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ABOUT US | ||
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Who We Are The thought was - There have been hundreds of thousands of people who have died in major trauma incidents like earthquakes, tornadoes, explosions, and other disasters, who didn't really need to die. A great many could have been saved by simple things, if someone in the crowd just knew them, and could do them quickly instead of waiting hours or days for professional rescuers to get there. The reality is, in a disaster (any mass-casualty multi-injury medical emergency) when there are hundreds or thousands of people hurt all at once, there cannot possibly be enough ambulances for them all, all at once. The goal was - To teach ordinary people in neighborhoods, offices, workplaces, high schools, construction sites, Community Centers, anywhere and everywhere, how to do these simple but critical lifesaving things - how to save those lives that can be saved when the first few minutes count - when the deal is decided by the first minutes and hours immediately after the injury happens. And teach it in a condensed form, with no unnecessary details, no fancy medical words, just what you need to know in the clearest simplest terms. Time is Life It used to be, if you broke your arm, you could go to the E.R. and there were nurses, a doctor, and technicians ready and able to examine you, order the right treatment and pain control etc. within a fairly short time. But these days, the wait in most Emergency Rooms, for non-life-threatening injuries like this, is anywhere from 30 minutes to 6 hours, and sometimes longer. Back in the mid-80's hospital and field Emergency Caregivers realized something needed to be done to deal with the unavoidable shortage of help in the first hours and days of any major emergency. They created S.T.A.R.T. Rapid Triage, which is now the primary system used all over the world. It's what to do first, when it counts the most, and it can be done by virtually anybody. S.T.A.R.T. stands for "simple triage and rapid treatment or transport" and it is the heart of Disaster First Aid. It's a simple formula for quickly identifying who are the most seriously injured / life-threatened, so they can be helped by the limited help available FIRST, before it's too late. This rapid triage formula has been used by emergency/rescue professionals for more than 20 years, and was designed to be usable by anyone, without the need for any medical knowledge or training. Yet S.T.A.R.T. disaster triage is not known by the general public, and has not been taught in any First Aid course available to the general public until now. Disaster First Aid teaches every average citizen how and what any EMS rescuer would do in the crucial first minutes of a large-scale medical emergency such as disaster, and gives each one hands-on group practice doing it. It's easy, it's fun, you can do it in a day, and it has the potential to save thousands, or maybe millions, of lives that might otherwise be lost while waiting for help to come. About the Author and the DFA Folks Disaster First Aid uses no medical words. It leaves out unnecessary or unuseful details, and sets up the simplest, most logical plan of action, starting with what to do first, next, and so forth. All of the actions are easy, yet they are the same actions taken by all professional rescuer/emergency medical caregivers in California, Oregon, Washington and most of the United States boiled down to the simplest essentials and adapted to the average citizen's level of ability and resources. After teaching and developing this course for a few years, we realized it was taking too long to reach enough people. We wanted to get it out there. So we started the Disaster First Aid website and created the user-friendly "Instructor Kit" to make it easy for Police and Fire Department programs, schools, and even community groups to teach the course, and DFA became a teaching and learning "system." Now our focus is on distributing, facilitating, and supporting the program for our users. We did our homework and researched this. There really isn't anything else like this out there - Really - search the web for yourself. There are some things that call themselves "disaster first aid" or similar names, but they turn out to be just lists, empty talk, or solicitations for donations, or at best, just Standard First Aid with a disaster spin. The majority of listings under the keywords "Disaster First Aid" are actually not first aid at all, but simply stores selling overpriced first aid kits and supplies. Some are "consulting" services; most are a whole lot of big talk with no substance. One website we found under the keywords "disaster first aid" turned out to be a computer repair service! So there you have it. Disaster First Aid (the real one) is designed to be as practical & useful as possible, and as accessible as possible to as many people as possible. If you're experienced in teaching, it's a breeze. If you've never taught anything before, you can still do this correctly. Just take your time. Perfection is not required. The essence of the underlying message is: nothing goes perfect in a disaster, but you actually and absolutely can do a great service with just a small amount of knowledge, whatever materials you find nearby, and your own good common sense. Where Can You Take a Course? Many of our program users are Public Education C.E.R.T. classes provided by city Police and Fire Departments under their Disaster Preparedness or Homeland Security programs, however, Disaster First Aid is an inependent program that is not automatic in every CERT program - they have to choose it, to use it. But most municipalities will have some type of Disaster Preparedness classes, and many are free to the local public. Below are some of the groups and agencies using Disaster First Aid. If you are a resident of one of these areas, you can inquire about getting into one of their classes. Some have fees, but many are free. Some Police and Fire Department training programs also have special fee courses for business and corporate agencies, and they will come out and teach the course at your location. Check with your city's Public Safety Police & Fire Services. If your city or county is not using Disaster First Aid, and you want it, suggest to them that they consider it. Many users of the DFA program are teaching it privately for their own community, their school, their employees, their administrative staff or managers. At this time, there are no commercial classes set up for the general public that we know of. There ought to be - (maybe YOU should start a small business doing that.) In January 2006 we launched the Second Edition of the Instructor Kit, with a PowerPoint slide presentation CD and 60 new slides. This makes the course even easier to teach and easier than ever to learn. | ||||
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For a listing of groups and organizations currently teaching DFA by city and state: http://www.disasterfirstaid.com/takeclass.html | ||
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