Published November 2001

Accidents, illness happen
— so be first-aid savvy

By Kimberly Hilden
Herald Business Journal Assistant Editor

Imagine you’re at work on a Monday morning, sipping coffee and catching up on e-mail when a co-worker trips on some nearby stairs and crumples to the ground in pain.

What do you do?

If you’ve had training in first aid, you know to assess the situation and act accordingly. If you haven’t had training, then there should be someone on the premises to offer care or a first-aid written response plan that you can access.

Because in Washington state, that’s the law.

Under the Washington Industrial Safety and Health Act, or WISHA, most employers have two options to ensure that first-aid trained personnel are available:

• The first option requires that each person in charge of employees has first-aid training or that someone with first-aid training is present or available whenever there are two or more employees present. Under this option, employers also must adequately post emergency telephone numbers in the workplace.
• Option two requires employers to develop and maintain a written first-aid response plan tailored to the workplace. Depending upon the occupational hazards present, the likelihood of workplace injury or illness, the workplace’s proximity to emergency medical services and other factors, the employer determines how many, if any, employees should be trained in first aid. Then, the employer must make sure the first-aid plan identifies available emergency medical services, their access numbers and where they are posted in the workplace. The plan also must identify the locations of first-aid supplies or stations and the contents of the first-aid kits.

Besides being required by law, first-aid training has personal as well as financial benefits for the company, said Sherri Aalbu, a Certified Red Cross Instructor and co-owner of LifeSavers, a company that offers first aid, CPR and workplace safety classes.

By providing first-aid training for personnel, employers are “going to protect themselves from injury and illness, (and) it’s just going to cost their company less,” Aalbu said.

“Let’s say that somebody knows CPR, they’re going to save a life,” she said. “Let’s say there’s an injury and an employee knew how to handle it, (the injured person) wouldn’t be out as long, and it saves (the company) some money.”

And it’s through training that employees gain the confidence to handle such high-pressure situations, Aalbu said, adding that people sometimes refrain from offering help for fear of being sued or catching diseases via air or the victim’s blood.

That’s why she offers instruction on the use of breathing barriers and the proper use of safety gloves during her classes, which address the 18 first-aid subjects required by WISHA.

Other subjects include scene safety, performing adult CPR, recognizing internal bleeding and controlling external bleeding, recognizing and caring for victims of shock, recognizing and stabilizing spinal injuries, and recognizing and manually stabilizing suspected skeletal injuries.

The classes, which Aalbu teaches in the workplace in one eight-hour block (which includes lunch and breaks) or two four-hour blocks, cost $43 per person, with discounts for groups of 10 or more. A minimum of six students is required.

The Snohomish County Chapter of the American Red Cross also offers workplace first-aid and CPR training for $43 per person with a six-student minimum, said Shirley McConnell, Health and Safety Assistant. Discounts are available for larger groups.

Training for individuals is offered at the American Red Cross offices, 2530 Lombard Ave. in Everett, for $43 per person.

For more information on LifeSavers, call Aalbu at 360-653-8315 or send e-mail to tasaproductions@aol.com. For more information on American Red Cross’ services, call 425-252-4103 or visit www.redcrosssnoco.org on the Web. For more information on safety in the workplace, visit the state Department of Labor and Industries WISHA Web page, www.lni.wa.gov/wisha.

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