We’re all busy people with much on our minds: jobs, family matters, recreation, and general health occupies most of our daily lives. We can become so distracted by what we need to do right now that we don’t think much about anything beyond those spheres, such as how to deal with an emergency situation. However, it’s important that we take some time each month to plan for the future, and that includes thinking of worst-case scenarios with a calm and rational mind.
Complacency won’t save you or a loved one during a medical emergency
Something many of us don’t think about is the likelihood of medical emergencies happening to ourselves or those we love; we might consider ways to improve our health, but until someone around us becomes very ill, we probably don’t worry much about issues like heart conditions, strokes, and seizures. But even if we’re not thinking about it, medical emergencies will happen regardless – that’s why it’s so important to be prepared.
This is especially pressing if you have children or elderly loved ones, as they are more prone to medical emergencies than young or middle-aged adults – and they are not always able to tell you what’s wrong with them.
A child may be able to tell you that they don’t feel well, but they can’t necessarily explain exactly what sensations they’re having, or they may describe it in a way that doesn’t make sense. Similarly, an elderly person with dementia may no longer be able to speak or arrange their thoughts so that you can understand them.
You’ll need to be able to identify what’s happening with them and jump into life-saving mode based on their brief descriptions or physical symptoms, and this can only happen if you have the knowledge and training to do so.
Prompt treatment is of the essence, and you can’t wait for medical services to arrive
During a medical emergency, every second counts: you need to identify and give life-saving treatment as soon as possible if you want your loved one to survive. Depending on where you live, emergency medical services take ten minutes or more to arrive, by which time the patient may have already suffered irreversible damage or even died.
For example, if someone is choking, you need to clear their airway as soon as possible, as cells begin to die almost immediately when they are starved of oxygen.
Similarly, someone whose heart has stopped needs CPR right away, because continuous blood flow is essential to keeping their brain and heart alive. You don’t have time to wait for someone else to step in and take charge; even the smallest amount of help can make a huge difference in the person’s outcome.
If you don’t know how to help ahead of time, it’s already too late
You simply can’t wait for a medical emergency to happen in order to understand what to do. The time you spend looking up how to help is more time that’s taken away from actually assisting the person: you need to know what to do in this situation so that you can jump in and get to work right away.
Furthermore, the information you find in a panic may not actually be helpful, and it won’t show you how to actually perform the procedure. For example, you might look up how to perform the Heimlich maneuver on a YouTube video, but you might be so focused on keeping your loved one calm that you don’t truly absorb any of the information you’re seeing. That’s why you need to learn about this at a calm time – before any emergency crops up.
Online BLS certification is the best way to take charge of an emergency situation
How can you identify and treat a medical emergency? Basic Life Support, or BLS, encompasses all the life-saving measures you may have to take if someone around you becomes seriously ill.
Courses like those at protrainings.com/courses/bls/ cover the most common medical issues in both children and adults, including poisoning, choking, broken bones, cardiac arrest, strokes, hypoglycemic episodes, seizures, and overdoses. This comprehensive training explains what these are, how to identify them, and how to stabilize a patient until medical services can arrive.
With online BLS certification, you can work at your own pace and on your own time with on-demand videos and a student manual. If you only have a few minutes per day to work, you can break up your training over the course of weeks or months so that you can focus entirely on the material before moving onto the next module.
Better yet, you can access your materials whenever you’d like and revisit any that you don’t fully understand. This is very different from in-person courses, where you need to sit and listen to a lecture at a predetermined time that may not fit your schedule.
In our world, it’s so important that we advocate for ourselves and our loved ones, and that we’re prepared for anything that may happen. Online BLS certification is the best way to take charge of your health and the health of your family, and you can start today. Don’t delay any longer on this essential, life-saving information.
