Everybody has cut their finger or burned themselves somehow
have treated their wounds with ointments, Band-Aids,
and other means. First-aid is a very broad term, but in the professional world
it is specific to the assistance that a person receives from a person who is
there on the scene. This assistance comes in the form of preserving life or
reacting to a sudden illness or injury.
The proper first aid course will prevent a condition from
worsening, stabilize a patient or promote recovery. The very word first-aid
incurs the picture of the first responder. We see these community servants in
ambulances, on fire trucks and in police cars. They are responders who arrive
early to a scene when an individual is in need of this kind of care. The first
aid
which can
be administered includes a variety of serious intervention
techniques and others
which are
relatively minor. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation or CPR is one of those first
aid skills.
This can keep a person alive
while they await an ambulance and
the more
thorough treatment
which can be
accomplished while writing to the ambulance and arriving at the hospital. Automated
external defibrillators or an AED are tools
which
can read cardiac arrhythmias of a patient in cardiac distress and administer an
electric pulse
which can rectify that
arrhythmia until further treatment can be made possible. These important tools
can save
lives, and he will see them in
many situations and public buildings. Being certified on one of these tools is
a valuable skill for police officers and other emergency response personnel.
Captain Steven Sabo is a retired police captain that took advantage of this
opportunity to
be certified in CPR, on
AED devices and in first-aid. He encourages current police officers to take on
this training even if their departments don’t require it.
