Imagine a catastrophic bleed from the neck, caused by a jagged piece of metal. The casualty is covered in their own blood, as their precious supply pumps out into the muddy ground beneath them. Their colleague is trying to fight through the protective body armour to get to the wound, but every second counts.
But this casualty isn’t in some far flung war zone, they are someone working in the UK, but they have been injured whilst using a chainsaw.
Every employer has a duty to provide the necessary safety equipment and training to ensure people can work as safety as possible, but hitting a nail or knot in the wood being cut could lead to the type of injured describe above.
Whilst running some recent Emergency First Aid at Work training for a local council, we meet some people worried about the above happening in front of them. They enjoyed our #trainforreal ethos and have gone away knowing that “first aid training is a contact sport”, but only as the course closed down did they admit the concern and that they had been provided with Celox dressings following their employer’s risk assessments.
Now first of all lets acknowledge that this is good- an employer thinking about their staff, but if highlighted an interesting question: should there be a chainsaw operators first aid training course covering the use of Celox and tourniquets?
We certainly believe so and those people we have spoken to also believe there should be some form of chainsaw operators first aid training course.
Lazarus Training specialises in working with industries and groups to develop specific first aid training solutions, rather than trying to make the “standard courses” fit into increasingly varied workplaces. We believe that the course should always contain the HSE required first aid content, but it should also be highly practical and focus on the real life situations the delegates might end up facing.
If you have any suggestions or comments on this topic, we would love to hear them. You can contact us on 0800 242 5210 or via info@lazarustraining.co.uk.
If you are interested in the one day and two day chainsaw operators first aid training packages we are currently trialing you can also contact us on the above.