You Can Save Lives With The Right Training

The heart is indeed an incredible organ. Throughout the course of your life, it is continuously going through a cycle of filtering your blood, pumping it to different organs, bringing the blood back, filtering it and pumping again. What is more, the heart does not get any rest; it cannot stop even for a second! Considering the enormous amount of pressure that is exerted on this organ, it is only natural that it begins to slow down with time. A lot of people tend to have continually weakening hearts as they grow old, and one day the organ suddenly stops.

It is not just old people; the heart can give way at any time for anybody, irrespective of age. And what if you are around to witness something like that happening? Say you are in a mall or a crowded restaurant and you suddenly see somebody having a heart attack. What will you do?

The natural thing to do will be to call for an ambulance, but it is an established fact that over ninety per cent of all patients who have sudden cardiac arrests are dead by the time they reach hospital. This means that the first ten minutes after the attack are crucial, and you can actually do something to help.

These days there are associations that will train you in the process of administering emergency aid to patients who are having a cardiac arrest. They are certified by the American Heart Association and they will train you in the process of CPR.

CPR is an acronym for Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation, and it involves pressing the victim's chest hard in order to manually pump the blood to the brain, to keep the victim alive until the ambulance arrives. Apart from this there is oral resuscitation, which means that carbon dioxide is breathed through the victim's nose or mouth.

Even apart from heart patients, you can train yourself to administer basic first aid for your home or office. All the courses use curriculum and stringently follow the most recent guidelines set by the American Heart Association (AHA). When you train as a group, you can train at times that suit your requirements, get a two-year AHA certificate and get special group rates.

Some companies also provide onsite training, helping you in keeping your friends and family potentially safe by teaching you how to deal with choking, burns, bites, stings, wounds, hypothermia, fever, broken bones and the like.

There are different courses offered, based on your needs. There is one course which will educate you about the basic techniques used for adult CPR, and also how to use an Automated External Defibrillator (AED) and give first aid for choking. It will teach you how to recognize four major emergencies namely cardiac arrest, stroke, heart attack and foreign body airway obstruction.

There is another course which is based on AHA guidelines which will train you in CPR skills that you can administer to patients of all ages. And then, there is a course to treat adult or pediatric emergencies for those professionals who are in the health care field.