Certified first responder - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A certified first responder is a person who has completed a course and received certification in providing pre-hospital care for medical emergencies

Medical emergency

A medical emergency is an injury or illness that is acute and poses an immediate risk to a person's life or long term health. These emergencies may require assistance from another person, who should ideally be suitably qualified to do so, although some of these emergencies can be dealt with by the...

. They have more skill than someone who is trained in basic first aid

First aid

First aid is the provision of initial care for an illness or injury. It is usually performed by non-expert, but trained personnel to a sick or injured person until definitive medical treatment can be accessed. Certain self-limiting illnesses or minor injuries may not require further medical care...

but they are not a substitute for advanced medical care rendered by emergency medical technician

Emergency medical technician

Emergency Medical Technician or Ambulance Technician are terms used in some countries to denote a healthcare provider of emergency medical services...

s (EMTs), emergency physician

Physician

A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

s, nurses, or paramedic

Paramedic

A paramedic is a healthcare professional that works in emergency medical situations. Paramedics provide advanced levels of care for medical emergencies and trauma. The majority of paramedics are based in the field in ambulances, emergency response vehicles, or in specialist mobile units such as...

s. First responder courses cover cardiopulmonary resuscitation

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation is an emergency procedure which is performed in an effort to manually preserve intact brain function until further measures are taken to restore spontaneous blood circulation and breathing in a person in cardiac arrest. It is indicated in those who are unresponsive...

(CPR), automated external defibrillator

Automated external defibrillator

An automated external defibrillator or AED is a portable electronic device that automatically diagnoses the potentially life threatening cardiac arrhythmias of ventricular fibrillation and ventricular tachycardia in a patient, and is able to treat them through defibrillation, the application of...

usage, spinal and bone fracture immobilization, oxygen and, in some cases, emergency childbirth as well as advanced first aid. The term "certified first responder" is not to be confused with "first responder", which is a generic term referring to the first medically trained responder to arrive on scene (police, fire, EMS

Emergency medical services

Emergency medical services are a type of emergency service dedicated to providing out-of-hospital acute medical care and/or transport to definitive care, to patients with illnesses and injuries which the patient, or the medical practitioner, believes constitutes a medical emergency...

). Most police officers and all professional firefighters in the US and Canada, and many other countries, are certified first responders. This is the required level of training. Some police officers and firefighters take more training to become EMTs or paramedics.

Certified First Responders in Canada

Many options are available in order to become a certified First Responder in Canada. Courses are offered by many sources including the Canadian Red Cross, and St. John Ambulance

St. John Ambulance in Canada

St. John Ambulance Canada, or SJAC is the Canadian chapter of St. John Ambulance , a worldwide non-profit first aid training organization. The mission of St. John Ambulance Canada is to enable Canadians to improve their health, safety, and quality of life through training and community service...

, and the Department of National Defence

Department of National Defence (Canada)

The Department of National Defence , frequently referred to by its acronym DND, is the department within the government of Canada with responsibility for all matters concerning the defence of Canada...

. Certified First Responder courses in Canada are separated into either "First Responder" or "Emergency Medical Responder" level courses. "First Responder" level courses are usually 40 hours in length and is considered the minimum level of training for crews providing medical standby at events, as well as for employment with some private stable transport companies that provide inter-hospital transfer for patients in need of a bed, but are stable and do not require advanced medical care. "Emergency Medical Responder" level courses meet the Paramedic Association of Canada's National Occupational Competency Profile, and those who receive certification at this level can work for Emergency Medical Services in some provinces.

Examples

The Canadian Ski Patrol System

Canadian Ski Patrol System

The Canadian Ski Patrol System is an organization made up of over 5000 volunteer and paid alpine skiers, telemark skiers, snow boarders, and Nordic skiers that provides safety and rescue services...

, St. John Ambulance

St. John Ambulance

St John Ambulance, branded as St John in some territories, is a common name used by a number of affiliated organisations in different countries dedicated to the teaching and practice of medical first aid and the provision of ambulance services, all of which derive their origins from the St John...

Patient Care Divisions, Volunteer Fire Department

Fire department

A fire department or fire brigade is a public or private organization that provides fire protection for a certain jurisdiction, which typically is a municipality, county, or fire protection district...

s, Campus Response Teams, and the Canadian Coast Guard

Canadian Coast Guard

The Canadian Coast Guard is the coast guard of Canada. It is a federal agency responsible for providing maritime search and rescue , aids to navigation, marine pollution response, marine radio, and icebreaking...

all provide Certified First Responder level emergency medical care, in some cases as a support to existing services, and in others as the primary emergency response organization.

