A serious fall when you're miles from a medical facility is one of the biggest dangers of back country sports. The worst injury, the one that's impossible to treat where the fall occurs, is a spinal cord injury. As recently as 50 years ago, spinal injuries were almost always fatal, and in the back country they still can be.

Symptoms of spinal cord injuries include pain or a stinging feeling somewhere along the spine; loss of movement of extremities; numbness and/or loss of the ability to feel heat, cold, or touch on a body part; muscle or limb spasms; and difficulty in breathing or coughing. The uninjured individuals may see that the head or another part of the spine is at an unnatural angle.

The first thing you can do is the "ABCD" of emergency medicine: check that the airway is open and the injured person is breathing; check the pulse (circulation), and check for disability (ask if the injured person can move, if he can feel his legs, what hurts, if he knows where he is and who you are, etc.).

If you suspect an injury to any part of the spinal cord, it's absolutely critical that you do not move the injured person at all. Keep his head and spine where they are, and use T-shirts or towels or whatever you have in your packs, or even rocks, to ensure his head and spine can't and don't move. If the individual is conscious, keep talking to him and keep him talking. Put a sleeping bag over him to keep him warm and prevent shock.

If you're able to call out on a cell phone or satellite phone, call for an emergency medical helicopter to fly in for the injured person. If not, then send someone in your group to where the cell phone works, or the nearest medical facility, as quickly as possible, and have them send the chopper. Someone else should stay with him. Don't try to move him; at best, he could be paralyzed for life; at worst, you'll kill him. Stay safe out there.

Between the times that "Marcus Welby, M.D." first put up his shingle and the doctors over at County General Hospital started working in the "ER," the brave paramedics of "Emergency!" helped save lives on television each week. Although these professionals have become an established and necessary part of the medical community, when this show debuted in 1972, the use of paramedics was still in the experimental stage in most parts of the country. Thanks to a bit of legislation called "The Wedsworth-Townsend Act," however, Los Angeles made the paramedic program permanent; other states and counties soon followed suit.

"Emergency!" focused on Johnny Gage (*Randolph Mantooth*) and Roy DeSoto (*Kevin Tighe*), two paramedics who worked for the Los Angeles County Fire Department as part of Squad 51. Just like medical corpsmen on the battlefield, Gage and DeSoto went to accident sites, helping keep victims alive until they could be brought to Rampart Hospital. In some cases, Gage and DeSoto found themselves in awkward situations, such as helping a girl who got her toe stuck in a bathtub faucet. Other episodes covered some pretty grim emergencies, including a light airplane crash and a young boy overdosing on pills. At one point, Gage and DeSoto even made an appearance in an episode of the police drama "Adam-12," which was produced by the same company as their show.

"Emergency!" also made the crucial distinction between doctors and paramedics. At each accident site, Gage and DeSoto made sure to call Rampart Hospital for medical guidance from the doctor on duty. In one episode, an overeager, rookie paramedic gets the team in trouble because he started treating an injury victim without speaking to a doctor first.

This show, which lasted about seven seasons on NBC, took the paramedics all over Los Angeles County. At times, Gage and DeSoto were treating victims in the middle of a forest or near the top of a skyscraper. "Emergency!" is classic medical television and, if you are injured in the outdoors without a medical kit, hope that Johnny Gage and Roy DeSoto are the first ones on the scene.

Resources:
http://www.emergencyfans.com/episodes/insanity_epidemic.htm

The most dangerous situation you're ever likely to encounter in the outdoors is a wildfire. If you're hiking or camping outdoors and a fire starts, you have four basic options to survive.

The first option is to run. If you're far from a fire, and near a safe haven, this is possible. A forest fire can move 650 feet a minute, or 7 miles an hour, and a grass fire about twice that. While most hikers can run 7 miles an hour, they can't keep it up. Consider how close you are to a haven (a wide road, a rocky area, a marsh, or a large pond), and how far you are from the fire before trying this.

Another option is to make a haven. In a grassy area, if you have wind resistant matches and enough time before the fire reaches you, burn out a clear zone. This won't work in wooded areas. Wood takes longer to ignite, and fire will reach before you're ready. If there's a sudden wind shift, you could find yourself trapped by your own fire.

If you're in the open and a fire is almost on you, you have two options. First, find a large area with little vegetation. Lie face down on the ground. Put on leather gloves and cover your head and neck and ears. Your biggest danger is radiant heat, the heat given off by the fire. Radiant heat can kill before the fire reaches you. As the fire moves over you, even if you feel hot, don't panic. Get up when the fire is past you. Cover your mouth with a bandana to reduce the inhalation of smoke.

The most dangerous option is to run through the fire into an already-burned area. Don't try it if the fire is over 5 feet high or wide. Look for the easiest path. You may be burned, but you'll probably survive.

Which option you choose depends largely on where you are and what kind of fire you're in, but in any case, don't panic, and remember that you can survive.

( Sources: http://www.healthline.com/blogs/outdoor_health/2007/10/surviving-wildfire.html , http://cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/news/466,http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/feature?section=news&id=6199163 )

Planning a long back-packing trip, and intend to supplement the food you carry with food you find? You'd better be certain that you know what you can eat, and what to avoid if you want to make it home.

In the mountains, the desert, or the grasslands, you can find edible plants. Some basic rules are not to choose anything with fungus or mildew, or that looks spoiled. If you've got a sensitive stomach, you may want to avoid wild greens. Know the plants must be cooked before you eat them, like those containing oxalate crystals, which can damage your kidneys. Finally, avoid plants you don't recognize if their sap is milky or off-color; if they have beans, bulbs, or seeds inside pods; a bitter or soapy taste; thorns, hairs, or spikes; plants that look like foliage from dill, carrot, or parsley; if the woody parts and leaves have an almond scent; if they have pink, purple, or black spurs on grass heads; or if they have three-leaf clusters.

Many berries are edible, including blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, gooseberries and huckleberries; others, including daphne berries, jasmine berries, lantana camara berries, yew berries, moonseed berries and mistletoe berries, are fatal. Edible root plants include agave root, cammas bulbs, squaw root, wild carrots, Indian Cucumber root, wild onion, and wild garlic. Don't confuse them with flower bulbs, or candelabra cactus root. Greens are an excellent supplement to your wild diet. Dandelion greens, chickweed, clover, lamb's quarters, milkweed, and mustard greens are all good choices as well. Avoid anything that looks like dill or parsley, because it could be nightshade or hemlock.

Some plants are prepared to improve their taste; bitter greens can be soaked, acorns leached in water, and stems, leaves and buds of other plants boiled until they no longer taste bitter. Tubers, roots, and cattails should be boiled, baked, or roasted. That removes any oxalates some roots may have. Early grains can be eaten raw; once they're hard, you can grind them into flour or boil them for soup. The sap from birches and sycamores provides a sweetener like maple syrup.

Of course to do all this, you need some gear. Start with a multi-purpose tool to cut or dig up plants. You'll need cookware to cook things in, and a stove to cook on. And of course, a big backpack to carry it all.

Be careful, and bon appetit!

(Sources: http://plantanswers.tamu.edu/publications/poison/poison.html , http://www.wilderness-survival.net/plants-1.php, http://www.wildwoodsurvival.com/survival/food/edibleplants/ , http://www.essortment.com/all/ediblewildplan_repo.htm )