Rescue skills – Asheville TAASC

TAASC Wilderness First Aid Course

October 14, 2016 By Greg Gillett Leave a Comment

Congratulations to the 16 TAASC students and parents that completed their Wilderness First Aid course!

Everyone did really well and learned valuable new skills they can share and use. I highly recommend these courses to TAASC students and parents that spend time outdoors with their kids (or on their own). They are some of the highest quality programs I’ve ever taken . I know several people who were so inspired from taking courses like these that their life trajectory was influenced and they ended up at medical school!

We do get to learn and practice a lot of these skills in TAASC, but this program will get you a certification and will really improve your skills. First Aid skills are some of the most important skills you can have to help others!

Why Learning Advanced Skills is Important

August 22, 2016 By Greg Gillett Leave a Comment

Our students get to learn advanced skills in all the outdoor activities we do. In rock climbing, TAASC students learn the basic skills like knots, harnesses, belaying and climbing techniques. These are required for a safe day on the rock, but there is so much more to learn about climbing, which we teach.

Our students learn how to build a climbing anchor so that it is both super safe and redundant. Doing this develops judgement and an ability to think things through. These are key skills that can be applied in other areas of life. They help connect detailed focus with overall big picture thinking and even more importantly help foster a real feeling of responsibility.

TAASC is able to do pull this off due the experience of our staff working for programs like Outward Bound, as well as their personal experience with these activities. Learning more advanced things makes it so much more fun and interesting for our students and inspires them to really get into it more. This could even influence a person’s career choice – I know of people who have been so interested in learning wilderness first aid that they eventually went to medical school!

Other examples of advanced skills we teach are: technical rescue skills; advanced wilderness first aid skills; paddling whitewater; navigational skills and many other outdoor tricks of the trade. Overall from a personal development standpoint I believe exposing younger students to these skills helps develop their judgement skills by adding a new layer of responsibility and reliability. All these qualities are going to help make a difference in a students life as they transition into adulthood.

Rescue skills create responsibility

February 5, 2014 By Greg Gillett

In TAASC we focus a lot on teaching students rescue skills. These are all important skills to have in the outdoors and they transfer to increasing student responsibility in general. When you’ve experienced how difficult it can be to perform a vertical rescue, it makes you realize how important it is to learn the necessary skills to stay safe and not get into a situation like that in the first place.

With this rescue workshop, our older group got to perform a vertical rescue and sent one of their own off the upstairs balcony in the TAASC climbing gym. About as technical as it gets! The group was divided into different teams and had specific roles to ensure all was safe and correct! There were a lot of technical skills to learn, which really bumps up students’ general rope management, climbing skills and overall systems thinking. It’s like doing a giant puzzle except it’s real and you’ve got to work in teams, communicate and create a system to safely transport someone.

These folks did an awesome job! Look forward to getting outside and practicing this on a real rock face. Creating a rescue squad for the future!