How to prepare for an emergency in your workplace

Real Response
Thursday, 21 June, 2018


How to prepare for an emergency in your workplace

Every workplace has its risks, from a bookshop to a building site. While the risk management and hazard identification aspects of our Workplace Health and Safety (WHS) legislation go a long way towards reducing potential accidents, it is inevitable that a percentage will still occur. So once we’ve done everything we can to minimise the risk of accident and injury, how do we best prepare for dealing with those that do occur?

The meaning behind the old Boy Scout motto ‘be prepared’ is that one should always be in a state of readiness to act in an accident or emergency. The Boy Scouts believe the best way to achieve that is by thinking through and practising how to act when an accident or emergency occurs.

Be prepared with active first aid training

The philosophy behind the first aid training courses provided by Real Response is similar to that of the Boy Scout movement. Their courses do not consist of boring classroom-style arrangements with a lot of lecturing and PowerPoint slides as you might expect.

Real First Aid courses feature hands-on activities using actors to role-play real scenarios. You won’t be sitting behind a desk learning the theory of emergency first aid while wondering if you’ll recall those theories if you ever had to put them into practice. You’ll be handling fake blood, dealing with potential scenarios involving real danger, responding to role-played seizures as they occur and making simulated 000 calls.

What are the benefits of active first aid training?

When an accident or emergency occurs, the chemical release in our body dictates a fight or flight response. While it is unlikely our moral conscience would allow us to take flight in a workplace emergency, being unprepared means that we may be more likely to respond in a delayed or unpredictable way. Active training allows us to experience the emotions that may occur in a real scenario, and to put into practice what we are learning so that we are better prepared to act promptly and effectively when a real workplace emergency occurs.

What about the different emergencies that might occur in different workplaces?

It is certainly unlikely that a bookshop staff member could fall from 10-metre scaffolding, while construction workers aren’t likely to have a pile of books fall from a high shelf onto their head, which is why it is important to attend the most appropriate first aid course for your workplace or industry.

Some aspects will be common to any workplace, however. Health issues such as seizures, heart attacks and severe cuts could occur in any workplace while the potential hazards and risks are greater in a workplace such as those in the building industry.

Real Response provide a selection of courses covering different aspects of potential workplace emergencies. Learn how to administer Basic Emergency Life Support at a Level One course, or learn the techniques required to provide Advanced Resuscitation. Obtain your three-year certification at the two-day First Aid Training Course, or get your National Accreditation in providing Advanced First Aid.

All of these courses adopt a hands-on approach to learning, so that you are better equipped to respond in any workplace emergency.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/wellphoto

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