Limitations on Certified First Responders

While all Certified First Responders in Canada are covered under Good Samaritan law

Good Samaritan law

Good Samaritan laws are laws or acts protecting those who choose to serve and tend to others who are injured or ill. They are intended to reduce bystanders' hesitation to assist, for fear of being sued or prosecuted for unintentional injury or wrongful death...

s in jurisdictions where they are enacted, in some cases they have a Duty to Act. Certified First Responders who are providing medical coverage to events (such as St. John Ambulance's Patient Care Divisions at community events), as well as those who are employed by Volunteer Fire Departments, Campus Response Teams, and others who are required to perform Emergency Medical Response as part of their duties all have a Duty to Act. While Certified First Responders in general are not required to render aid to injured/ill persons, those who work in the aforementioned areas can be accused of and prosecuted for negligence

Negligence

Negligence is a failure to exercise the care that a reasonably prudent person would exercise in like circumstances. The area of tort law known as negligence involves harm caused by carelessness, not intentional harm.According to Jay M...

if they fail to respond when notified of a medical emergency, if their care does not meet the standard to which they were trained, or their care exceeds their scope of practice and causes harm to the patient. As with all medically trained and certified persons, Certified First Responders are immune to successful prosecution if assistance was given in good faith up to, and not beyond, the limits of certification and training.

First responders in France

In France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, the pre-hospital care is either performed by first responders from the fire department

Fire department

(sapeurs-pompiers, most emergency situations) or from a private ambulance

Ambulance

An ambulance is a vehicle for transportation of sick or injured people to, from or between places of treatment for an illness or injury, and in some instances will also provide out of hospital medical care to the patient...

company (relative emergency at home), or by a medical team that includes a physician

Physician

, a nurse and an ambulance technician (called "SMUR"). The intermediate scale, the firefighter nurse (infirmier sapeur-pompier, ISP), is only a recent evolution and is performed by nurses specially trained acting with emergency protocols; these nurses are the French equivalent of paramedic

Paramedic

s. The first responders are thus the most frequent answer to emergency calls. In addition, in France there exists a network of first responder associations, as French red cross (croix rouge française), civil protection (protection civile) or others. These CFR

CFR

CFR can refer to:* Code of Federal Regulations of the United States* Council on Foreign Relations, U.S. foreign policy think tank* Campaign finance reform in the United States* Cost and Freight, word used in international commerce...

volunteers are allowed to supervise massive outside meetings, student fests, etcetera. These volunteers have followed the same special rescuer training as firefighter

Firefighter

Firefighters are rescuers extensively trained primarily to put out hazardous fires that threaten civilian populations and property, to rescue people from car incidents, collapsed and burning buildings and other such situations...

s (PSE 1 & PSE 2, at all 70 hours of training).

First responders in the United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, most statutory NHS ambulance services deploy paid first responders who drive dedicated "Rapid Response Vehicles" (RRVs). These are typically estate cars, MPVs or 4x4s, are liveried with high-visibility ambulance markings, and fitted with blue flashing lights and sirens. These vehicles are generally single-crewed, by a Paramedic

Paramedic

. This differs from most ambulances in the UK, which usually have two crew members.

Community First Responder Schemes

A Community First Responder Scheme is made up of groups of volunteers who, within the community in which they live or work, have been trained to attend emergency calls received by the NHS

National Health Service

The National Health Service is the shared name of three of the four publicly funded healthcare systems in the United Kingdom. They provide a comprehensive range of health services, the vast majority of which are free at the point of use to residents of the United Kingdom...

(National Health Service

National Health Service

) Ambulance Service, providing potentially life-saving treatment and first aid until an emergency ambulance arrives.

The Welsh Ambulance Service

Welsh Ambulance Service

The Welsh Ambulance Service is the national ambulance service for Wales...

s NHS Trust

NHS Trust

A National Health Service trust provides services on behalf of the National Health Service in England and NHS Wales.The trusts are not trusts in the legal sense but are in effect public sector corporations. Each trust is headed by a board consisting of executive and non-executive directors, and is...

, when looking at the locations for Responder Groups, take the following into consideration:

Towns or villages where it is challenging for an emergency ambulance to arrive at scene within 8 minutes – this is usually in the more rural areas of the county.

The total number of calls received within these locations must be significant enough for training to take place, ensuring motivation of the group members and that their contribution would have a valued, significant effect on patients.

Responders are members of the community who are trained to use Automated external defibrillator
Automated external defibrillator
An automated external defibrillator or AED is a portable electronic device that automatically diagnoses the potentially life threatening cardiac arrhythmias of ventricular fibrillation and ventricular tachycardia in a patient, and is able to treat them through defibrillation, the application of...

