Re: And how many people is that going to apply to?
Well, that may be true, but knowing what to do if that's the case can certainly help one's confidence a great deal any time one has to give first aid, whether help is close to hand or not.
Also, I've been in the situation many times, though without incident. That situation is actually a fairly common one where I come from, though with the growing spread of wireless communications, much less so than it used to be. Let's say you're on the TransCanadian between Thunder Bay and Kenora, or going up to Timmins; no cell phone, most people up there don't have sat phones. You just have to know what to do. Canoe trips are but one way one can find oneself out of reach of telecom systems in Canada; the land is vast and very thinly populated.
Another Scott: about the satellite phone: where you going to charge it up? My longest trip was just shy of two weeks. There was certainly no fear about going out on long trips like that without comm tech when I was young, and I can't see why one would necessarily need it now. Far more important is the knowledge of how to deal with the situation; when do we try to move them to help? When do we send out a fast canoe (this refers to the people in it, not the canoe itself) to bring help here? How do we maximise the chances of making the trip with the injured party, or how do we do our utmost to keep them alive while waiting for help to arrive? What does one need to take to maximise speed on the two to three day trek out that's required from the deepest parts of the Algonquin, Killarney, or Temagami regions without unduly risking the people making the race?
It's not the same here as it is there. If you have the knowledge on handling things like burns under these conditions, then scalding yourself with hot spaghetti sauce is going to be easy to handle without panic while minimising harm and danger to oneself.
