I had a CPR class in high school and remembered the basics on how to check for breathing and such. My 2.5 year old daughter fell down the stairs tonight and wasn't breathing long enough for the ambulance to be dispatched but started to come out of it while they were in route. I had looked up an infant cpr class when my wife was pregnant but never got around to taking one.

The local chapter of the American Red Cross is a good place to start. They offer classes in CPR and first aid. I signed up recently for a class and i'm going in two weeks. After that I'm signing up for CERT.

Red Cross or St. John's Ambulance both have CPR courses, usually running over a weekend.

Go to the Red Cross Website, roll over "Preparing and Getting Trained", click on "Get Trained", click on "CPR, First Aid and AED" and on the right enter your zip code. It will take you to a page that will show the closest chapters and courses.

And I'm glad your daughter is alright.

OK, found some, they do about one or two a month one during the day and one in the evening. Next evening is not until June but a day one in May, I'll schedule a half day vacation and try the May one. Looks like they have a 4 hour first aid course too, maybe I'll schedule one of those too.
Time to add some skills to the prep inventory.

I am a CPR instructor and still amazed at how many people have not taken basic first aid or CPR that are otherwise very well prepared for most contingencies. For me this was one of my first priorities and it actually lead to a part time career as an EMT for a local city.

Too many people get on forums and ask for feedback on their first aid kits, and yet have no training to use half of what is in their kits. Also, many people's first aid kits have not been even opened since they bought them. Any kit that you rely on should be opened and used, even if only for practice at least twice per year.

I am glad to see that you are remedying that hole in your preparations.

I don't have a lot in my various first aid kits(s) just because I don't have a lot of skills so when I saw that class I think I will take both.

If you're having scheduling problems, try your local community hospital. That's where I took it. They may have a regularly-scheduled course, and if you can assemble a small group of friends they might even do a class just for your group at a time that works for you. Here's a couple stories about people who saved lives with CPR including a guy I know who saved his young child's life.
http://www.gettingprepared.info/blog/bystander-drops-and-does-cpr-saves-womans-life/

It's also worth re-doing if you did one years ago.
A lot of things have changed. After some research of what actually matters they now concentrate on the stuff that saves someone - rather than the 'correct' ratio of breaths.

Local fire departments can offer CPR too. My preference is for a combined CPR and AED course, there are enough AEDs around these days, it is good to know how to apply them in a pinch, it sure helps survival rates.

And do keep up with the recertifications, while you can try to remember what you learned several years ago, if you don't use it regularly you will want the practice.

I'm sorry to hear about your child's accident. I wish her the best.

Another option, if you're interested in learning additional skills besides CPR might be a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT)-type program. But check that child-infant CPR is part of the curriculum. It may or may not be. We only had adult CPR + AED training in my CERT-like program about a year ago.

If you work for a large employer, there may be regularly scheduled CPR classes--maybe even on-site--for employees whose job duties require it. You'd probably still have to pay, but it may be the most convenient option if you can do it at work.

CPR has become simpler than when you last took a class so I'd encourage you to persevere and follow through on getting some current training. The new protocol is easier to remember. Good luck!

+1 on the CERT class and the Red Cross first aid/CPR courses. They really drill the basics and keep it very simple so you're more likely to remember in an emergency.

Places to ask about such training might include fire departments, red cross, county health department, hospitals, and YMCA. The YMCA because they often host the classes.

Eugene,

All of the answers here will no doubt provide you with some very good training. I would second any recommendations for a first aid class as well.

Glocker36 pointed out that you should also obtain a first aid kit, or even make your own. Do become familiar with it as suggested and yes plenty of forums are filled with plenty of good intending people who have no knowledge on how to use one. There are plenty of us on here who will critique it for you. Buy or even make a few more kits as well. One for each vehicle you own and a spare. My neighbor's son took theirs on a boy scout outing or some such and came home without it. Mom was not too pleased. I had to help her put another together, which I don't mind, but she worried it would happen again. She then went to Costco and bought 3 in a bundle pack. We built one good kit and used one for her Jeep. The third will be used when her son goes camping again this summer.

If you contact the fire department then you might also ask them if they'll teach a class on fire extinguisher use. Even if they do not teach the first aid or CPR they may hold a class for fire extinguisher use. Homeowners and businesses have them and I would say a vast majority of people have no idea how to safely and effectively use them. Alan and Martin may be able to provide better information on this than I am able to.

Glad to hear that your daughter will be okay.

Stargazer

I do have basic first aid kits in each vehicle, they just don't have a lot in them since I don't have the skills to use a lot. Thats part of my preps up to this point, small FAK in each vehicle, GHB in each vehicle. Small FAK in my bob and bike bags and a big FAK bought at a store that I keep in the camper in the gaarage so its handy there as well as the FAK stuff in the medicine cabinet at home. Park of my preps consists of going through and replacing old stuff, even a simple bandaid seems to turn old and yellow after sitting a couple years. I'll buy the big boxes of stuff as Sams club and distribute through all the FAK's. I'm going to hold on adding to any until I take the class then add in anything I was taught how and when to use.

Still trying to figure out why we have all fallen down these stairs too. Something to do with the carpet I guess, seems slippery at the tip of each step. I thought about ripping it up but I'm not sure what to replace with, wood flooring can be slippery too.

I'm AED certified and I honestly and truly can't figure how someone could screw up using an AED, even if they have never seen one before.

I agree, but a crisis is the worst time to learn how to use a potentially life saving tool, even one as simple (and loud) as an AED. IMO not much different from testing out your firestarting methods. Firesteel for example is a very simple concept, make sparks and you have fire. But if you're wet and cold and need to get a fire going pronto, it couldn't hurt to have practiced it a time or two.

