Yesterday I took a 4 hour first aid and CPR class at work. I’ve taken the class a few times before but it’s been longer than I’d like to admit since the last time. While it’s important for everyone to know first aid and CPR, it’s even more important for those of that spend time in remote areas.
In medical emergencies, the first few minutes are critical. Our instructor said that for every minute that CPR is delayed, the survival rate drops about 10%.
One recent change to doing CPR is they now teach doing chest compressions first instead of starting with giving breaths. The blood has enough oxygen in it to supply tissue for a few minutes so it’s better to get the blood circulating. The current standard is 30 chest compressions at the rate of 100 per minute followed by 2 breaths for 5 sets and then you can take a 10 second break before starting the next set.
There was some confusion in our class about whether doing the breaths were necessary. Although the standard way still includes doing breaths, they have found that some people haven’t given CPR because they didn’t want to do mouth to mouth on a stranger without some protection. In that case, it’s better to go ahead and do the chest compressions and skip breaths than do nothing at all.
Although it’s good to know more first aid in the backcountry than is taught in the community first aid and CPR classes, those classes are a great start. Both the Red Cross and American Heart Association have classes in many areas that don’t cost too much. Some employers will bring a class to the workplace so there’ll be some first responders on site so you may want to ask your workplace.
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