Outdoor safety in Australia has to account for country where the nearest sealed road is a full day away. National parks, station tracks, desert crossings, and long stretches of coastline are all well beyond the range of a quick ambulance response. A rolled ankle on a ridge eight hours from a road becomes a rescue operation. It’s up to the people already there to provide every bit of care until that rescue arrives. The great outdoors here rewards preparation and punishes improvisation. Many outdoor safety tips end at the packing list, which leaves out when and how to use these skills.
How Outdoor Safety Changes When Help Is Hours Away
Outdoor safety changes the moment an ambulance stops being ten minutes away. Emergency services describe a remote or isolated site as anywhere medical assistance is likely to be delayed. That description fits most of Australia.
Three things change once help is delayed. Your care continues for hours instead of minutes, so you need to keep watching the person rather than treating them then stopping. Your supplies are finite, so you may need to improvise with what you packed and what’s around you. Your location has to be communicated precisely, because rescuers cannot treat someone they cannot find.
The environment becomes part of the problem in a way it never is at home. A person lying on cold ground loses heat into it. Someone with a broken leg in open sun in January is dealing with sunburn and fluid loss on top of the fracture. Shade, insulation, and shelter become treatments in their own right once the wait extends past an hour.
Bushfires, Floods, and Other Common Risks and Hazards in Australia
Australian outdoor conditions change quickly, and the risks and hazards that shape outdoor safety are seasonal, regional, and can be invisible until they are close. Fire and floodwater remove your options within minutes, while sun, heat, venomous animals, and stinging plants act over a longer span of time.
Bushfires move fast and can change direction just as quick. Fire agencies in every state and territory use the same three warning levels:
- Advice: an incident has started and there is no immediate danger
- Watch and Act: conditions are changing and you need to act now
- Emergency Warning: you may be in danger and any delay puts your life at risk
Warnings can be issued in any order. Some fires start so quickly that nobody gets a warning at all. Always leave as early as you possibly can.
Floodwater is another fast moving hazard. Driving into them is the main cause of death during floods. Both till water and moving water can hurt people, even those who know how to swim. Floods, along with rivers, ponds, dams, and coastal rock shelves also hide hazards beneath the surface. Drowning rates nearly tripled in regional and remote areas compared with major cities.
Australia has some of the highest levels of UV radiation in the world, and sun exposure causes more than 95 percent of skin cancers in Australia. An average adult needs about a teaspoon of sunscreen for their head and neck, a teaspoon for each limb, and one each for the front and back of the body. Apply it to clean dry skin at least 20 minutes before you go out.
Planning Your Trip
Planning is where outdoor safety is cheapest. Every decision you make at the kitchen table costs nothing and removes a hazard that could hurt you later. Your plan needs to cover where you are going, when you will be back, what you are taking, and who knows about it. Check the weather for the area you are travelling to, including the fire danger rating, flood warnings, river heights, and tide times.
Give a copy of your trip plan to someone who is staying home. Include your route, your vehicle make and registration, the size of your group, and the time you will call on your return. Agree on what they should do if that call never comes, and give them the number for the police in the nearest town.
Pack a GPS or a phone with maps downloaded for offline use for navigation, as well as a paper map and compass in case the battery dies. If you get lost, stop walking. Movement expands the search area every hour, so staying put with shelter, water, and something to make yourself visible from the air. Take more drinking water than you expect to use, and treat any water you collect from a creek, tank, or dam before you drink it.
Collect the party’s medical details before you leave, including any medication they take and where they keep it. Anyone prescribed an adrenaline device should carry it on their body rather than in a pack back at camp, along with their action plan.
Packing an Outdoor First Aid Kit
A kit for outdoor safety has to sustain treatment for hours. That means packing for quantity as much as variety. Every kit should contain the same supplies:
- Disposable gloves
- Sterile dressings and bandages in various shapes and sizes
- Elastic bandages
- Haemostatic dressings
- Gauze swabs
- Non-adherent pads
- Adhesive dressings
- Tape
- Splints
- Saline
- Scissors
- Tweezers
- A thermometer
- A thermal blanket
- A Torniquet
- Drinking water and water purification tablets
- Sunscreen
- Insect repellent
- A torch
- Spare batteries or chargers for each device
- Ice packs
Check the expiry dates on any perishables and replace anything used as soon as you get home. Store the kit somewhere dry.
Snake Bite Injury First Aid
Venomous snakes live in every Australian state and territory. Outdoor safety means wearing long pants and closed boots on a track, a head torch for any movement around camp after dark, and gloves remove most of the risk of being bitten.
Assume any bite is serious, even if it is painless. Treat a suspected snake bite by on a limb by:
- Keep the person still.
- Call Triple Zero on 000 if possible.
- Do not wash the bite as this is used to determine the antivenom needed.
- Wrap a broad pressure bandage over the bite site as soon as possible. Bandage over clothing if needed.
- Wrap a second pressure bandage starting at the fingers or toes and working upward, covering as much of the limb as the bandage allows.
- Place a splint on the bitten limb
- Lay a splint alongside the limb so it extends past the joint above the bite and the joint below it, then bind it on with a triangular bandage or tape, tying above and below the bite.
- Note the time you applied the bandage.
- Do not cut the wound, attempt to suck out the venom, apply a tourniquet, or attempt to kill the snake.
