Keep Your Family Safe With Red Cross CPR Courses

We all want to keep our loved ones safe, and take multiple measures of precaution to ensure their safety. We get everyone to wear their seat belts, make sure we cross the road in a safe manner. We keep bandages and medicine at home and at work…but do we really know how to respond to serious injury? When a pot of boiling water causes severe burns? When a child gets cut by a sharp kitchen utensil? When someone trips on the stairs and breaks an arm or a leg?

The sad truth is that our knowledge is, on average, based on fictional shows or films. That is not adequate knowledge to say the least. Taken at face value, it can even be truly dangerous in an emergency.

For one example, CPR courses teach us to perform cardiovascular resuscitation without endangering the unconscious person’s life. For another example, CPR and First Aid classes teach us how to lay a bandage or a tourniquet, and other essential skills anyone will wish they had known when their loved one is bleeding in their arms.

Let’s go into some detail as to what you get when you enroll into a series of CPR and FIrst Aid classes. This is a general breakdown of the essentials, not a specific course description. Still, it is enough to get an idea of the value they carry.

What do CPR Courses Teach

1. The EMS system

2. Airway emergencies

3. Breathing and Circulation emergencies

4. First aid for respiratory and cardiac arrest

5. Use of an Electronic Defibrillator

6. Bleeding and Wound Care

7. Head and spine injuries

8. Bone, muscle and joint injuries

9. Sudden Medical Emergencies

10. Environmental Emergencies

11. Poisonous Substances

It is our firm belief that as many people as possible should learn and get a CPR level C certification or another essential First Aid course.

It has been proven without a doubt that whether at home, at work, or outdoors, the chances of an injured person become considerably better when there is one other person around who’d been taught those significant skills. One of the best things is that the course is not even that long. Most courses are between one and two days long, six to eight hours a day. Take the time to enroll, and take your family with you.

Get on board with one of our First Aid CPR courses and keep each other safe with the important, invaluable knowledge this will gain you!

Register for CPR or First Aid Training

Register today for a CPR or First Aid training course at one of our locations across Ontario! Check out our facilities and book your spot now.

Things To Know About Life-Saving First Aid Training In Toronto

Life-saving first aid training in toronto

If you’ve been reading our other blog articles, you already know that first aid is literally vitally important. The simple procedures you can learn in a first aid training Toronto course or even by just reading a first aid manual can help you prevent the death of a co-worker, friend or loved one in an emergency.

What is it though, specifically, that a first aid Mississauga or Edmonton first aid training course teach? What concrete scenarios does first aid training Toronto prepares you for and what exact actions are you taught to take in each? First of all, first aid is not meant to teach you heal a person, but to keep them alive until the medical professionals show up.

This being said, here are two of the main scenarios you will learn how to deal with in a first aid Toronto training:

First Aid for Breathing Difficulties

When a person has difficulty breathing, the first thing to check for is to see if they respond to speech or touch. This will determine the severity of their condition.

Here is the general guideline of essential actions to to take from there:

1. Call for help immediately.

2. Place the person on their back.

3. Tilt the person’s head back to have their chin point upwards. This is done to prevent their tongue from blocking the breathing tract.

4. Check for breathing by looking if the chest is rising at all, placing your ear next to their mouth. This check should be performed as briefly as possible, no more than 10 seconds in total.

5. If shallow breathing is registered, keep the victim’s head in this position until a paramedic team arrives. If not, begin performing CPR immediately*

* CPR is a topic in its own right, on which we have a separate set of articles.

First Aid for Bleeding Injuries

The first thing in all types of bleeding, is to stop the flow of blood. From here on the treatment will depend on the type of bleeding wound.

Small Cuts in the veins are easiest to treat. Once the blood’s been stopped, it will likely clot within a few minutes. Wash the area and apply a plaster on it.

Deeper Cuts can be identified by them producing darker blood at a steadier flow. It can be treated by applying steady pressure on the wound. It should be applied directly on the cut with a sterile cloth with the subsequent application of a bandage. Those wounds will usually require stitching afterwards.

Arterial Bleeding is the most dangerous and will require a doctor’s attention as soon as possible. This wound will squirt blood in gouts and can lead to death within as little as several minutes. Hard pressure must be applied to the wound. It should be bandaged tightly and immediately with a constant pressure kept on it all the time.

