You’ll find more, but this is the only one I’ve found so far where the moderator allows free discussion.  The other moderators have had their own agendas which don’t allow posters to offer advice differeing from the moderators on important topics like, for instance, safety.  I’m 64 years old and have found the other moderators stuck in advice from the 60s and 70s .. but there has been a lot of research and real time experience done in the intervening years which contradict old advice.

Dog Paddle, your response displays why forum moderators, to have safe and effective forums, most allow free discussion.  I allow your right to say my advice is unsafe, and I leave it up to the individual reader to read all sources, including you and me, and make up their own minds.  I am not a beginner, am 64 years old, have been a professional writer so know how to phrase things properly generally; for the past 30 years have read only non-fiction which provides me a good education on a few topics including the outdoors (read ‘Bear Attacks’ by Stephen Herrero for the kind of education I provide myself), I have canoed and kayaked on the Atlantic and Pacific oceans including at Queen Charlotte Islands, I did two solos of the Montreal-Lake Huron Voyageur Route, soloed the 350 mile Ottawa-Montreal-Kingston-Ottawa route which includes the St. Lawrence Seaway, have not taken courses which will teach me unsafe practices like heeling a canoe and entertaining myself and others in dangerous whitewater, etc.  ‘Crocs’ watershoes are not gardening clogs as you state but are water shoes specifically designed as such.  I did not say bear spray was totally inefective, as you will see in my response to your other post on the air horn topic. In wilderness First Aid I corrected Doctors Jim Duff and Peter Gormly, two Australian writers of a Wilderness First Aid manual, on the difference in treatment for Rattlesnake bites as compared to Australian snakebites, they responded to my email to them on the subject by saying they would correct their website.  In river rescue I attempt through education to prevent crisis instead of creating crisis by promotion of unsafe water recreation like Class v kayaking, which I consider as suicidal as Russian Roulette.  I took my St. John Ambulance First Aid course 50 years ago in the Canadian Armed Forces, and am aware through my reading that a U.S. doctor has instituted a new method of recussitation which improves survival rate by up to 80 percent if ‘breaths’ are dispensed with but cocentrating on chest compression only .. the reason being the lungs are full of oxygen which needs to be circulated, no necessity of additional air until the heart begins pumping on its own.  So .. while I could hire myself out as a professional guide I decline as there are far too many instances of people guiding people to their deaths (read ‘Up the Creek – True Stories of Canoeists in Trouble’.

Hi Rich, sorry to hijack your thread. Welcome to the forum. I am new here as well.  If I made a bad first impression- sorry, I understand….I didnt mean to come into your intro and raise hell….

i fully believe what you wrote, “Even experienced Hikers get lost, experienced clinbers die, and those who consider themselves to know everything there is to know about white water will eventually discover they really don’t.”….I by no means what to come off that I know “everything there is to know about whitewater”…..I just don’t like it when people post their opinions as “fact”…..facts have to be supported, and i can get a little confrontational when I see people dispensing what I feel as bad advice as fact.

I was recently re-certified for CPR from the American Red Cross, and the trainer said the idea behind this “new method” is that in urban environments trained help is usually only a few minutes from arriving.  The longer you apply compressions with no breaths, the less oxygen will be circulating.  This is not a method that should be used for Wilderness rescue, or any other place where help is not going to be there anytime real soon.  Compressions alone are better than nothing at all, but ultimately the longer this carries on the less effective it becomes.

I am thinking about getting an AED and put it in a padded Otter box for multi-day trips.  Last year I lead a group of 12 senior citizens on a 5 day trip (youngest was 63- oldest was 75).  An AED greatly improves the odds of survival.  I know this is an out there idea….but, once upon a time sat phones, and personal locator beacons were to. Opinions requested- even Paddleplacid

Looked into it today…AEDs not any good for a wilderness setting, because after a person receives the shock they need to be on ALS, if you just do it and dont have follow up care, it doesnt really work

Randy – 1 day ago  »  I was recently re-certified for CPR from the American Red Cross, and the trainer said the idea behind this “new method” is that in urban environments trained help is usually only a few minutes from arriving.  The longer you apply compressions with no breaths, the less oxygen will be circulating.  This is not a method that should be used for Wilderness rescue, or any other place where help is not going to be there anytime real soon.  Compressions alone are better than nothing at all, but ultimately the longer this carries on the less effective it becomes.

From the urls copied below.  The internet really does have great information.

“Despite continuous-chest-compression CPR being the method ofchoice for sudden unexpected collapse, conventional CPR withmouth-to-mouth breathing remains the appropriate rescue techniquefor patients who are in respiratory arrest. In respiratory arrest,which in most cases is caused by drug overdose, alcohol intoxication,carbon monoxide poisoning, a severe asthma attack, drowning,or choking, the primary problem is not the heart but a lackof oxygen (suffocation) that eventually leads to cardiac arrest.Note that in all these circumstances the collapse is neithersudden nor unexpected. Only 1 in 20 arrests is due to respiratoryarrest.”  

http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/116/25/e566   this url inlcludes these paragraphs:  “In the past, it was recommended that bystanders perform CPRthat alternates chest compressions with mouth-to-mouth ventilations.Research has shown that traditional CPR is not the best wayto treat cardiac arrest. Unlike respiratory arrest, during whichthe victim does not get enough air and the heart eventuallystops because it no longer receives oxygen, a person who collapsesbecause of sudden cardiac arrest was usually breathing normallyjust seconds before. In this case, there is no point in delayingthe start of chest compression by trying to deliver “rescuebreaths” to a person whose blood and lungs are full of oxygen.Studies found that the blood of a cardiac arrest victim containsenough oxygen to sustain him or her for several minutes.

More important, mouth-to-mouth breathing takes valuable timeaway from urgently needed continuous-chest-compressions. Researchhas shown that lay individuals interrupt each set of chest compressionsfor an average of 16 seconds while they deliver the heretoforerecommended “2 quick breaths.” Even if there are 2 or more bystanders,it is more helpful to trade off chest compressions than to have1 person breathe for the victim because compressing the chesthard and fast without stopping is very exhausting.

http://www.sja.org.uk/sja/first-aid-advice/life-saving-procedures/cpr.aspx