First Aid

   Emergency Response. Responding to Emergencies. Wilderness First Re sponder. Advanced First Aid. Wilderness EMT. First Response. What’s the deal?

   About two years ago someone at American Red Cross announced that the Advanced First Aid course, which had long served us well as our bottom line for guides’ first aid training, was being discontinued. Two years of low grade chaos followed. Finally, after ten, maybe twenty thousand phone calls and countless hours of frustration on the part of us, the NPS, the Red Cross, Patty Ellwanger and more, we see the light at the end of the tunnel. Here’s the deal:

   Starting some time this spring or summer, ARC will begin offering, on a national basis, a new 43-hour course called Emergency Response. From that time forward, Emergency Response will be the minimum qualification for guides in Grand Canyon.

   It’s what we do until then that’s tricky. Several states, including Utah and Arizona, have agreed to offer Advanced First Aid until Emergency Response comes on line. If you now hold an Advanced First Aid card or get certified with an approved Advanced First Aid course this spring, that card will be valid until the expiration date on the card.

   If you took last year’s Responding to Emergencies course with Patty Ellwanger or Dan Dierker , your card will be valid for three years. These were the last Responding to Emergencies courses that will be recognized by the Park. That’s it. No more Responding to Emergencies.

  Enough for the bottom line. What’s exciting is that the Wilderness First Responder course, which by all accounts is the course for boatmen, with the most usable and valuable information, has become easier to find in Northern Arizona. If you can possibly swing it, sign up for one of these. They are long; they are pricy; they are the best.

   We’d like to commend all the outfitters who have sponsored this course, paid for guides’ training or are offering a wage incentive for boatmen maintaining this higher level of qualification.