Presented by Chris Broughton-Bossong, Wilderness Medical Response Instructor for SOLO Wilderness Medicine
“Who has not felt the urge to throw a loaf of bread and a pound of tea in an old sack and jump over the back fence?” – John Muir
“For me adventure is when everything goes wrong. That’s when the adventure starts.” – Yvon Chouinard
Somewhere in the aforementioned quotes is both our desire to head to the woods and wild places and our ability to adapt when things stop going as planned. To take this a step further, if an adventure is when things go wrong, an emergency is when things go wrong in a way that we can no longer manage or adjust to. Oftentimes what escalates a simple mishap to a rescue-necessitating emergency is the compounding of many small factors, any single one of which, by itself, may not be particularly grave but can add up to a dire situation when we are a few miles into the woods.
During this presentation we will look at some simple strategies for packing, preparing for and assessing a situation when things take a turn for the unexpected. We’ll look at how to turn what may, at first glance, look like a catastrophe and see if we aren’t able to manage all the small pieces in such a way that we are simply left with a bit of adventure and a good story to tell.
Chris Broughton-Bossong has worked in the field of disaster response since 2004, working both domestically and internationally on operations ranging from Hurricane Katrina to the earthquake in Haiti. For the past 10 years, he has worked as a wilderness medical response instructor for SOLO Wilderness Medicine.
This event is part of our Virtual Outings series.