, Oxygen
Oxygen
Oxygen is the element with atomic number 8 and represented by the symbol O. Its name derives from the Greek roots ὀξύς and -γενής , because at the time of naming, it was mistakenly thought that all acids required oxygen in their composition...

and other lifesaving equipment to assist ambulance crews, and maintain patient stability whilst professional crews are in attendance. Responders have no special dispensation to break the rules of the road whilst attending calls. Under the Road Traffic Act and various other UK traffic law, correct and permitted use of Blue Lights on a vehicle does not allow the driver to cross solid white lines to overtake, but does allow the driver to treat a red light as a 'Give Way' sign. Out of all the Ambulance trusts in the UK, a handful have CFR schemes with dedicated cars, and these are not given blue lights as CFR's do not undergo blue light training.

History

The U.S. Department of Transportation (D.O.T.) recognized a gap between the typical eight hours training required for providing advanced first aid (as taught by the Red Cross) and the 180 hours typical of an EMT-Basic program. Also, some rural communities could not afford the comprehensive training and highly experienced instructors required for a full EMT-Basic course. The First Responder training program began in 1979 as an outgrowth of the "Crash Injury Management" course.

In 1995 the D.O.T. issued a manual for an intermediate level of training called "First Responder." This training can be completed in forty to sixty hours. Importantly, this training can be conducted by an EMT-Basic with some field experience—which is a resource available "in-house" for many volunteer fire department

Volunteer fire department

See also the Firefighter article and its respective sections regarding VFDs in other countries.A volunteer fire department is a fire department composed of volunteers who perform fire suppression and other related emergency services for a local jurisdiction.The first organized force of...

s who do not have the resources for full EMT training. The first responder training is intended to fill the gap between First Aid and EMT-Basic.

The American Red Cross

American Red Cross

The American Red Cross , also known as the American National Red Cross, is a volunteer-led, humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance, disaster relief and education inside the United States. It is the designated U.S...

conducts a course titled "Emergency Response" that fits this definition.

In the US the term "Emergency Medical Responder" will largely replace the term "Certified First Responder" beginning 2012.

Scope of practice

First Responders in the US can either provide emergency care first on the scene (police/fire department/park rangers) or support Emergency Medical Technicians and Paramedics, provide basic first aid, CPR, Automated external defibrillator

Automated external defibrillator

use, spinal immobilization, oxygen, and assist in emergency childbirth (in some areas they are trained in the use of suction and airway adjuncts. CFRs can also assist with providing glucose, aspirin,and epi-pens. They are also trained in packaging, moving and transporting patients.

First responder skills and limitations

First responder training differs per state or country. Lifesaving skills in the first responder course include recognizing unsafe scenarios and hazardous materials emergencies, protection from blood borne pathogen

Pathogen

A pathogen gignomai "I give birth to") or infectious agent — colloquially, a germ — is a microbe or microorganism such as a virus, bacterium, prion, or fungus that causes disease in its animal or plant host...

s, controlling bleeding, applying splints, conducting a primary life-saving patient assessment, in-line spinal stabilization and transport,CPR,and calling for more advanced medical help.Some areas give more training in other life-saving techniques and equipment (see below).

Emergency medical oxygen is a common supplementary skill that may be added in accordance with the 1995 DOT

Dot

- Typography :* Full stop, also called period in American English, used as a sentence terminator and as a decimal separator in numerals - Typography :* Full stop, also called period in American English, used as a sentence terminator and as a decimal separator (decimal point) in numerals -...

First Responder:National Standard Curriculum
guidelines or under the authority of EMS agencies or training providers such as the American Red Cross. Other supplementary skills at this level can include the taking of vital signs including manual blood pressures, advanced splinting and the use of the Automated External Defibrillator (AED

AED

AED may refer to:* Anhidrotic ectodermal dysplasia, a genetic disorder* Automated external defibrillator, a portable electronic device that diagnoses and can correct arrhythmia of the heart....

), suction, and airway adjuncts.

First Responders can serve as secondary providers with some volunteer EMS services. A certified first responder can be seen either as an advanced first aid provider, or as a limited provider of emergency medical care when more advanced providers are not yet on scene or available.

Rescue

The National Fire Protection Association

National Fire Protection Association

The National Fire Protection Association is a United States trade association that creates and maintains private, copywrited, standards and codes for usage and adoption by local governments...

regulations 1006 and 1670 state that all "rescuers" must have medical training to perform any technical rescue operation, including cutting the vehicle itself during an extrication. Therefore, in most all rescue environments, whether it is an EMS Department or Fire Department that runs the rescue, the actual rescuers who cut the vehicle and run the extrication scene or perform any rescue such as rope rescues, etc., are Medical First Responders, Emergency Medical Technicians, or Paramedic

Paramedic

s, as most every rescue has a patient involved.

