Emergency First Aid

Emergency/Basic First Aid, CPR and AED courses covers essential First Aid, CPR and AED skills. Blended emergency training consists of a 16 section on-line self study portion and a four hour in-person skills session. Listed below are the topics covered in Emergency First Aid. 

Understanding the Emergency Medical System and the role of a First Aider. First Aid definition and goals. Legal issues in rendering emergency care including the Good Samaritan Act.

Surveying the incident scene for hazards to protect the rescuer and others. Identifying life-threatening situations and providing urgent care. Looking for other injuries or problems while providing on-going care. Transferring the victim to more appropriate care and after incident procedures such as writing notes and making reports.

Identify and treat life threatening conditions including breathing, bleeding, chest, pelvic and thighbone injuries. Use spinal precautions, recovery position and awareness of shock.

Monitoring, comforting and reassuring the victim. Transferring care to professional responders or a health care facility. 

Basic understanding of the circulatory system, narrowing arteries and high blood pressure. Angina and heart attack signs and symptoms. Recognizing possible stroke. Actions needed in a heart or stroke situation including assisting the victim with their own medications.

Sudden Cardiac Arrest results from a disruption to the heart’s electrical system. Understanding that this can happen to anyone, at any age even with no previous heart conditions. Recognize the signs of cardiac arrest and understand that every second counts in providing rapid care.

Only rapid action might save the life of a sudden cardiac arrest victim. These actions include: Early recognition and activating 9-1-1. Early CPR to buy some time. Rapid defibrillation to treat the underlying heart electrical malfunction. Rapid advanced cardiac life support and advanced care in  a post cardiac arrest treatment facility.

Checking responsiveness, providing chest compressions and opening the airway are all important first steps. Discussing whether a rescuer should breathe for the patient. Mechanics of CPR positions for adult, child and infant and delivering high quality chest compressions. Individual and Team CPR. 

Defibrillators are small, lightweight, portable and battery operated devices that provides and electric shock to a fibrillating (quivering) heart. Using the AED is simple and straightforward. Prepare the chest, attach the electrodes and follow instructions. 

Recognize the difference between mild and severe choking.  Understand the treatment options for conscious, unconscious and pregnant choking victims.

Recognize and treat severe life-threatening bleeding situations with direct pressure or military style tourniquets and wound packing techniques. 

Recognize internal bleeding. Treat amputations, abdominal injury, minor head and facial wounds, nose bleeds and other common bleeding conditions. 

Understand different types of wounds and learn to clean and disinfect a wound with BZK Towelettes. Using adhesive bandages, dressings and bandaging materials.

All bites are potentially dangerous. Snake and insect bites may involve dangerous venoms which can cause major bleeding, breathing distress and allergic reactions. Ticks and leech bites may cause infections and lyme disease.

Burn scene safety and prevention measures. Burn classification by mechanism, depth of injury and severity. Treating thermal, chemical, electrical and radiation burns.

Recognizing and treating diabetic, epileptic, asthmatic and allergic reaction emergencies.