Plan casualty transport and routes to care
Know in advance how you would move an injured or sick person, and to where, at any time of day or year.
How
- Map the nearest hospital with an emergency department, the nearest clinic, pharmacy and dentist, with drive times in good and bad weather.
- Agree a meeting point where an ambulance or helicopter could reach you, and record its coordinates in the call-for-help script.
- Keep one vehicle fuelled and ready with the vehicle kit, blankets and the grab copy of the health file.
- Plan how to carry someone who cannot walk to the vehicle (for example a rescue stretcher or carry sheet) and practise in a drill. Learn safe lifting and moving in your first aid course.
- Keep the driveway passable for emergency vehicles (safety-3).
- If no help can come, you will have to move a person with a possible spinal injury. Learn spine assessment and safe movement on a Wilderness First Responder course (medical-8).
- Current WMS guidance (2024) focuses on protecting the spinal cord, not on full immobilisation. It advises against rigid collars and backboards for suspected spinal injury.
Safety: Do not move someone with a possible spinal injury unless they are in danger or no help can come. Then move them as trained on a WFR course.
Do these first
Sources
- Wilderness First Aid (WFA). NOLS, accessed 2026-11
- NOLS Wilderness Medicine Institute: Wilderness Medicine Practices and Protocols (2016). NOLS, accessed 2026-11
- Adult and Pediatric First Aid/CPR/AED course. American Red Cross, accessed 2026-11
- Wilderness Medical Society clinical practice guidelines for spinal cord protection (2024), abstract. UT Health San Antonio scholars database, accessed 2026-11