In bleeding emergencies, time is a crucial factor, so having the knowledge to stop bleeding could be crucial to keeping your loved ones safe. In this instructional video, we demonstrate essential methods for rapidly controlling bleeding in emergency situations. Whether you’re at home, at work, or outdoors, knowing these techniques can make a crucial difference in providing immediate aid. Join us as we cover practical steps and tools that can help you effectively manage and mitigate bleeding incidents.

This is not all, naturally. There are also Nosebleeds, Choking, Shock and other emergencies you will be taught to deal with in a Toronto first aid training course. We will be glad to elaborate on those topics in our future publications, so stay with us.

If you really want to know more, feel free to contact us directly at Coast2Coast First Aid and Aquatics and enroll to a course in one of our first aid training centers in the GTA.

Register for CPR or First Aid Training

Register today for a CPR or First Aid training course at one of our locations across Ontario! Check out our facilities and book your spot now.

Keep Your CPR Certificates Up To Date With CPR Recertification

There are many different CPR and first aid courses out there, but the majority of them are given for a period of 2 years. After that, CPR re-certification will be required to keep the license.

Here are several reasons why you’d really want to do this.

Keeping your CPR skills sharp.

It is always good to plan in advance and sign up for CPR re-certification classes at least six months before your current license expires. Even if you don’t need the certification for work, it is still crucial to maintain this skill in top notch condition so that you don’t panic or freeze should anything happen.

That and the additional fact that CPR, while not a complex practice to learn, can be physically taxing. Giving chest compressions to an unconscious person, keeping the compressions strong and delivering them at the right intervals for more than a few minutes will tire even a trained professional. You need to develop strength and muscle memory around the practice to be able to do it well. Practicing every two years is the very bare minimum if you want to keep it sharp.

A fast and precise response to an emergency is the main goal of those classes.

Follow and learn more advanced CPR techniques

Additionally, medicine as a practice, is based on science and as such never stands in one place. Procedures are improved and developed all the time. This means you will likely not only get a new licence when you get re-certified, but also learn a few new valuable things about the procedure.

For example, did you know that mouth to mouth resuscitation is no longer considered not only necessary but even simply more efficient. This happened in three stages.

First it was the only way of delivering CPR. Then it was accepted that CPR without mouth to mouth is almost as good. Now we know there is no evidence to support mouth to mouth resuscitation at all, since the procedure works just as well without it. Nowadays chest compressions are widely accepted as the more efficient method. We don’t know what will be discovered next; organizations like the National CPR foundation are continuously examining common practices and their results to develop more efficient CPR and first aid techniques.

Finally, re-certification can now be done at least partially online. Online CPR renewal, while slightly less efficient than full CPR recertification, is still much better than no CPR re-certification at all.

We urge everyone to get your licence renewed on a regular basis so that you have a better chance to save a life in an emergency.

Register for CPR or First Aid Training

Register today for a CPR or First Aid training course at one of our locations across Ontario! Check out our facilities and book your spot now.

Save A Person’s Life With CPR Training In Toronto

In a bewildering,near-tragic incident reported by CBC News early this year, a Toronto woman saved the life of a man who went into sudden cardiac arrest during a gym workout. The woman later told how she was shocked that everyone just froze in fear and no one intervened. If it wasn’t for her, the man would have died there and then, with no one to save him from a terrible, senseless death. She decided to intervene when she saw a staff member walk over to the man as he was lying on the floor, face blue. The employee then leaned down, put a defibrillator on the floor beside the man and stood back in dumbfounded confusion.

It was lucky for the victim that the 29 year old woman received her CPR training Toronto earlier, and knew how to deliver cardiopulmonary resuscitation. She had the training done when she enrolled to work as a flight attendant, and if she weren’t there, the man’s life would have ended, and even if the paramedic team does arrive on time to save the person’s life, permanent brain damage is almost entirely inevitable. It sets in just four minutes into the episode. If you ever find yourself in such a dire situation, we wrote more here on what to do during a medical emergency.

In his case, it was all thanks to her. The ambulance pulled in some 10 minutes after he fell unconscious and it was only her knowledge of CPR that saved his life. She began compressions and managed to keep them up for the entire time they waited for help to arrive.

