First Aid Training vs. Online Documents

Medical Preparedness is definitely one of the top things people often think of when it comes to emergency preparedness. In spite of this, the majority of people haven’t spent the necessary amount of time learning and practicing the skills required to adequately respond to a medical emergency. Hands on training and practical experience are ideal and can often be had through your local American Red Cross office. The time commitment to obtain such training and then keep it current can be very difficult for those of us with families, demanding jobs, as well as church and other external obligations. For example when I completed the Red Cross Emergency Medical Response training, I had spent more than 120 hours in the classroom, doing training exercises, practicing water rescues and working at local events to provide real world first aid support. Obviously, this level of training can be difficult to commit to given the obligations we all have but I can personally attest that these skills have been invaluable when medical emergencies have struck our family. If I hadn’t had the training or only had read about how to handle medical emergencies in a book, things may not have turned out well when my children had life threatening medical issues. There are some great resources available online such as the Ship Captain’s Medical Guide but this generally does not allow you to operate effectively since you need to access the information then apply it rather than react from rote memory.