Are AED's common enough that I would ever have access to one, I've never seen or heard of one before, had to google to see what one was.

I've seen them in malls, convention centers, on planes etc, etc.

Main point of the training is to try and convince people that they don't work on people that have had a heart attack - whatever you see on ER/Gresy anatomy/House ....

Well actually they do. Automatic External Defibrillators (AEDs) are designed to work on patients that have an electrical cardiac conditions of V-Tach (with or without pulse- the heart can be beating so fast or uncontrolled, that the chambers of the heart do not refill properly, thus there is no effective output) and V-Fib (the cardiac cells are firing without any type of coordination, to the point where the heart is just quivering). If you mean they will not work on asystole (no electrical activity), then yes, you are correct. Generally, as an area of the heart becomes deprived of oxygen, the normal electrical patterns become erratic, leading to dysrhythmias, of which V-Tach and V-fib are likely. As the heart continues to be starved of oxygen, the electrical activity and pathways become inactive or asystolic. The goal of an AED is not to provide an eternal source of electricity (external pacing does), but to reset the coordinated electrical flow though the heart.

Pete

I guess I haven't been to a mall, convention center or airplane recently.

We live within a mile from a huge mall but I'll take the kids to a park rather than to it,we maybe go to the mall once or twice a year.

I think AED training is necessary because without it, many folks don't feel they have the wherewithal to apply an AED in a real-life situation. Many people have the function of AEDs mixed with defribrilators, and applying a defribrilator without training to the body of a stranger or even a loved one is a daunting task - how much to charge, how many times to shock, hey, he still isn't breathing, do I shock or do I perform CPR? Without a session on AED operation I was hesitant to ever apply one, even if it was available. Of course I learned a few things right off:

- that AEDs are designed with instructions (verbal, visual cues) built in
- that they won't function if they aren't applied properly
- that they won't function if the patient doesn't diagnose and require the electric shock.

I would call an AED a defribilator for dummies (with apologies to dummies, AED manufacturers, and better trained medicos everywhere), and if you have access to one, and know how to apply it, you are possibly applying restorative cardo shock in a very time sensitive environment. You still very much want EMTs or paramedics to arrive and take over care, they have transport and often so many more drugs available to help cardiac victims.

If you don't know the first thing about an AED, its true if you open one up, it will instruct you on how to apply it, and if you keep your head you may do so before the EMTs arrive; but time is an issue, and if you misapply through lack of familiarity, you may be costing your patient some time, which is about all they have left.

So yeah, to me CPR + AED training makes sense in today's world, so a class that does both is better than CPR only imho - but waiting for such a class doesn't make sense if you aren't CPR certified, get your CPR training right off from anyone who is certified, don't wait for a schedule to align the planets for you. And keep your eyes open for environments where AEDs live, I see them more and more in stores, libraries, conference centers etc, and once you notice the AED box on the wall its good to keep it in your mental map if you are going to be in the vicinity for a while. Your best call is still to alert 911 and begin CPR, but if someone runs up with an AED, step aside, or open it up and put your knowledge to use immediately.

One other observation - around here its actually common to train local security and police in AED operation, and to stock their cars or patrol vehicles with AEDs. The City of Bellevue (Washington) police vehicles have started getting them, despite having a really good response time from the city fire department EMTs and Medic One service. And I heard that they already had their first successful AED call about a week after the program started.

The concept is simple: if they get a 911 call, or even a 911 hang up, they may arrive first on scene, and they take the AED with them to provide immediate treatment. This can be important especially in closed or secure environments where it may take an escort to get to a patient, or in a mall where distance = time not treating someone.

My employer does this too with their security guys, and they strive for 3-4 minutes from a 911 call to the local security center. And they do it for 911 hang ups, which I experienced myself early one morning, as I was trying to dial an outside line (dial 9) and then call Bangalore (911 or 991 area/country code), but fumbled the digits, hung up and tried again. Security got the fumbled call, read it as a possible 911, and as far as they knew I might have been a nearly morning cardiac arrest victim who dropped the phone. Two very sharp security folks showed up at my office door a couple minutes later, relieved, and so was I, and very sheepish that I had set them off on the run like that. It gives another dimension to respect these guys who do this mostly mundane work, interrupted by moments of excitement.

+1 on the red cross. Very basic and taught often.

looks like they cover AED pretty much by default
http://www.delco-redcross.org/index.php?pr=InfantChild_CPRAED

I may have to search Franklin county though since it looks like all the classes in Delaware county keep getting canceled. I'm within walking distance of the county line.

Maybe, but the chance of the general public just happening upon a full on defibrilator is slim compared to coming across an AED.

AED training is great and I go through it every year. There is always pertinent info delivered but any calm & collected person can successfully use them without training. I'm not sure, albeit with my limited experience, that there is any other more potentially valuable tool that a lay person could use.

The Franklin county Ohio Red Cross has online CPR classes, suppose they have us practice rescue breathing on the USB port?

The basic first aid, how hands on is it, do they go into things like splints where you need to do it by hand or is it all memorize this medicine for that symptom, i.e. would that be doable online, I was wanting to upgrade our home FAK but when I saw that class I decided to wait and take a class first so I'll know how to use things in it.

From what I remember of the Red Cross first aid course, they go over cuts, burns, and breaks and how to bandage/stabilize the person until EMS gets there. Things like direct pressure, how to make a sling with a triangle bandage, immobilization of broken limbs, etc. Fairly simple but definitely useful.


Oh, you get a little bag with wraps/bandages and get to practice on your classmates.