It could be your own life

On the night of October 1, 2017 the Route 91 Harvest Festival was in full swing with thousands of people enjoying live country music on 15 open acres in the middle of the Las Vegas skyline.
It had been a weekend full of dancing, beer, and friends.
Jason Aldean, who months earlier had been named Entertainer of The Year at the Academy of Country Music Awards, had just taken the stage for the grand finale.
Aldean was barely five measures into “When She Says Baby” when the shots started.
The musicians including Aldean immediately ran off the stage.
The crowd was much slower to react as many people mistook the gunshots for fireworks.
By the end of the night more than 1000 shots were fired killing 60 people and wounding 411. The panic that followed would bring the total number of injured to 867.
Mass shootings have unfortunately become the elephant in the living room of daily life of many who live in the United States. According to the FBI, there were 345 "active shooter incidents" in the United States between 2000-2020, resulting in more than 1,024 deaths and 1,828 injuries.
Between the political strength of the NRA and the proliferation of guns in the United States, it doesn't look like it will get better any time soon.
So what would you do in an active shooter situation?
Call 911?
Hide and pray you don't get hit?
Try to escape?
These are all good ideas. In fact, most workplace training classes will tell you to do just that.
But is there a way to further increase your chance of survival?
As a matter of fact, there is. Two simple skills can significantly raise your chance of survival. You don't need any military or medical training to learn these skills.
These skills can be used for any type of emergency, not just mass shootings.
The best part is that anyone can learn them.
Let's start with the most obvious skill:
First Aid
"When people memorize something without truly understanding it, they haven’t learned it. When a skill is taught in the context of a need or is attached to an emotion through an experience, it is truly learned. Only then can you gain the confidence to practice that skill and leave your fears behind."
– Yalcin Or
Basic first aid is really a suite of skills that allows you to handle a wide variety of medical situations including bleeding, choking, poisoning, and more. During the Las Vegas shooting, many people were kept alive because bystanders applied tourniquets to gunshot victims.
While mass shootings are becoming more and more frequent, workplace and home injuries have always been frequent. According to the CDC, 2.4 million people sustained work-related injuries and were treated in emergency departments during 2019. The National Safety Council found that in 2020, an estimated 156,300 preventable injury-related deaths occurred in homes and communities, or about 78% of all preventable injury-related deaths that year. An additional 46.8 million people suffered nonfatal injuries that sent them to the ER.
When done right, First aid does two things: Solve the small problems and buy time for first responders to be able to solve the big problems.
The average arrival time for first responders could be anywhere from 3 to 10 minutes depending on where you live. For rural communities that arrival time could go as high as 15 minutes. The time it takes for first responders to get to you could mean the difference between a good outcome and a bad ending.
First Aid training is not hard. There are a lot of online classes, but I recommend doing in-person instruction. First Aid is a hands-on skill and is best learned hands-on. A First-Aid course usually runs for a few hours and is done in a single day. The American Red Cross has the most recognized First Aid certification in the world. They have locations all over the country.
To learn more about First Aid training in your area, visit: https://www.redcross.org/take-a-class/first-aid
CPR
"For even if the whole world believed in resurrection, little would change until we began to practice it. We can believe in CPR, but people will remain dead until someone breathes new life into them..."
– Shane Claiborne
About 350,000 cardiac arrests happen outside of hospitals every year and 7 out of 10 of those happen at home. To make matters worse, half of those at-home arrests don't get the help they need before an ambulance arrives. If First Aid is the skill you need to keep the situation from getting worse, then CPR is the skill you need when the situation hits the worst case scenario. Ever heard the stories of someone who suddenly collapses and the heroic bystander who saves their life? This is the skill they use to make the save.
CPR is short for CardioPulmonary Resuscitation. It's a specific skill we use to help when someone's heart stops beating. Contrary to popular belief, there is no mouth-to-mouth breathing involved. When done properly, CPR is how we manually pump the heart and get blood flowing to the vital organs when the heart fails to keep pumping on it's own. It's also a way to buy time for the victim while waiting for first responders to arrive. According to the CDC, if CPR is done in the few few minutes it can double or even triple a person's chance of survival.
CPR is not hard to learn, though it can be physically taxing when done correctly. While you don't need formal training to do CPR, getting certified does give you confidence in knowing exactly what to do and how to do it. Also, most CPR classes also teach you how to use an Automated External Defibrillator or AED. Again, you don't need formal training in operating an AED, but in a stressful situation you'll be glad you took the class.
Like First Aid, CPR training is not hard. While you'll find CPR courses online, every certification requires a hands-on skill component that must be done in person. There are several organizations that offer CPR certification including The Red Cross, American Heart Association (AHA), and the American Safety and Health Institute (ASHI). All three organizations offer CPR classes for the community and for medical professionals. If you plan on entering the Fire or EMS department as a volunteer or as a career member, consider taking CPR for BLS Providers.
With the rise in both hate crimes and mass shootings, knowing and practicing First Aid and CPR is more important now than ever before. If you're a parent or a teacher, knowing these skills is doubly important because for most of the day you're responsible for someone else's life. The good news is that both of these skills are pretty easy to learn. Finding a class is also fairly easy. Like any skill, the more you practice the better at it you become.
I hope you never have to use either of these skills. Having said that, knowing both of these skills could save your life of the life of a loved one.
To learn more about CPR classes in your neighborhood, visit: https://ahainstructornetwork.americanheart.org/AHAECC/classConnector.jsp?pid=ahaecc.classconnector.home
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