Traditional first responders

The first responder training is considered a bare minimum for emergency service workers who may be sent out in response to a call for help

Call for Help

Call for Help, also known as CFH, was a computer-themed television program that first aired exclusively on TechTV , a cable and satellite television network focused on technology, and then aired on G4techTV Canada and the HOW TO Channel in Australia...

and is almost always required for professional firefighters, such as the FDNY, who require valid CFR-D (Certified First Responder-Defibrillation) certification for all firefighters. The first responder level of emergency medical training is also often required for police officers.

Non-traditional first responders

Many people who do not fall into the earlier mentioned categories seek out or receive Certified First Responder training through their employment because they are likely to be first on the scene of a medical emergency, or because they work far from medical help.

Some of these non-traditional first responders include:

Park ranger
Park ranger
A park ranger or forest ranger is a person entrusted with protecting and preserving parklands – national, state, provincial, or local parks. Different countries use different names for the position. Ranger is the favored term in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Within the United...

s
Taxi
Taxicab
A taxicab, also taxi or cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choice...

Drivers
Utility
Public utility
A public utility is an organization that maintains the infrastructure for a public service . Public utilities are subject to forms of public control and regulation ranging from local community-based groups to state-wide government monopolies...

workers
Teacher
Teacher
A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...

s, childcare workers, and school bus driver
Bus driver
A bus driver, bus operator or omnibus driver is a person who drives buses professionally. Bus drivers typically drive their vehicles between bus stations or stops. They often drop off and pick up passengers on a predetermined route schedule. In British English a different term, coach drivers, is...

s
Designated industrial workers in a large facility (industrial plant) or at a remote site (fish-packing plant, commercial vessel, oil rig)
Security Officers
Bodyguard
Bodyguard
A bodyguard is a type of security operative or government agent who protects a person—usually a famous, wealthy, or politically important figure—from assault, kidnapping, assassination, stalking, loss of confidential information, terrorist attack or other threats.Most important public figures such...

s
General aviation pilots and commercial flight attendant
Flight attendant
Flight attendants or cabin crew are members of an aircrew employed by airlines primarily to ensure the safety and comfort of passengers aboard commercial flights, on select business jet aircraft, and on some military aircraft.-History:The role of a flight attendant derives from that of similar...

s
Sports coaches and Athletic trainer
Athletic trainer
An athletic trainer is a certified, health care professional who practices in the field of sports medicine. Athletic training has been recognized by the American Medical Association as an allied health care profession since 1990....

s
Hunting
Hunting
Hunting is the practice of pursuing any living thing, usually wildlife, for food, recreation, or trade. In present-day use, the term refers to lawful hunting, as distinguished from poaching, which is the killing, trapping or capture of the hunted species contrary to applicable law...

and fishing
Fishing
Fishing is the activity of trying to catch wild fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping....

guides
Search and rescue
Search and rescue
Search and rescue is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger.The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, mostly based upon terrain considerations...

personnel
Campus Responders and campus police
Campus police
Campus Police or University police in the United States and Canada are often sworn police officers employed by a public school district, college or university to protect the campus and surrounding areas and the people who live on, work on and visit it....
Lifeguard
Lifeguard
A lifeguard supervises the safety and rescue of swimmers, surfers, and other water sports participants such as in a swimming pool, water park, or beach. Lifeguards are strong swimmers and trained in first aid, certified in water rescue using a variety of aids and equipment depending on...

s/Ski Patrol
Ski patrol
A Ski Patrol is an organization that provides Emergency Medical and rescue services to skiers and participants of other snow sports, either at a ski area or in a back country setting. Patrollers are trained in Basic or Advanced Life Support to stabilize and transport patients to definitive care,...

lers
Camp counsellors
Boy Scouts
Boy Scouts of America
The Boy Scouts of America is one of the largest youth organizations in the United States, with over 4.5 million youth members in its age-related divisions...

and Girl Scouts
Girl Scouts of the USA
The Girl Scouts of the United States of America is a youth organization for girls in the United States and American girls living abroad. It describes itself as "the world's preeminent organization dedicated solely to girls". It was founded by Juliette Gordon Low in 1912 and was organized after Low...

and leaders
Community Emergency Response Team
Community Emergency Response Team
In the United States a community emergency response team can refer to* one of five federal programs promoted under the umbrella organization Citizen Corps, which is funded in part by the Stafford Act;...

(CERT) members (varies by jurisdiction)
Airport ground personnel

External links

National Registry Of Emergency Medical Technicians. This US organization also certifies Certified First Responders, who will soon be known as Emergency Medical Responders.
UK First Responder Scheme

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