If the bite is on the person’s torso, apply firm direct pressure over the site. If you are alone and no help can get to you, apply pressure over the bite and move toward help. If the person becomes unresponsive and is not breathing normally, start CPR immediately, and be aware there is no risk of venom passing to a rescuer during resuscitation.
Heat Illness and Dehydration
Heat and dehydration are outdoor safety problems that develop across hours. Sweating is how your body sheds heat, and excessive sweating without replacement drains fluid and salt. Once a person becomes too dehydrated to sweat, body temperature can rise rapidly and dramatically. The early signs of dehydration are thirst, dark urine, a headache, low energy, and muscle cramps. Heat exhaustion is the next stage, and it presents as fatigue with headache, nausea, vomiting, and dizziness, sometimes ending in collapse.
Treat heat exhaustion by moving the person into shade or a cool space and laying them down. Loosen and remove any excess clothing. Give them cool water to drink if they are fully conscious and able to swallow. Send for an ambulance if they do not improve quickly.
Prevention is a matter of pacing. Drink before you feel thirsty and drink small amounts regularly. Wear light-coloured, loose-fitting clothing and a hat during activity in the heat. Move the hardest walking or riding into the early morning, and use the middle of the day for a long lunch in the shade. Your wellbeing over a multi-day trip depends far more on this rhythm than on how fit you are.
Heat stroke is the severe end of hyperthermia. Body temperature climbs above 40°C and the person stops behaving like themselves. They may slur their words, stagger, argue, or fail to answer a simple question about where they are, or collapse or have a seizure. Their skin may be hot and dry.
Send for an ambulance early, and start cooling straight away without letting the cooling delay the call. For anyone over five years of age, whole-body immersion from the neck down in cold water for 15 minutes is the most effective cooling method, and a creek, a stock trough, or an inflatable tub all serve the purpose. Where immersion is impossible, cool the person by whatever means you have. Wet cloths, fanning, shade, and ice packs against their neck, armpits, and groin all help.
Sprains, Fractures, and Splinting
A sprain or a fracture from an outdoor recreation accident can stop someone walking, and in remote country that could mean hours on the ground before help can get to them. Pain and cold both set in across that wait, so outdoor safety here comes down to how well you treat the injury and look after the person while it passes.
Protect a sprain or strain rather than resting it completely. Stop the activity, wrap the joint in a firm elastic bandage to limit swelling, and raise the limb above heart level where the position allows. Restrict movements that hurt for the first few days while continuing with gentle pain-free movement.
You should suspect a fracture when there is deformity, bone-on-bone grating, immediate swelling, or the inability to use the limb. Never attempt to straighten an angled limb or push a protruding bone back under the skin. Control any bleeding with direct pressure around the wound rather than on the bone ends, and cover an open fracture with a sterile dressing before you splint anything.
Splinting converts an unstable injury into something you can move. Generously pad the splint with gauze, then secure with a bandage above and the joint below the fracture. Check circulation, feeling, and movement by checking their fingers or toes on both sides for colour, warmth, and feeling. Loosen the splint if the limb beyond it becomes pale, cold, blue, or numb.
Allergies and Anaphylaxis
Allergic reactions are an outdoor safety concern at every level of severity. Bees, wasps, ants, ticks, and food all trigger allergic reactions, and the bush offers plenty of each. Mild to moderate reactions appear as swelling of the lips, face, or eyes, hives or welts, and a tingling mouth. Anaphylaxis can be deadly, and can appear as:
- Difficult or noisy breathing
- Swelling of the tongue, or swelling and tightness in the throat
- Wheezing or a persistent cough
- Difficulty talking, or a hoarse voice
- Persistent dizziness or collapsing
- Pale skin
- Limp body
- Abdominal pain and vomiting
Get the person off their feet before anything else. If they are unconscious or pregnant, put them in the recovery position by rolling them onto their side, bending the upper leg forward so they cannot roll further, and tilting their head back a little so their airway stays open and any vomit drains out. If they are conscious and their breathing is laboured, let them sit with their legs stretched out in front of them.
Next, inject them with adrenaline if they carry an Epi-pen, then call Triple Zero on 000. If there is no response after five minutes and a second device is available, give them another dose. Give them adrenaline even if you are in doubt that it’s anaphylaxis as the consequences of a delayed dose are far worse than an unnecessary one. Start CPR at any point if the person becomes unresponsive and is not breathing normally.
Beyond Outdoor Safety Tips: Enrol in Remote Environment First Aid Training
Distance rewrites first aid. Our HLTAID013 Remote First Aid course covers that work, and gives you the time you need to stabilise someone. Enrol in our HLTAID013 Remote First Aid course before your next trip. The next time something goes wrong a long way from a hospital, you will know exactly what to do with the hours in front of you.
FAQs
Can You Call Triple Zero Without a Signal?
Only sometimes. A 000 call from a mobile will be carried on another carrier’s network when you are outside your own provider’s coverage. Where no Australian network covers the spot you are standing in, no call can go through.
Does the Pressure Immobilisation Technique Also Work for Spider Bites?
Only to funnel-web spider bites. Send for an ambulance for a suspected redback bite.
How Old Do You Need to Be to Enrol in Remote First Aid Training?
At least 14 years old, and anyone under 18 needs signed parental consent. Every student also needs a valid Unique Student Identifier before we can issue certification.
