Save Lives With First Aid And CPR Training St Louis

By Kelly Wood


Seeing a victim of an accident with serious traumatic wounds is naturally revolting to almost everyone who is not a medical professional. Nonetheless people gravitate to accident scenes, some just to see what happened, others to see if they can help. Gaining the skill set to be helpful in such situations is as easy as taking first aid and CPR training St Louis.

With few exceptions, people do not prepare themselves to be heroes. Whenever calamity strikes, however, there are those who step up to the challenge and work to do whatever they can to save lives and prevent further injury. While there is a measure of courage to the acts, there is also a knowledge base that helps the individuals do what is needed.

The notion of being able to help in an emergency is much like the issue of learning to swim. Whether one thinks they will ever be in a situation where swimming is critical or not, attaining survival level water skills is prudent for everyone. The same is true for understanding the basics of care for people who have fallen victim to trauma or disease.

Those who do not make the effort to be prepared t help in an emergency are the majority, and make up the usual crowd around an accident scene. It is not that these people do not have empathy for the injured, they just do not know what to do. Even individuals who want to help are reluctant to step in and risk hurting someone.

Such caution is understandable, because in some cases doing the wrong thing can in fact make a survivable injury worse than it is. Any injury that risks nerve damage is a good example of how doing the wrong thing can take a person from injured to paralyzed instantly. The repercussions of erroneous actions at the accident scene in a litigious society are real, even for the well intentioned.

There is some legislation designed to try and mitigate this inadvertent injury liability, they are called good Samaritan laws. They are specifically written to try to keep otherwise helpful persons from hesitating to act in an emergency. Unfortunately, writing these kinds of protective laws is not easy, and many only apply to people who have had instruction.

Fully aware of the understandable reluctance to try and save a life for fear of being held liable should the act taken later prove to have hurt the victim, laws have been designed to help. The goal is to protect individuals who, out of the best of intentions, take actions to help a victim and end up hurting them. Often however, these laws only apply to people who have proper instruction.

Learning the basics of emergency care from trained professionals can prepare anyone to act when lives are on the line. Understanding how to check for and ensure blood circulation, breathing and how to stop bleeding can be learned by anyone. The difference between an inactive bystander and a acting to save lives can be first aid and CPR training St Louis




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