You Should Learn First Aid

Learn First Aid

Before I talk my experience, let me make a pitch here for you adding learning First Aid (or even more advanced life support) to your New Year’s Resolutions.

I’ve had to render emergency first aid three times. Every single time I’ve been super thankful I both knew what to do and had presence of mind enough to do something.

So, why learn First Aid?

You’ll most likely help someone you know

One of the three times I ended up rendering aid, it was an immediate family member. As you spend most of your time with people you know, odds are high that if you do need to render emergency first aid, it will be to a friend, family member, or relative. Enough said.

Minutes matter more than expertise

Basic first aid is more a matter of rapid intervention than expert medical knowledge. The basic ABCs (Airway, Breathing, and Circulation), CPR, stopping severe bleeding, or moving someone into recovery position, can mean the difference between life and death. You actually don’t need doctor-level knowledge: doing something correctly and quickly is often what saves lives and avoids long-term disabilities.

Turns panic into useful action

This may sound strange, but it weighs on your brain, second-guessing yourself after something serious happened and you did not act. Helplessness is a terrible feeling. Basic first aid gives you a mental checklist and the confidence to act, ot at least try, in a serious or life-threatening situation. Knowing what to do and having practiced drills goes a long way to being able to make someone’s day a whole lot better.

Why and How

It’s a bit fuzzy now, but I think I got the original idea for doing my EMR from the Neil Strauss’ book, Emergency where he trained to become a community emergency responder CERT) and how he genuinely felt it made him a better human being. I’d already been in two emergency situations (one not first aid related) where I’d waded in and acted, amd thought actually knowing what I was doing for a change, would be a worthy and aspirational goal, and aligned with mensch-dom , so eagerly it to my list.

I actually had to work quite hard to find a place globally to do this. Singapore kept putitng strange bureaucratic obstacles in my way every time I attempted to progress this. In Hong Kong, my lack of functional Cantonese or Mandarin made advanced training impossible (English FA is offered but not EMR), and after contacting the US Red Cross in Hawaii multiple times without getting a coherent answer on training dates or even if the EMR was avaiable, I finally settled on swinging back to my old stomping grounds in the Spruce Superpower.

In Canada, where I qualified, the EMR certification is the road to being a full-blown paramedic. Once certified and licenseed, you can work as an ambulance attendent with the expressed purpose of stabilizing and making medical and trauma interventions to get someone alive to higher level medical care at a hospital or urgent care facility.

Honestly, full blown EMR was more work and much more challenging than I thought it would be. There was approximately a month (80 hours) of medical and online theory before the 3 week practicum (~120 hours) where we doubled down on what we learned, linked them to a pragmatic patient assessment model, and practiced the practcal skills and medical and trauma simulations to certify as responders and get everyne ready for licensing. About half my class were training to be paramedics, the other half needed the certification since threy were interested in qualifying for the Fire Department (my classmates were awesome btw - super supportive and everyone helped everyone else get better). I was the only insane person doing this for charity or emergency disaster organization reasons. Only one person was doing the course while working full time, which I frankly don’t know how they managed to manage.

Where

I actually spent quite a bit of time trackiung down a place to do this after contacting someone super helpful at the Canadian Red Cross. They recommended who they thouht were the top providers back in Canada since I said I was flying back just to do the course.

I ended up settling on Coast Wilderness Medical and I have to say I am really glad I went with them. If the course had been easy or some “pay for play” certification, I thihnk I would have been angry since I was there to get comptent. I have nothing but great things to say about Coast and recommende them highly.

The instructors were all experienced EMTs with plenty of time in the field. They were excellent. They also managed to walk that fine line between being supportive while maintaining super high standards epsecially where it came to patient care and outcomes. I have to admit I was really happy I went with them and feel like

Their ability to boil down hundreds of hours of instruciton and pre-work into a patient assessment model, medical knowlege, and interventions to the point I could walk into my practical Trauma exam scenario and deal with a double gunshot wound, with a chest through and through, a open pneumothorax, and an additional arm wound with an uncontrolled aerterial bleed, and know how to intervene to keep my patient alive until we reached a hospital, is a testimonial to how good they really were.

As an example of their dedication, I have to mention that two of the instructors, for a real-life sim, donned wound makeups, flake blood, thrift store clothes (so we literally had to use our trauma sheers to cut stuff away and examine for trauma) and laid out in freezing cold puddles in a simulated car crash in a Vancovuer December, risking real hypothermia to get found, fuly trauma packed, and then stretchered back for a second team to do Secodary Survey assessements. Respect. I have to admit to having been a bit rattled by how close to real life this scenario was, but the training was amazing.

I also have to give a really big shoutout to my classmates. While the instructors said it was one of the strongest classes they’d seen in a while, the other people taking the course were just plain great. Everyone was super supportive of each other, helped people get better or learn difficult skills they might have been struggling with, and I am actually a little sad now I’m going to be leaving the country again that I probably won’t get to see them again (or at least very infrequently.). I also thing they made me better and helped me learn some really hard things better (as well as making sure I won’t forget what to do when I need that knowledge.).

Fin

I also weirdly feel an accomplishment high and like an utter badass now I’ve passed the certification. Even though I imagine my first days on a ride-along in an ambulance or in a serious, professional trauma situation will humble me quickly. It kinda feels like the start of my learning rather than then end. If anything, real life suddenly feels boring coming down off the challenge and adrenaline rush of the realistic emergency scenarios and learning we had to do.

I am soooo glad I did this though. I whole-heartedly recommend the experience if you have the time and space to do this yourself. Persist (not all my friends, and certainly not my former employer — despite their “first responder” rhetoric — were supportive of my doing this.).

If that’s too big a stretch, and you’re still looking for some worthy 2026 New Year’s Resolutions,

I highly recommend taking a First Aid course (Basic Life Suport) to your list. Besides just making you feel amazing that you have the knowledge to handle what may happen in a crisis, you may just someday save someone’s life.

I hope you found this post useful and it was compelling enough for you to take or renew your First Aid (or even do an EMR). I’d love to hear from you if it did, so drop me a line and let me know, via mail or elephant below. I’m also looking for ways to volunteer to keep these skills sharp and useful or to extend them so if you can help there, feel free to mention or ping me on @awws on mastodon or email me at hola@wakatara.com .