Sometimes accidents occur during fieldwork – what would we do if something went wrong and help was far away? Good training helps support good decisions – but good training is very rare, and often not an expected part of preparation for fieldwork!

I felt it was important that our lab have the skills and perspectives to be able to be able to competently handle a crisis. We just got back from an intensive weekend wilderness first aid training – a scenario-packed weekend full of desert landscapes, fake blood, bandages, splints, and more.

A few days of training isn’t enough to turn any of us into medical doctors, but it is hopefully enough to encourage us to think more carefully about how to prepare for contingencies, how to think coolly through their consequences, and how to do our best to get people to more professional care.

For me as well, the training was useful for revising the set of first-aid equipment and procedures we have in place for fieldwork. I hope we won’t ever need it, but I am glad we are prepared. In my past experience, fieldwork safety has often been handled with very little institutional oversight, and a lot of people end up working in field conditions with too little support or training. This is our first step in changing things here.