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Dr Cohen / Calm As… To Represent at BWRAG Summit in Austinmer.

Kai Lenny © WSL/Morriss_MM

 

 

Austinmer, New South Wales – Dr Jon Cohen, representing Calm As… and Surfing Doctors has been invited to the Big Wave Risk Assessment Group (BWRAG) for their Level 1 and 2 Summit at Austinmer on 27-28 April 2019. The summit is hosted by Australian surfers Dan Ross and Zeb Walsh,and will be led by BWRAG instructor former Big Wave World Champion Greg Long.

Greg Long, Dungeons © Red Bull.

Dr Cohen is a long-term member of Surfing Doctors and is the founder of Calm As… first aid kits for surfers, which has started rolling out across Australia, and that came to the attention of the people at BWRAG, along with the Surfing Doctors presence.

Dr Cohen’s talk will consist of:

1) Top to toe – the first 5 minutes of any surf emergency (20 mins). Introduction to a trauma survey with introduction to:
– Minor head injury and concussion basics
– Spinal injury basics
– Chest and abdominal injuries
– Pelvic Fractures
– Long bone fractures and sprains – initial management
– Minor cuts to the face and limbs

2) Worst case scenario – how to save a life in a shark attack situation (15 mins)

3) Snake bite – basic principals of first aid (5 mins)

4) Shoulder relocation – how to identify and fix it in the jungle or bush (10 mins)

5) Q & A (10 mins)

Dr Cohen

“The guys from the Big Wave Risk Assessment group are definitely at the forefront of water safety, and it’s really cool that I got invited down to the Austinmer Summit to share some of my experiences in the surf medicine and emergency medicine fields with their participants,” said Dr Cohen. “Apart from being excited with the chance to share some of my experiences, I’m super excited to be able to learn from those guys about what they do in the water rescue, water safety and big wave fields.”

 

BWRAG Summit Location

Austinmer Surf Life Saving Club, Austinmer New South Wales

Curriculum

High Surf Risk Management, CPR/AED and medical intervention, floatation vest tutorials, spot analysis.

Level 2 participants will also undergo breath-hold/apnea training and in-water jetski rescue training.

https://www.bwrag.com/

 

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Calm As…First Aid Kit featured on Swellnet

Swellnet

Having the Calm As First Aid Kit for Surfers reviewed by Swellnet, a major Australian surfing website, was an amazing step for Calm As. It marked the first significant press it’s received. Apart from their kind review, we received some great product feedback from the guys when they ended up putting it to use on an overseas trip.

On the back of the swellnet review, we were approached by the team at BWRAG (Big Wave Risk Assessment Group) about potentially collaborating during their tour down under. We’ll discuss in a separate post just what an amazing experience it was to be invited to teach first aid to a group of legends that included not only the BWRAG faculty (Greg Long, Liam Wilmott, Zeb Walsh) but the other attendees (Tom Carroll, Russell Bierke amongst other local chargers) and fellow guest lecturers (Shannon Worrell and Joe Knight).

The real benefit of the swellnet review was it’s creation of a high visibility forum about Surfer’s First Aid, and the Calm As First Aid Kit for Surfers in particular. We had a lot of opinions from a wide variety of people. Some experienced medics, some hardened Indo travellers. A lot of advice passed on echoed our own thoughts, while other comments and questions allowed us to dig deep and reflect on our own experience, available medical literature, and of course opinions from our network of other Surfing Doctors.

While we continue to grow the stockpile of educational resources we want to release to the surfing public, it’s been amazing to have a growing repository of surf-medic banter being perpetuated on the swellnet chat forum.

Hopefully we’ll have some exciting new product releases for Stu and company to review again in the not too distant future, and the whole review / share / discuss process can get a hard re-boot with an even bigger audience of both viewers and participants.