In "Standard" or Basic First Aid courses,

Every instruction is followed with "Call 911 or go to the Emergency Room." That will be impossible in the first few minutes and hours of a massive emergency, the time when the most lives are either saved or lost.

Standard First Aid does not even mention the possibility of more than one person being injured at the same time. It has no Disaster Triage to identify the most life-threatened. In Disaster First Aid, *S.T.A.R.T. Rapid Triage identifies the most seriously at-risk in the first 60 seconds, so they can be helped first.

When 911 Can't Come

City, county, and state Offices Of Emergency Services have advised us to be prepared to manage on our own for at least the first 24 hours to 3 days. In a major disaster like earthquake, there will be destruction spread over many cities and transportation routes. Hospitals will be overrun, and many will be damaged, evacuated, or shut down. The 911 phone number will be a busy signal. Disaster First Aid tells you how to get help by immediate direct contact with the Disaster Response network in your area.

Common But Deadly Things That Happen In Disasters

A number of things can cause temporary airway blockage, so that the person cannot breathe. Without oxygen the heart stops pumping normally within 90 to 120 seconds. In 10 to 12 minutes, irreversible brain damage begins. People sometimes die from situations like this even when their other injuries were not life-threatening.

It only takes 2 seconds to open the airway and possibly save that life, and anyone can do it. And yet, neither the recognition of this danger nor the urgency of treatment is included in Standard First Aid. In Disaster First Aid it's the very first thing you check, with S.T.A.R.T. Triage, in the first seconds you see the injured person.

Other preventable causes of death are: (A) blood loss and (B) shock, which can occur even with otherwise non-lethal injuries. Disaster First Aid teaches every person how to quickly identify the most at-risk injured, how to control visible bleeding, and how to recognize the potential for internal bleeding and shock, then take the first steps to treat it immediately. These are simple things anyone can learn in an afternoon. They are KEY elements of Disaster First Aid and Rapid Triage, but they are NOT contained in Standard First Aid.

How Can You Know What You Should Do?

With Standard First Aid, the first-aider must figure out for himself what is happening with the injured person (diagnose) in order to know what action to take. Disaster First Aid eliminates the need for medical judgments being made by non-medical people. It removes the confusion and fear of error by using the S.T.A.R.T. Triage system – the same system used by Firefighters and Paramedics in most of the United States.

The first few minutes are the most critical. Even when 911 can't come, you are already there. The simple Triage formula allows you to the critical take first-actions quickly and correctly. This system, proven effective and reliable by more than 25 years of practice and statistics, makes the decisions for you.

Standard First Aid Is Not Much Help In A Disaster

Standard First Aid can be useful in non-disaster situations; it has advice about jellyfish stings, snake bites, and childbirth. Disaster First Aid has none of those, because those things are probably not what you will need in a disaster.

Most First Aid courses are a "tossed salad" of information. Disaster First Aid is focused and organized by: What To Do First, What To Do Next, and How To Do It, in the simplest terms. It teaches you the practical, functional sequence of actions that have been statistically proven to save the most lives and do the most good for the most people.

It's Time For a New Kind of First Aid

Standard First Aid was first introduced by the American Red Cross in the early 1940's and has not changed very much since then. In 1976 it became "Modular" and in the early 1990's a little bit of disaster "spin" was added on. But there was not really anything new or specific for a true disaster. The world has changed, but Standard First Aid has not. It just doesn't have what you need, for a multi-casualty emergency.

Learning Disaster First Aid and Rapid Triage doesn't take much time - one day, about six hours, to prepare yourself and your neighbors or co-workers to save the saveable lives. You would want someone to do this for you. And you would want someone at your children's school to do it for them.

Disaster First Aid ©1996-2010 V. Chames / Darkhorse Press United States