CPR Training Toronto

In a big city, there’s always a chance someone will know CPR First Aid and will be able to help, but consider this – in a large Toronto gym, only one person knew this life saving technique. One person in an entire room full of people. Not just regular people, but health – conscious individuals who work out on a regular basis, and gym staff that should know how to deliver CPR.

Humans are fragile creatures, and can easily get hurt. It is our goal and mission to help society increase the number of people who know and are certified in this crucial skill. No one wants to ever have to deal with such situations, but sometimes we are forced to, by sheer tragic circumstance. Take a Toronto CPR training course and stay safe.

It is better to be prepared. Even going above and beyond to be prepared for responding to a cardiac emergency with CPR training! We owe it to each other. That’s why at Coast2Coast, we offer one of the top training courses in CPR.

Get Trained in Toronto!

Join our First Aid Training in Toronto and equip yourself with vital skills to handle emergencies confidently. Our expert instructors provide hands-on training to prepare you for real-life situations.

Become A Lifeguard With First Aid & CPR Training

Coast to Coast First Aid is now inviting young individuals to a program that combines international and local expertise to produce the best quality First Aid training for lifeguards.

Getting your first aid training is all about being able to save lives, but being a Lifeguard is to make it your profession. Our program is based on the best practices as shown by the Canadian Red Cross, the highest standard for first aid training in Canada. Our own program takes it a step forward and offers smaller training groups, better equipped facilities and centers all around Ontario and the GTA. This allows you to avoid the need for lengthy travel and choose the training center in the vicinity of your own home.

We have training facilities for CPR and First Aid in Toronto, Mississauga, Brampton, North York, and many other areas and municipalities. We make it easy for you to get your first aid certification and proceed to become a lifeguard next. Our trainers are all either ex health care providers with vast experience or ex Red Cross trainers, with both hands on expertise and teaching experience. In addition to rigorous professional screening, each instructor also gets in-house training to make absolutely sure all of our courses are uniform and deliver training of impeccable quality.

Learning the trade of a lifeguard not only puts you in a position to save lives, but opens possibilities for gainful employment in Canada as well as overseas. Many young men and women use this as an opportunity to earn money while traveling, hiring out as lifeguards on hot vacation spots and cruise ships, essentially paying their way on board by working there. In addition to this and our extensive first aid and CPR training options, we also have a Learn to Swim program for children and adults. Swimming is one of the essential life skills, not to mention a healthy form of exercise and highly recommended sport.

Our schools offer swimming lessons that are conducted in a professional yet fun and friendly atmosphere, perfect for children.

As a Red Cross partner, we are one of the best first aid CPR training schools in Ontario. Our variety of hands-on and online first aid courses is wider than most other companies, and our excellence in the field is unmatched.

Whether your aim is to become a lifeguard, or just to know essential life saving techniques to keep your loved ones safe, we are here for you.

Register for First Aid Training

Register today for a First Aid Training course and learn how to deal with emergencies and keep your loved ones safe! Check out our facilities and book your spot now.

Why Everyone Should Go For First Aid CPR Training

Summer is here and it brings it own set of season related dangers. It is not new that we are fragile creatures, and it’s mostly the realization of just how fragile we are that keeps us safe most of the time. Caution is often not enough, and dangers tend to catch us unawares. That’s where we need to be able to take care of others and ourselves. Often being able to do that will mean the difference between life or death.

The American Red Cross has identified some pretty alarming statistics on this topic. This statistic is for all of North America, but it’s still very relevant to us here in Canada.

  • The leading cause of death for children below 4 is drowning.
  • A child that age can drown as fast as within one minute.
  • 88 percent of all cardiac arrest scenarios occur at home.
  • The number of cardiac arrest victims that survive is below 7%.
  • The reason for that is because people near them didn’t know CPR.
  • The number of people killed by cardiac arrest is over 200,000 a year.
  • Over a quarter of the people who die of cardiac arrest could be saved.

People often die in these situation because people witnessing this horrifying event simply didn’t know what to do. CPR is needed when reviving a cardiac arrest victim or a drowning victim. This alone is reason enough to go and enroll in First Aid CPR training in Toronto or in any one of our other learning centres.

Waiting for 911 to arrive is delivering a death sentence. The time it takes for permanent death or brain death to occur in an adult during cardiac arrest or drowning is only 4-6 minutes. This time is shorter still in the case of a child. When a person drowns or falls down with a stopped heart, the paramedics simply won’t be there on time.

