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We Texas CHL's have spend time and money buying gun and survival gear and honing our gun skills... in the interests of protecting life... but have you also spent the effort learning first aid, CPR, Automated external defibrillator(AED)? If you have learned medical skills are your certifications current?

Medical training is useful even if you never get into a gun fight. I train in all these medical skills through my company. I guarantee you'll use the first aid training. And you'll also feel more confident with knowing how to help in a medical emergency.

I'd urge everyone here to at least certify in basic first aid. CERT has free training available online.

For those interested in taking their first responder skills to the next level there is a TRAUMA MEDICINE FOR THE CCW OPERATOR class in Texas coming up in June.

I've done my internet course and my classroom training will be completed Wednesday at which time I will be re-certified... after some 40 years.

Next, how may I help you....

wholeheartedly.

Even if I wasn't still a licensed paramedic, I would be sure to keep my CPR/FA skills up.

The American Red Cross has some great classes for it. Even a week-long first responder course.

I'm going to look at the Trauma course you've linked to when I get home. One thing you might want in your FA kit is QuikClot. Developed for penetrating traumas like GSWs. I am stocking my FA (soon to be a medic) bag piece by piece, and that's high on my wish list.

I actually don't have any current certifications, including a CPR certification. I last certified in CPR back in 1986. That said, I've done actual CPR on real people probably a 1,000 times, mostly in an ER environment but a few times outside of a hospital, and I have helped to treat a large number of gunshot patients in that same ER setting. I probably should get recertified in CPR, but with or without the cert, and knowing that some of the techniques have evolved over the years, I'm comfortable knowing I could do if I had to.

However, where I really fall short is in being materially prepared for rendering first aid to a seriously wounded trauma patient—gunshot or otherwise. I need to rebuild my first aid kit and then get in the habit of keeping it in my car. But generally speaking, that's just a step in our plan to be prepared in a larger sense for whatever comes down the pike.

TAM reminds me of a question I have had! I have a CERT bag that I used to keep in my car. I want to update this with Quick Clot type product. However, I am concerned how this product and others fare in the rediculous summer heat.

How does everyone handle this? Yes, I can bring it in at home at night, but the daytime when I am at work or elsewhere it is not always feasible to haul that pack around.

Thanks!

I realize that my First Aid/AED Certification will not make me a Ben Casey or a Dr. Kildare or a Marcus Welby anymore than my CHL makes me Batman or Matt Dillon.

Maybe I can help if and when when the need arises...

Just remember that Texas does have a Good Samaritan law.

Edited - Looking back I would not say don't use quickclot. if that is what you have and there is no other way to stop the bleeding it may help. but it has more limitations and possible complications than Combat Gauze reference - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuikClot" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

The Annoyed Man wrote: I need to rebuild my first aid kit and then get in the habit of keeping it in my car. But generally speaking, that's just a step in our plan to be prepared in a larger sense for whatever comes down the pike.

Me, too. I had a Red Cross First Aid Cert many, many years ago and I should go take a class again and update that. I've been looking at getting a trauma kit and have considered this one a couple of times
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003H2 ... 34416J3MT2

Any thoughts?

Chas

TexasVet wrote:Don;t use quick clot if you can get Combat Gauze or Chito gauze. Quick clot causes thermal damage to tissue, where the combat gauze does not. It is carried by soldiers all over the world, so it should to well here too !

Good to know. Any link to it?

Combat Gauze - http://www.z-medica.com/healthcare/Prod ... Gauze.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Chito Gauze - http://narescue.com/ChitoGauze-CN98C457 ... 0A24087588" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; or with a nice kit: http://narescue.com/Individual_Patrol_O ... CAD72151F1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

but these are just tools, everyone needs to learn how to use these and when to use them !

PS - Not affiliated with either one of these companies

One issue with that kit is the latex gloves. Some folks have allergies to those. Nitrile gloves are safer... if you get nothing else... get gloves

Our company also issues us with CPR shields, but compression only CPR is actually pretty effective

One option for a portable kit is the Ventilated Operator Kit

I have some israeli bandages as well.

chasfm11 wrote:

The Annoyed Man wrote: I need to rebuild my first aid kit and then get in the habit of keeping it in my car. But generally speaking, that's just a step in our plan to be prepared in a larger sense for whatever comes down the pike.

Me, too. I had a Red Cross First Aid Cert many, many years ago and I should go take a class again and update that. I've been looking at getting a trauma kit and have considered this one a couple of times
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003H2 ... 34416J3MT2

Any thoughts?

Chas

Divided Attention wrote:TAM reminds me of a question I have had! I have a CERT bag that I used to keep in my car. I want to update this with Quick Clot type product. However, I am concerned how this product and others fare in the rediculous summer heat.

How does everyone handle this? Yes, I can bring it in at home at night, but the daytime when I am at work or elsewhere it is not always feasible to haul that pack around.

Thanks!

Ditto this question. I have a kit in my car. But I figure the summer heat can't be good for some of the items in there - quick clot, cold pak (think that's in there... now I'm going to have to go review what I have in my kit), various ointments. Anybody have knowledge on this?

For those of y'all wondering what exactly CERT is, it is fun.

Yes, you do have to take a class that probably meets once a week in the evening for two and a half months, but the graduation is fun. Graduation for us was going out to a training field. Setting up some victims (real people) in a building, and then pretending it was a scene of an accident and to practice our training.

While CERT stands for Community Emergence Response Team, the latest thinking is that it is going to be a group of community members that will mainly assist others. Yes, they do teach you how to triage and how to respond to different scenarios from an earthquake shaken building to a leaking overturned tanker truck.

FEMA is making it required that those who want to stay on a team after training (which is free and any one can do with no commitment), that they take online courses in Incident Management. This will be useful in interfacing with other agencies and emergency responders.

As an example of what CERT will most likely do, our group just helped out with the BP MS 150. Different CERT groups managed different breakpoints (rest stops for the riders). We basically covered crowd control. And this was some serious crowd control. In the span of 3 hours, we had at least 4,000 riders come through our breakpoint. It was a sea of people, and even though some of them really wanted to, we had to instruct them not to leave their bike anywhere they wanted, otherwise the entrance would get clogged and so would the highway.

It was a great weekend. Very fulfilling.

Here is the website again:
http://www.citizencorps.gov/cert/

Excellent post! Thought this was worth repeating...

Thomas wrote:For those of y'all wondering what exactly CERT is, it is fun.

Yes, you do have to take a class that probably meets once a week in the evening for two and a half months, but the graduation is fun. Graduation for us was going out to a training field. Setting up some victims (real people) in a building, and then pretending it was a scene of an accident and to practice our training.

While CERT stands for Community Emergence Response Team, the latest thinking is that it is going to be a group of community members that will mainly assist others. Yes, they do teach you how to triage and how to respond to different scenarios from an earthquake shaken building to a leaking overturned tanker truck.

...training (which is free and any one can do with no commitment)...

Here is the website again:
http://www.citizencorps.gov/cert/