wasps, or fire ants
• Antibiotics, NSAIDs, or aspirin
• Latex

Adrenaline is the first line treatment for

Apparently, I spent three quarters of last year and a quarter of this year mostly sitting on the couch. I held a beverage in one hand, chips, cheese and crackers in the other (and yes, I can hold that much).

Adding new meaning to the term “binge-watching,” I viewed dozens of subtitled, multi-season detective series from every nation in NATO — all of which I wouldn’t have sat through in the years leading up 2020. Sound familiar to you?

OK. Maybe your pandemic parade didn’t include as many snacks, and maybe you were watching adventure films while wearing your climbing harness on the couch, a rack of gear on the floor. That sound more likely?

But it’s possible that in either scenario, you never pulled back your window curtain to notice the outdoors is still there, just waiting for you to emerge. It’s time to get out from under the duvet, lose the pajama bottoms, and be outdoors more than you’ve been indoors and on your couch over the last 12 months or so.

You probably aren’t in as good of shape as you think

It’s also time to come to terms with reality. You’ve been marinating on a couch for more than a year now. If you were climbing 5.10 early last year, chances are you aren’t doing that now. The living room furniture has become a leech of progress and fitness.

The solution? Allow us to help you see how easy it is to get out of the house and onto the trail for a multi-day backpacking trip.

Most couch-to-5k programs are nine weeks long. However, the guide we put together below is only six weeks. And if you’re willing, you can probably knock that down to four weeks. Why? Because training can get boring. And if you get bored while training, you may never make it to the trail. We here at NCOAE want you on the trail.

So, what we’ve put together below is a guide. It’s not a program. It’s not a plan. Because if we can’t make it fun, you might just remain on the couch, reading subtitles and thinking you speak Swedish.

Here’s what we recommend:

If one of your goals is to apply to medical school and eventually become a doctor, here are a few of the hurdles you’ll need to jump through. First, you’ll need a four-year Bachelor of Science degree with a minimum 3.0 GPA, a passing score on the MCAT exam, and a few glowing letters of recommendation.

But how would you like to increase your odds of getting admitted and succeeding in med school? If so, you may also want to consider getting trained and certified as an emergency medical technician (EMT) and gaining some valuable experience in the field first.

According to a survey of 67 medical schools in the United States and Canada, 85 percent of those schools responded favorably to applicants with experience as EMTs or paramedics. That’s not exactly surprising. After all, EMTs have real-world experience in the medical field.

In this post, we highlight the advantages of obtaining EMT training and experience prior to applying for and enrolling in medical school.

Build Your Foundational Knowledge

EMT training helps to build your foundational knowledge in several medical disciplines, including the following:

You’ve just finished packing up your gear and made sure that your favorite secret camping spot is in better shape than when you arrived. You’ve disposed of your waste properly and minimized your impact.

Suddenly, someone stumbles out of the tree line with a couple of sidekicks, tosses down a backpack and pulls a smartphone out of their cargo pants.

Two dozen photos and a short video later, all three cram their cell phone back in their shorts and excitedly speak how pristine the spot is. “This is great! And there’s hardly anybody here,” one of them says to another. “I can’t wait to post this stuff on Instagram and show everybody where we camped this weekend!”

With the advent of texting, tweets, drones with really good cameras, and phones that can take and post 12-megapixel photos and 4K video — along with their coordinates — it’s obviously past time to consider a nondisclosure agreement for Mother Nature’s treasured and off the beaten path locations.

The simple fact is wilderness (and the backcountry in particular) is taking a beating. And we all know what happens when Mother Nature isn’t happy.

Scientists Battle Location Giveaways on Social Media

Here’s a real-life example of why nature needs a nondisclosure agreement. I was guiding a research scientist on a trip to find an ancient bald cypress tree for his research. We spent hours paddling around to find the old tree, and when we did, the scientist wrote down the coordinates. He didn’t even share those coordinates with me in fear I might geotag a photo and post it online.

