More than half of workers aren’t trained on first aid, CPR: survey

Given the time and cost of employee training in the industrial setting, 45% of workers trained to respond seems like a fairly adequate response number. This stat seems about right and that means on a shift of 100 workers 45 are first responders. OSHA only requires that someone on staff be trained and present at the facility if an AED is provided, and at least one person present be trained in CPR. So, in this instance industry massively exceeds the minimum regulatory requirement, which it does not do for the vast majority of other critical safety functions. As a safety professional, I train as many team members as possible in these skills, but training time is at a premium and this program gets a lot more attention than many others already. At 45%, if a first aid response program is adequately administered help is always nearby. This article makes this number feel atrocious and it is not. If public health and government officials feel this is a number that is way too low, then the burden of this education should be on the society as a whole and not employers. Having 4 in 10 workers at a facility at any time capable of rendering this aid does demonstrate a priority on this training by employers. It would be very easy to add first aid and CPR training on AED use as a minimum graduation requirement from every high school as part of the health program. Public school, which we pay over $10,000 per year per student, is supposed to prepare people to participate in the economy and succeed in the workplace. However, it does not teach anything regarding basic safety principles including CPR/AED. They also don't provide students with any practical skills and ethics needed in the workplace. Rather, they concentrate on academic subject only to prepare children for collegiate topics in which at most 40% will eventually work. While repeat training is obviously a good thing and businesses should attempt to train as many people as possible, it is difficult for companies to maintain the level asked for in this article. Since AED use has not been much changed in decades, if taught well to young people, and organizations such as the Red Cross offered public courses at a reasonable cost to the public, better rates of training in the population could be achieved. The current Red Cross cost to the public for CPR/AED training is over $100.00. How many people are truly going to volunteer to take a class at that ridiculous amount. Workers work 40 hours a week, but they are at large in the community and at home 104 hours per week. So, if employers are handling 45% of the training it would make sense that public entities should provide their fair share of the cost and time to train. Especially since people are far more likely to suffer from heart attack and cardiac arrest outside the workplace.

Thanks for creating and sharing these materials for our employees and their family members We are even doing a free bike helmet fitting / giveaway for our employees and their family members

Three months after hire in 2012, I was able to bring first aid/CPR training on site as mandatory for all employees at our Tacoma, WA, manufacturing facility. The Company since purchased an AED and our first aid instructor returned (free of charge) to refresh all employees on its usage. Each employee is certified in first aid/CPR for two years. The instructor is a local fire captain who does on-site first aid/CPR/AED training as a side job; he did a site visit and checked first to see what common injuries occur and focused training on what we do here. He also inventoried our first aid room and suggested items to purchase, plus consulted on our AED purchase. Interesting, we completed our third mandatory companywide first aid/CPR/AED training this past winter(2018) and feedback from the instructor told us our employees were more engaged than ever during these classes. It also tells me that our employees are changing - some new parents, some new grandparents and some new homeowners. It also tells us the world is changing with increased random violence and mass shootings - more first aid training emphasis this time on open bleeding wounds and use of tourniquets, along with emphasis as Good Samaritans to help to the level of training we have.