You Can Save a Life

Reprinted with permission from Asante Health Magazine, Fall 2000. Copyright©Asante Health System.

Just eight hours of Medic First Aid training can make all the difference during an emergency.

One sunny afternoon in 1995, Linda Lamoreau was driving near Grants Pass when she noticed a small knot of people standing in a pasture. Sensing that something was wrong, she hollered, "Do you need help?"

Indeed they did. A man had suffered a massive heart attack, veered off the road into the pasture and was now dying before their eyes. None of the three onlookers had any idea about how to help. Her heart pounding, Lamoreau ran to the scene and announced, "I have medical training; I can help."

The man had been down for more than 10 minutes and had turned deep blue. His breaths came in short gulps. Taking charge, Lamoreau instructed an onlooker in chest compression while she administered mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Thankfully, the man lived. At that time Lamoreau's medical training consisted of one CPR course completed the previous year.

"I remembered one thing very clearly: When somebody appears to be dying, the worst thing you can do is to do nothing," says Lamoreau, now a certified Medic First Aid instructor.

"You can be the first upon an accident. You can be the only one around when your husband suffers a heart attack. You can be next door when a kid drowns in a neighbor's swimming pool or when somebody chokes in a restaurant. With a little knowledge, you can save lives."

Trainers working with Lamoreau in Grants Pass and Lisa Parks in Medford repeat that message as they and a team of instructors teach students in Medic First Aid classes in both counties. Introduced in the Rogue Valley in the 1980s, the program now imparts lifesaving knowledge to more than 350 people a year.

How much knowledge does it take to save a life? About as much as can be packed into two 4-hour sessions of the Medic First Aid course.

Medic First Aid is a worldwide program with standardized courses taught in more than 80 countries. "It is the most effective way for anyone to learn first aid, whether for occupational or recreational use," Lamoreau says. "It uses seeing, hearing and doing as the methods for learning."

Successful completion of Medic First Aid means that the student has acquired the essential skills of patient care, understands the dangers of an emergency scene and how to evaluate it, and is proficient in the use of barriers to protect against blood and bodily fluids. The Medic First Aid training program was developed by Eugene-based Emergency Medical Planning International and is endorsed by the World Safety Organization.