Your version of a bad day
- The breakup. Two dogs decide, and your hand is the closest thing to grab. Bite wounds want real irrigation, honest bandaging, and a low threshold for a clinic visit — Lesson 12 does it properly.
- Six leashes, one root. The pack surges at a squirrel, the leads wrap your knees, and the trail wins. FOOSH wrists and hip landings are the leash-tangle tax — splint, check, re-check.
- The regular who isn’t moving. Same loop, same faces — until the morning cyclist is off the trail at the bottom of the switchback. You’re first on scene by default, and the next ten minutes are this course.
Start here
All 15 lessons are worth your time, but this order front-loads what your world serves up:
- Bites & Stings — dog-bite wound care, done right the first time
- Bleeding & Wounds — punctures, tears, and pressure that actually stops it
- Musculoskeletal Injuries — wrists and hips — yours and the people you find
- Heat Illness — you already watch the dogs for it; humans need the same eye
- Patient Assessment — a system for the stranger down, starting from nothing
Then pressure-test it
Interactive scenarios — one decision at a time, tempting mistakes included, debrief at the end:
- Snoring Isn’t Sleeping — the runner down who isn’t napping
- Stop Peeking — pressure held through the urge to look
- Wiggle, Feel, Warm — the FOOSH wrist and the CSM habit
The certification question, honestly. “Wilderness First Aid” isn’t a regulated credential. No government body defines what a WFA card means — it means whatever the company that printed it says it means. What counts in front of a patient is whether you can do the work. This course teaches the work, free, and issues a record of completion — not a certificate, and we won’t pretend otherwise. Pet first aid classes cover the dogs; this covers the humans. If a client contract or insurer wants a human first aid card, take an in-person class — you’ll walk in already fluent. If nobody requires you to hold a card, what you need are the skills, not the laminate.
What this is
Fifteen lessons, a 40-question knowledge check, sixteen practice scenarios, a printable field reference card, and a kit checklist. Free, no account, nothing recorded about you, source on GitHub. It teaches decision-making, not hands-on skill — practice the hands-on parts on a real, padded, complaining friend.