Sometimes it takes a knock on the head to realize you need some thorough first aid and medic training - for me, it wasn't my head, but the head of the old dude I help write memoirs. If we weren't 30 yards from the E.R. we would truly have needed some training to rely on. Thank you, paramedics!
Thank them for what, exactly? I ask in the interest of precision, not skepticism: what did they do that was so commendable? For one, they offered willingness to help my friend and client. Well, everyone on the street wanted to help. I appreciate that, but I don’t think it quite chalks up to whatever I’m thanking. More importantly, they did help my friend and client. I think we’re getting warmer. Everyone on the street wanted to help, but the paramedics did help. What enabled the paramedics to help when Joe Onlooker could not act on his wishes to do so? This brings us to what I’m truly thanking; thank you, paramedics, for undergoing training to prepare yourself for future medical emergencies. I was not prepared. Joe Onlooker on the street was not prepared. My friend and client, himself - old dude - may have been prepared but was also impaired. The paramedics’ training proved to be awesome and necessary foresight, for which I am grateful.
In the moment of medical emergency, there is available neither time nor resource to study proper first aid on the spot. That moment requires confidence, level-headedness, knowledge, accurate assessment, identification of resources, swift decision-making and proper implementation of care. All of these things need to be prepared for before the critical moment. To be a Johnny-on-the-spot, one must be a Johnny-ahead-of-the-game.
You don’t have to be a boy scout to know preparedness changes everything. Men and women alike know that if you don’t have the right tool for the job, you have to acquire the tool, make the tool or fail. I doubt the years I spent hanging out with my brother’s boy scout troop are solely creditable for that understanding I have - more likely it’s the process of trial and error, opportunities missed, public school procrastination and the human tendency to identify patterns.
And you don’t need to be a woman to understand the value of caring for others in need. In fact, all three paramedics who helped my client today were men (or at least presented male), and they were very kind and gentle in their care.
You do need to be respectful of others’ bodies (you’re grabbing their belt to lift them, not to get fresh), to place value on their need for help (by using time now to meet a need which hasn’t happened yet) and to take your commitment to help others seriously (by applying your brain to truly learning and retaining the information). And initiative.
This summer, I took The Serpentine Project’s sliding-scale donation “Community and Herbal Medicine in Disaster Situations” two day training, to get a fresh perspective on thinking ahead to disaster response, to applying the community experience I have and to identifying the usefulness of some of the medicinal resources growing in the ground around me when sterile hospital supplies may not be available.
This fall, I will be participating in a local street medic training to prepare myself to tend to injury and trauma on streets in turmoil. The first training I have scheduled is with the American Red Cross - I found the class I want and enrolled in one process in their student catalog. “Standard First Aid with CPR/AED--Adult and Child plus CPR--Infant” has a fee of $70. Once I’ve taken these two basic first aid and street medic training, I’ll let them sink in as I augment my own standard first aid kit to be able to treat anyone who needs treatment - not just myself and my friends, a circle in which we all trust we know each others’ communicable diseases.
Then, I can go to the next level. Urban-friendly first aid is invaluable, but first aid in remote circumstances can be absolutely critical when there may be no one else’s skills to fall back on, in a 100-mile radius. That’s when I’ll decide to take the American Red Cross “Wilderness and Remote First Aid” one-day class, for a $185 fee, or the National Outdoor Leadership School’s “Wilderness First Responder” course, an 80-hour comprehensive program generally costing $500-600.
The close call my client and I experienced today has strengthened my resolve to make myself helpful in emergency situations - to be prepared to perform first aid for medical problems in emergencies, so that when they happen, we can all focus on healing - rather than guilt, confusion or prolonged injury.
Love and healing intentions,
Alicia Bryan Comma Duggleby
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