When I asked him to explain his clandestine actions, he told me that an enormous amount of damage has been done to ancient trees because coordinates have been posted along with pictures. He now refuses to geotag any of his posts.

And he has an excellent point. Close your eyes for a moment and picture that favorite spot that you found in your local woods, secret climbing crag, or untapped surf location. Now imagine dozens of billboards advertising those treasured spots, each boasting a million views and offering exact directions to each.

I can hear your screams from here. Can you hear mine? You would be angry on a volcanic level.

You’re thinking about becoming an EMT. Awesome! If you follow through, you will be joining the ranks of today’s modern-day heroes, the frontline of the frontline workers — bona fide life savers!

Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) are trained professionals who provide care in critical and emergency situations. Such emergencies can range from simple, routine calls to intense and complex scenarios.  

You may show up for a call only to discover that there is no victim, or the person is okay and refuses help, or a patient simply needs transportation from one medical facility to another. On the other hand, you could be called in to attend to the victim of a car accident or a shooting or a heart attack, drowning, mountaineering accident, or drug overdose. You may even have to deliver a baby! You can never predict what will happen over the course of any given shift.

As an EMT, your job responsibilities generally boil down to keeping patients alive using non-invasive medical procedures and transporting them safely to a hospital or clinic where they can receive a higher level of professional medical care. More specifically, you have three fundamental job responsibilities:

• Assessment and stabilization of the patient’s condition
• Basic life support
• Transportation

In this post, we bring you up to speed on the different levels in emergency medicine and credentialing while explaining the basic education and skills required to become an EMT.

Recognizing the Difference Between EMTs, AEMTs, and Paramedics

The National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians (NREMT) — that’s the leading certification agency in the U.S. covering prehospital medical providers — recognizes three levels of EMTs/paramedics:

In recent weeks, we’ve all been hearing more and more from parents, educators, and even the nation’s top disease experts on the impending opening of schools across the nation.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, who heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has suggested that school districts developing their plans for campus reopening should find ways to offer as many outdoor activities as possible. Fauci said that could include everything from outdoor classes, to recess, and lunchtime.

Plans for just when and how schools will reopen are being formulated and fine-tuned, and the consensus seems to be that being outside is the safest place to be during the instructional day. As states start to mandate returns to school, safety and quality of education are at the forefront of design.

Obviously, you’ll get no argument about that from those of us here at The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE). And we have some suggestions. But first, here are the questions we are hearing most often from you.

Why move outdoors?

Doctor Fauci already told us that spending time outdoors is safer during times of infectious diseases, and we’re puzzled why some schools forget that being outside is often best for our physical, emotional, and mental well-being. Studies have shown that, in districts with high numbers of second language students, learning outdoors is

Much like most educational institutions this past year, we find ourselves looking down the road toward new beginnings. And for us here at The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE), that means new wilderness courses, upgraded emergency medicine education courses, and more wilderness medicine education programs. Long before 2020 faded into the rearview, we took a fresh and hard look at what we do, why we do it, and how we can do better by you — our students and client organizations.

As we emerge from the pandemic, we’ve designed courses that offer our participants more flexibility, greater breadth of instruction, and fresh course areas that will draw you deeper into the wild and yourself.

(Photos © by Dave Hoefler, Andy Holmes, Ronan Furuta, and Daniele Franchi — all sourced from Unsplash)

If your desire is to help yourself to adventure, here are a few of our offerings:

Emergency Medicine Education and Wilderness Medicine Education

We have worked hard to make Emergency Medicine Education and Wilderness Medicine Education easier to access and more flexible to participate in. Our hybrid medical courses enable you to start things off in your own home. That’s because one of the largest obstacles facing our students in the past was leaving home, quitting a job, or getting time off from work, and spending their savings on accommodations and food for extended periods of time. For some people, this trifecta of changes meant they had to abandon their dream of becoming part of the medical workforce.

Here at NCOAE, we design course that exceed industry standards, which means you will be a leader in knowledge and practice. Depth of instruction is not compromised by the