reply to post by FredT
The key is with anything you can train to be a paramedic etc but if you do not have the gear you need for the advanced skills you might
actually be better off with Boy Scout first aid as it takes common items and shows you how to use them in medical situations.
That's why I said EMT not Paramedic.
Without any medical training you're out of luck dead, under the thumb of the establishment, or another person.
Boy Scout first aid or even a First Responders Course isn't going to cut it.
One of the most important things EMTers learn is great anatomy & physiology - that goes hand in hand with *patient assessment*.
Simply put - know the body and know how to find out what's wrong with it.
The difference between when to give something as simple as sugar to a diabetic, in diabetic shock - will save their life.
Knowledge you'd maybe not think of - like - if someone has a horrid eye injury bandage BOTH eyes. You want both those eyes staying STILL! The
sympathetic eye movement from the *seeing* eye causes the damaged eye to move also - creating even more damage.
Simple things like the COMA position.
Repositioning a victim so their head is resting to the left lying on one arm, airway open, the other arm in a *hands up* position, their knee bent =
body stable.
This keeps the airway open and lets blood, vomit etc escape the mouth without chocking the victim.
It gives you time to go and look after other casualties, possible saving one life by the simple repositioning of that person.
Example, an explosion.
Bodies everywhere.
As you check each body, quickly position to COMA.
Unconscious = more than likely head injury = possible vomiting.
Vomiting in an unconscious state = aspiration of vomit = death.
COMA position prevents this.
I could go on and on but the point is, EMT training will teach you many things to save life and limb that you don't need a whole lot of equipment
for.
Good Luck All
...taps...