Hazards (1a)
OUCH! These can form on a hike—especially if you wear new boots or cotton socks!
What are Blisters?
You can avoid it by wearing long sleeves, a wide brimmed hat, and goopy stuff that comes in a tube or bottle.
What is sunburn?
Doing this all day long is the way to prevent and treat dehydration.
What is drinking water?
If you don’t wear boots with good ankle support, you might get one of these.
What is a sprained/twisted ankle?
If you have a headache and your urine is dark in color, you probably have this condition.
What is dehydration?
They are the ways to treat hypothermia.
Move the person into a shelter.
Get them into dry, warm clothes.
Give them a warm drink (with sugar) like cocoa.
If they can eat, give them foods with carbohydrates.
Put the person in a sleeping bag with water bottles filled with warm water.
Symptoms of this condition include shivering and “the umbles”—fumbles (inability to perform complex tasks), mumble (slurred speech), grumbles (confusion and sluggish thinking), and stumbles (inability to walk normally). It can happen in a mountain blizzard or on a summer day at a lake.
What is hypothermia?
These are usually harmless, but can carry some nasty diseases like Lyme Disease and Rocky Mountain Spoted Fever.
What are tick bites?
The best ways to prevent blisters.
What are wearing synthetic or wool socks and well-broken-in boots.
This hazard causes minor discomfort in most people but can kill someone who is allergic to them.
What are bee/insect stings?
Contact with these can leave itchy, painful rashes on your skin.
What are poisonous plants?
The best ways to treat symptoms of altitude sickness.
Rest for a day or more to acclimate to the elevation.
Descend to a lower elevation if necessary.
You might encounter this on a backpacking trip in the High Sierra. It’s symptoms include fatigue, nausea, headache, insomnia, and loss of appetite.
What is altitude sickness?
If extremities—like your fingers, toes, nose, and ears—get too cold, they can suffer from this condition, which can destroy healthy tissue and could result in amputations in the worst cases.
What is frostbite?
The things you need to do if altitude sickness turns in into HACE (High Altitude Cerebral Edema) in which fluid build up in the brain causes brain malfunctions like loss of coordination, personality change, or seizures; or HAPE (High Altitude Pulmonary Edema) in which fluid build up in the lungs causes shortness of breath, a rattling sound in the chest, or the coughing up of reddish foamy sputum, and loss of consciousness.
Get the person to lower elevation immediately and treat with supplemental oxygen, if available. Seek medical care and get him them to a doctor as soon as possible.