Anyone know of a
book or informational site I can look to figure out what
level of first aid is good to have on
hand in the theater / shop.
I have a friend who is a first aid red cross instructor who is going to test me and get all my stuff back up to snuff. Now I am concerned about what to have on site for myself, the staff, and the patrons.
A ounce of prevention is worth many pounds of cure on this one in my opinion.
If you are taking a basic red cross course,
stock up on whatever supplies you use in that class. You will not be trained on how to safely do anything else, and Hollywood aside, you are not going to be playing ER doc back
stage. Professional rescuers
call this scope-of-practice.
Personally, I would NOT
stock up on meds. At the high school
level, I suspect that your school nurse is probably the only person who is authorized
hand out meds. Even making Tylenol and Advil available in the theater would have been a violation of the rules at the high school I graduated from. At the college
level, I expect our crew to be responsible enough to provide their own Tylenol if they feel they need it. Tylenol (for example) taken because someone has a headache is not what a first aid kit is for. Tylenol taken for pain control in conjunction with a significant injury will not have time to come to full
effect before the patient "should" be seeking professional help.
Your first-aid kit should be able clean and
cover small injuries. Massive blunt force or sharp trauma will best be handled by trained professionals and YOUR tools of the trade should be limited to stopping the bleeding and calling for help. AEDs in the
lobby are a good thing, but that will probably come with a whole list of insurance and liability issues that will be above the paygrade of a theater tech.
If, because of your training, you are going to be responsible for maintaining and administering first-aide for your crew/
venue, one thing to ask your friend is if the training that he gives you will affect your protection under the Good Samaritan laws. I know that when I certified as an
EMT and was running squad, Good Samaritan no longer applied to me. Now that I let that cert. go, but remain
CPR AED certified, those laws now apply.