Remote First Aid Course Review and Development - Your Views needed..

Shane,

Neither Wife nor I have done the "remote" course, but have done senior first aid.

Our thoughts are the following:

Burns; Fractures/breaks/sprains; head injuries; bleeding; snake bite; seizures; heart attack/strokes; asthma attacks and most importantly, some" DON'T PANIC" advice for novices & others.

Maybe some use of communication equipment too, but one would think they have this already? Vehicle rollovers need to be covered as well, including removal of patients from vehicle.

Also, some substitution suggestions, such as strips of shirts, instead of bandages, or towels as neck brace etc.
Advice on minimum first aid kit requirements for travellers.

Sounds like a solid thursday coming up, with lots of butchers paper & white boards??

Cheerio,
Bob.

Shane, we are much like Bob.
Add some advertising to your list. We are aware of the course, but haven't done one and that is a mistake.
Also when to wait for help and when to go to it (if you can).
How to stay alive in the mean time.

OOO. I spent 15 minutes talking to someone on 000 once on a sat 'phone without getting to first base. I reccon he was in a different country. There must be some tricks to make this system work better?

Thanks for your efforts.
Cheers,
Peter
OKA196 Motorhome

Hi Shane,
With regard to your - 'What useful tips of the trade would benefit a course like this? '

I have found that people often get to carried away at the scene of an medical emergency and try and do to much. I try and remind people that there is a big difference between emergency first aid and medical aid. As far as possible I push the "Stabilise them & ship em out" and 'keep an eye them' approach. By all means learn a lot but don't get blinded by an overload of information.

.

Any course or training that will better equip you and provide you with skills that could save a life or at least prevent additional medical complications are worth undertaking. e.g. First Aid, Life Saving, Driver Training, etc. So instead of you asking silly questions regarding what to expect etc, how about you provide us with a synopsis after you have completed the course. Tell us why we should do it, who can benefit from it and was it of any value.

Have done the senior first aid course but not the remote course. I suspect the difference is that a plain first aid course is about stabalising the patient until qualified aid arrives. If this is going to be days a bit more may be required. Much of what needs to be done is likely to be at the direction of RFDS. So if they say do x you know what they mean. I also suspect that a lot of the things that are no longer in the first aid courses will be included. The thing is to be able to use the kit you have to keep your patient alive until help can be reached or arrive. I suspect the issue will be differencating when to go the extra step. Some harder things will be when to not do something.

Steve

A welcome question Shane. I have maintained Senior First Aid Certificate over many years and changes, but have not done remote first aid. Nor have i ever heard of it, apart from time to time on this site, no doubt because I do not live in a remote area.

The main thing is how to cope when you are alone. This must also involve a higher degree of patient care as help may be many hours away. If no-one is within screaming earshot at the time, you are all on your own.

Being in a rural area, every time the instructor says 'don't leave the patient' or 'send someone else to call for an ambulance' the class members always say 'but we are most likely alone with the accident victim in a paddock/beach or wherever'. So strongly is this in rural people's mind, that some years ago when the course included role playing; having one person to play the role of a victim, and a classmate to come in as 'first on the scene' to assess and apply first aid. For the embedded object test, I was to play the victim and chose to have a knife embedded in my thigh whilst fishing on the beach. The lady sent to assess came in with the first questions - how far away is your car? and how are we going to get you off this beach? as this remoteness aspect was foremost in all our minds.

Refresher CPR needs to be an important part of every course.

Motherhen

All 1st aid courses that I've done centre around what action is taken till the ambulance arrives in 30 to 40 minutes. A remote couse I'd see will need to include how to stabilize a patient for up to a day (in each situation) & transport them if neccesary. Some additional back ground info on other medical conditions would be handy also.
Cheers Craig...............

Hi Straps

We completed a similar course 18 months ago, through a federal
government agency, mandatory for their contractors, when it come
to Snake Bites, he insisted that we look into Venom Test Kits,
for when Identification of the Snake is unavailable, that was all well and good if we carried that type of equipment, he stated that in
some cases it is part of the First Aid Kit in Remote Areas now,
I argued that in most cases we are in mobile phone range from any
ambulance centre or 000, as we maintain government buildings ect,
I passed the course, but I think some of the training didn't apply to
contractors like our selves who never go off the beaten track with
our work.

Cheers
Daza

One area that doesn't appearto get a lot of attention (specifically) in remote area first aid, is the treatment of young children. As four-wheel drivers many of us travel in remote areas where medical help may be some time away and the deterioration of acute children illness can occur before adewuate help arrives.

Perhaps this might be an area worth looking more closely at....

Good luck with this.

Shane, another thought. There are some good (and cheap) items available these days that the ordinary person can (and does) use on a daily basis. I have people around me that do their own blood tests several times a day for diabetes and certain renal problems. I carry a blood pressure monitor that gives a digital readout for blood pressure, pulse rate and also indicates if the patient has arythmia (less then $50). The automatic defribulators are becoming smaller and cheaper almost by the day. Some members of this forum carry portable pressure breathing devices (CPAP) with them on the road. As many people now carry satellite phones and / or HF radio a lot of good hard factual information can easily be relayed to RFDS etc. and good advice for patient management can be given in return. Perhaps an introduction or demo of some of this equipment and how it can be used to gain diagnostic information could be beneficial. On my 'away from home' trips I get every one to write down a list of their ailments and medications and place them in a sealed envelope in the glove box of their vehicle. In the event that the information should be needed we can pass on the envelope or information to the appropriate people.

Hi Shane

We used to do the senior first aid courses at work for about 8 people , but chucked it in when the accreditation period was reduced , think its only 2 or 3 years now.
(they already had low credibility - when you were not even supposed to have panadol etc available - if person wanted it)

Most of the first aid courses seem to basically and up to do nothing except don't make the situation worse and seemed of little value above common sense.

Any real remote first aid course would have to have as its basic assumption that help isn't going to come in a hurry and may be up to a week away.

Many thanks to all for the varied feedback, discussion and comments.

I welcome many more in the next day or so, if possible.

Cheers
Shane

Shane,
My wife and I did the 3 day Remote FA course run by the St John's Ambulance. Overall it was quite good. The instructor was ex army and had an interesting approach that kept people involved and awake.

The course was strongly predicated on professional help being available in fairly short time. We felt that more was needed on looking after a patient for a period of days if help could not get in due to location or weather etc.

I recognise that FA is to minimise further harm and stabilise the patient but some simple interventions can be very effective provided they are the right ones at the time.

We also found that the book provided had sections that were quite different to what we were taught. A lot of things are changing and we were told to do updates regularly.

Having a lot of hands on practice in different scenarios was a strength of the course. It was noticeable how timid most people were at the start but grew in confidence as the course progressed and the standard approach became embedded. I think it is essential that any course has a good mix of theory and practice. I was pleased that the course we did put things into practice very early.

Our course had a good balance between illness and injury. It certainly covered what we felt was most likely to present to us during 4wd trips. If a major event occurs then one hopes that the communication devices one should have work correctly.

I think some people expect to be taught more about how to treat people and make them better. Sure this can be done for things like dehydration, heat stroke etc but with injuries a lot of harm can be done if the wrong 'diagnosis' is made. Emphasis must be on harm minimisation and stabilisation.

Good luck with your task.

alastair