Saturday, April 19, 2008

First Aid

My daughter ended up in the Emergency Room yesterday after a playground accident, and received 12 stitches in her perfect little forehead. So I thought I would remind everyone about the wide variety of First Aid resources we have here at the library.
Could You Save Your Baby's Life? the CPR review for infants and children is a 35-minute video that shows you how to perform CPR on a little person.
First Aid and CPR is a more updated, and longer, DVD that reviews how to deal with minor and major medical emergencies, and also includes a short section on child CPR.
American College of Emergency Physicians first aid manual is a nice comprehensive guide to dealing with emergencies, with lots of photos and illustrations, and is helpfully organized by situation type (respiratory, chocking, bleeding, poisonings, childbirth, etc.). The guide also includes child-specific instructions for choking, seizures and resuscitation.
Survival at Sea Series is a set of 4 DVDs produced by the Alaska Marine Safety Education Association, and these films cover the use of immersion suits, onboard emergency drills, rescues at sea and liferaft survival packs. With the boating and fishing seasons heating up, these are must-watch videos.
Wilderness Survival Handbook is a "practical all-season guide to short-trip preparation and survival techniques for hikers, skiers, backpackers, canoeists [and kayakers], snowmobilers, travellers in light aircraft - and anyone stranded in the outdoors". There you go, then.
Obviously, if you're in an emergency situation you're not going to run down to the library to check these materials out ("Try not to bleed so much, I'm trying to find my library card"). But browsing through these books and reading their suggestions is a good way to mentally prepare yourself for what could happen. Hopefully things will turn out fine (as they did with my daughter, thanks to the wonderful staff at the Ketchikan General Hospital. Thank you Dr. Ritchie and Nurse Morris!)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Dr. Karl Richie rocks!