First Aid Training

Cardiac arrest is not the only emergency you will meet. Bleeding, burns, breaks, allergic reactions and heat illness are far more common, and the first few minutes still decide how they end.

Most emergencies are not dramatic. Someone slips on a wet floor. A knife goes through a glove. A child reacts to something they ate. A coworker starts slurring words. These things rarely announce themselves, and they almost never happen where a nurse is near.

The gap between the injury and professional care is where the outcome is decided. Severe bleeding can become life-threatening in minutes. A burn cooled properly in the first ten minutes scars less. Recognizing a stroke early changes which treatments are still possible. None of that requires equipment. It requires somebody who knows what to do and does it now.

OSHA arrives at the same conclusion common sense does: unless a clinic or hospital is close by, someone on site has to be trained to give first aid. For higher-hazard work, OSHA expects help to reach the injured person within three to four minutes. Very few workplaces can count on an ambulance to do that.

• Sizing up a scene safely and knowing exactly when to call 911
• Controlling severe bleeding, including wound packing and tourniquet use
• Burns, fractures, sprains, splinting, and immobilizing an injury
• Recognizing heart attack, stroke, and severe allergic reaction early
• Using an epinephrine auto-injector and assisting with prescribed medication
• Seizures, diabetic emergencies, fainting, and shock
• Heat and cold emergencies, poisoning, and head and spine injuries

We work through realistic scenarios rather than slides, because deciding what to do is harder than knowing what to do.

First aid is the broadest of the three skills and the one most people actually use. Parents, teachers, coaches, camp staff, trades and construction crews, warehouse and manufacturing teams, salon and restaurant staff, office safety wardens, and anyone who spends time far from immediate help.

Employers often need a documented, trained responder on site to satisfy OSHA's first-aid requirement. Families usually just need one person who does not freeze.

Certification lasts two years. First Aid is taught together with CPR and AED in one class, because real emergencies do not arrive sorted by subject.

Classes are taught in person and hands-on. CPR, AED, and First Aid work together in a real emergency, so we teach them the same way, as one response rather than three separate subjects.