It is up to the people witnessing the event to step in and administer the necessary help to the dying person. There are many free Red Cross CPR classes you can take, or go for the more extensive and full First Aid CPR training we are offering in our many teaching centres.

First Aid CPR training is crucial in too many situations to ignore. It is our firm belief that every adult, especially family people with kids, should know those life saving techniques.

Let us be there for you and help you one day be there for another human being in need.

How To Handle A CPR Emergency in North York?

A CPR emergency can be one of two things – a terrifying, mind numbing disaster, or a challenge. A frightful challenge, to be sure, but one that you can overcome, given the necessary tools and knowledge necessary for the struggle.

Our North York CPR courses are here to provide people with the necessary skills to determine whether CPR is needed, and then provide this lifesaving technique with calm efficiency.

In this blog we will cover a few basic mistakes that can make an inexperienced or overly stressed person fail in performing CPR.

Always tilt the victim’s head back. Being unconscious often means the victim is suffering from a breathing obstruction. The purpose of CPR is to deliver oxygen-rich blood to their brain. Not allowing for the oxygen to enter the lungs by positioning the victim’s head at a specific angle is the first bad mistake you can make and will likely result in loss of life.

Count out every pump. Performing at least a hundred artificial heart beats a minute over the course of several minutes is physically exhausting. Keeping yourself concentrated on the effort by counting it out loud is necessary. Especially if you need to be replaced by someone else and they’ll need to know the count in order to continue exactly from where you left off.

Apply adequate pressure. This is one of the most important components of our CPR training in North York. It is also emphasized by the standard Red Cross CPR training program. Adequate pressure is essential to keep the blood circulating. There is an understandable fear of hurting the victim, but in this type of emergency it’s misguided and dangerous.

Focus on the compressions. Prioritizing mouth to mouth resuscitation has been proven to be a mistake. When you pump on the victim’s chest, the lungs also contract and draw in fresh air. When you pause to give breath, you stop pumping, which is far more important.

Always assess the victim’s response. Check the carotid vessel for pulse before starting and repeat the check for pulse at regular intervals. There will be no breathless awakening like in the films. Chances are the breath and pulse will be restored (not necessarily in that order) but the victim will still remain unconscious. It’s up to you to register their condition when it changes.

This advice is not by any means a substitute for proper CPR training. It is here to show you there are many things to learn if you want to save a life one day.

We honestly hope this day never comes, but it’s our job and commitment to help you be prepared for it, if and when it does. Call us now to enroll to our North York CPR training and get your cardiopulmonary certification.

Should First Aid & CPR Training Be Mandatory In Offices?

This is a debate that’s been going on for quite a time now.

It has a partial answer, with certain workplaces making red cross first aid and CPR training mandatory, but the phenomenon is far from being commonplace.

It is no small thing to be prepared for a medical emergency, especially in lines of work such as mechanical garages, construction sites and chemical labs. Some of those even have an in-house medical facility or infirmary to treat emergencies quickly on the spot.

Most other places are only required to carry a fully stocked first aid kit per number of employees, located in visible, easily reached places.

Let us examine Canadian law regarding first aid in the workplace.

Standards and Regulations

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has a defined outline of what the contents of the first aid kit should be and how many kits should be in place. The first aid kit should contain 1-2 of each of its items in case of a small business (up to three employees). When the number of employees increases, the stock of first aid items in the kit has to be increased.

This is only first aid equipment however. What about red cross first aid and CPR training?

Police officers, Child Care Providers, Adult Family Home Providers and Resident Managers, Confined Space Workers, Logging Operations Workers, Electric Power Generation, Members of a Dive Team, Construction Subpart Transmission/Distribution Workers and only a handful of other professions are actually required to get red cross first aid certified.

The sad thing is there is no such obligation in most other workplaces, with every employer making their own rules.

We gave the example of OSHA regulations for first aid kits to emphasize a point. There is a government regulated rule as to what to keep on the site for cases of burns, cuts or bruises, but nothing, nothing at all, about teaching people how to use those tools. Or how to react when those tools are inadequate, such as during a cardiac or respiratory arrest.

Happily, many businesses are becoming aware of the practical sense of having a staff that knows how to deal with a medical emergency. Offices take the steps to get their staff Red Cross first aid and CPR certified to increase everyone’s safety.

