Do you feel safer now?

One of the nice things about work is that sometimes they offer classes that, while not directly work-related, are generically useful and we actually get to go take them. I spent today in a sort of emergency/trauma first aid class (post-9/11 mentality driving the curriculum, I suppose). We did not cover CPR - that's a separate class, which I have yet to manage to get into. Instead we covered some basics, including definitions of terms like "communicable disease" and what they classed as "directional terms" (anterior/posterior, midclavicular line, proximal/distal, etc.), in case the real medical folks use those terms when they respond to the 911 call. We also learned about the signs of shock and what to do for someone suffering from same, dressing wounds, splinting and otherwise immobilizing broken bones, and how to treat burns.

Then things got interesting when the instructors trotted out some military-issue first aid kits (both are former military who now work for an emergency preparedness training company). They had us do dressings, pressure bandages, and even tourniquets on each other, practice a couple of two-person carries (out of several one- and two-person carries they showed us), and even do a little litter-bearing. God grant we never need the information, but given that I know at least one person who helped load people into medevac helicopters on September 11th, well, it never hurts to know how to make yourself useful.

I think I've finally learned how to find a radial pulse (I've never had trouble finding the carotid pulse but the radial one, in the wrist, always eluded me) and a brachial pulse (the one that runs under your arm). I also feel a little more confident that I could splint a broken bone without doing my "patient" an injury. Do you feel safer around me now? ;)