What is First Aid?

First aid is emergency treatment given to an injured person. First aid is not only given in serious cases such as car accidents to keep injured people alive but also minor accidents around the home. Simply taking care of your child’s grazed knee is administering first aid.

There are three main aims of first aid, preserve life, prevent further injury and to promote recovery.

Preserve life

First aid treatment is designed to help people who have been injured. First aid skills that you learn through formal training or other means can be life saving skills to an inured person. Preserving the life of an injured person is one of the things that you learn in your first aid course. You will learn the ABC (Airway, Breathing and Circulation) of first aid where you will check to make sure that the injured party has no obstruction of her or her air passage.

This is very important for injured people who are unconscious. It’s very easy for the tongue to fall back (swallowing the tongue) and block the air passage. Another risk for the unconscious person is drowning in their own vomit or other bodily fluids. To avoid this you can place the injured person in what is called the recovery position.

Prevent further injury

The recovery position involves turning the injured person on their side as shown in the picture below. The recovery position is taught as part of any first aid class.

If you think that the injured person has suffered neck or spinal injury and you fear for their safety, you can use the Haines recovery position rather than the normal recovery position.

Using the Haines (High Arm In Endangered Spine) position results in you raising the arm of the injured person above their head to support both the neck and head.

If you are attending to someone who has fallen or has been involved in a car accident and they aren’t breathing, then you need to perform first aid including Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to get them breathing if they aren’t.

The most important thing to do is keep them alive. Any spinal or neck injuries a person may or may not suffer by you moving them are irrelevant if they are dead.

Once you have quickly checked to make sure that they can breathe, you can now check that they are breathing.

Promote recovery

If you have done a first aid course then your training will enable you to not only attend to someone who has suffered injury but your training will also help them make a quicker recovery. Immediately attending to cuts and grazes will help the body heal quicker while you can also help stabilize any broken bones ensuring no further damage is done by the injured party until they receive professional help.

First Aid Training Australia

There are three first aid training certificates available in Australia. The Level 1 Basic First Aid certificate is a one day course that covers life threatening emergencies: bleeding, choking, CPR, and other medical emergencies.

The Level 2 Senior First Aid certificate is a two day course that covers the Level 1 certificate and training for treatment of bites, burns, electric shock, poisons and stings.

The Level 3 Occupational First Aid certificate is a four-day course. This is an advanced course that is most suitable for workplace first aid officers.