If your workplace is not on board with this yet, now is the time. Get your employees red cross first aid and CPR trained and create a better, safer workplace.

Register for First Aid Training

Register today for a First Aid Training course and learn how to deal with emergencies and keep your loved ones safe! Check out our facilities and book your spot now.

Save Life With First Aid Course In Toronto

Every season has its own set of dangers, and winter hasn’t quite left us this year. Let’s therefore talk about cold-related health hazards and how our first aid course in Toronto can help you deal with them.

It’s true that Canadian winter has been coming and going a lot in recent years, but it’s still notoriously cold.

We love spending time outdoors. Skiing, sledding, skating and even camping in the cold, crisp weather, are only a few of the favourite Canadian pastimes.

But with fun in extreme weather also come cold-related risks that we need to be able to recognize, prevent, and – in case that didn’t work – deal with, very very quickly. And all those risks usually sum up to one major risk – hypothermia.

Hypothermia is a cold-caused medical crisis with various degrees of danger, ranging from health failure all the way to severe risk of death. Let’s examine different degrees of this condition.

Mild Hypothermia – there’s no risk to the person’s life yet. The symptoms will be numbness of their fingers and toes, a sensation of cold and possibly mild weakness. You don’t need to take a Toronto first aid course to be able to treat this. The person needs to be warmed up, no urgent measures are necessary.

Moderate Hypothermia – this is where your Toronto first aid course may already come in handy. There is still no grave danger, but the risk of going into severe hypothermia is very high. The core temperature of the body, not only the extremities, begins to decline. It is usually marked by rapid shivering, with the thinking becoming sluggish and clouded. Warm the person up but do it slowly, to avoid the danger of heart arrhythmias.

Severe Hypothermia – here is where the person faces a risk of losing their life. Advanced medical care is needed and quickly. This condition happens when the core temperature declines below 30 degrees, cooling the blood and internal organs so much they may actually fail. This condition is recognizable however. The person will be so numb as to stop complaining about the cold. The shivers will cease, but their behavior will remain impaired with loss of coordination and a possibility of losing consciousness.

The reason everyone needs to take a Toronto first aid course is to be able to tell those conditions apart and to be able to treat them correctly.

We are here for you and also have standard first aid and CPR C recertification courses available for those who need to renew them. Get certified today, save a life tomorrow. Visit our Toronto CPR & first aid training facilities at Coast2Coast today.

Why Do You Need CPR Training In Toronto?

This question is simple and the answer seems simple enough as well – to help someone who’s been injured, or fell badly ill. This is true enough, but definitely not elaborate enough.

The fact is most of us go through our daily lives practically without knowing how dangerous it can become. And it always becomes dangerous all of a sudden. Accidents and health failures never send us an advance notice. And the sheer number of things that can happen is sometimes shocking.

Here are a few reasons why we should all seek, and encourage others to take a course for CPR certification in Toronto.

Treating Children.

A parent who doesn’t know CPR is taking a great risk. Those small individuals are devilishly cunning at putting themselves in harm’s way. Falling down, running into things and suffocating on toys or candy are among the most popular ways they entertain themselves. When the injury is severe and the child’s heart has stopped or there is no breathing, regular CPR performed on adults can make things worse. You need to be trained for Childcare First Aid and CPR.

Seeing Trouble in Advance.

When you take training CPR in Toronto, you won’t only know how to deal with a heart attack – you might be able to prevent it or at least mitigate the effect. It will simply be obvious what’s happening from the first symptoms – something you might confuse for hyperventilation from a run otherwise. Then you will have time, maybe moments, but moments more than you’d have had should you not know it for what it is. Those moments are often all the time you need. Having them is crucial when saving a life.

When Help is Far Away.

Do you travel? How about outdoor picnics? Near water? Maybe with a BBQ set? Far from the city where response times are faster. Where you’re the only person who can help your injured loved one – you’ll wish you knew what to do. Trips, falls, burns, drownings – all those happen in back yards too, but they are far more deadly out there, on the road or in the park.

Those were only a few reasons that make our CPR training and heart 2 heart first aid CPR in Toronto Ontario very important and necessary for everyone.

Help us help you save a life, and all of us will have a better, safer place to live.