Amanda Starr from Arise Safety talks about Workplace CPR and First Aid in this recorded presentation.
Here is the transcript from the presentation:
Ryan: All right, so, now everybody, I’d like to introduce to you, our speaker for today who this is her rescheduled date ’cause we had a mix up back in June, which was National Safety Month.
Ryan: And so, we wanted to make sure Amanda had an opportunity to give her presentation because it is extremely important that everybody, yourself, and any of your team members or employees included that you at all need to know how to respond to an emergency because things can change at a moment’s notice, and every second matters when someone’s life is at risk. So I’d like to introduce for everyone today, Amanda Starr, the owner of Arise Safety and Amanda, you have the floor.
Amanda: Alright, thank you. Now, am I able to share my screen for my PowerPoint, OK. Get this pulled up here. Right. Can you guys see that? OK.
Amanda: Right, now, when I was first asked to speak on OSHA requirements in the workplace, I was kind of like, no one is going to show up, it’s just boring. It’s boring. It really is. Nobody wants to hear about what you should and shouldn’t be doing. We don’t want to follow the rules.
Amanda: Right. But why is CPR important? So I’m going to tell a story.
Amanda: I have a, I have a friend. Her name is Amy and she was an employee at a large and a well-known logistics company. And one day she was just going about her everyday life and her everyday work day, and then all of a sudden, her heart stopped, and she went into cardiac arrest.
Amanda: Now, if you don’t know what cardiac arrest is, that’s basically when you’re unconscious, you’re not breathing, and you don’t have a heartbeat. Cardiac arrest is that in between, between being alive and being essentially dead, it’s kind of, that in between phase.
Amanda: Now, thankfully for Amy, she, her, her coworkers were CPR certified, and they were able to perform CPR on her while they were waiting for advanced medical care to arrive. And she actually made it to the hospital, was in a coma for three days, and then made a full recovery.
Amanda: There are 356 out of hospital cardiac arrests that happen every day, which averages out, or every year, which averages out to about 100,000 a day. Only 10% of those people actually survive. That’s a really, really low number. You know, and that’s what makes Amy’s story so powerful, because she was one of those 10% and that’s because her coworkers were CPR trained.
Amanda: In 2017, there were 4400 workers that died on the job and 70% of those was from heart attacks.
Amanda: Alright, alright. So, what is OSHA?
Amanda: So, OSHA is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. It’s literally exactly how it sounds.
Amanda: OSHA is put in place to protect the employee. It requires employers to follow certain guidelines to protect their employees. So, it’s, it’s really important.
Amanda: So how does OSHA work with CPR and first aid. So, in the OSHA handbook there, there’s pretty much 3 paragraphs that cover it. But essentially what it says, and I’m not going to read through this.
Amanda: This is just all that technical kind of stuff, but essentially what it says is that, employers need to provide their employees medical treatment if needed, they have to have access to that and ways that they can do that.
Amanda: They can either have an on-site facility, which isn’t always feasible for, especially, smaller organizations. They could have a medical facility that’s within near proximity, which is about 3 to 4 minutes and a lot of times that’s not feasible either.
Amanda: Now one way that a lot of what a lot of companies do, is that they train their employees to have on-site training. And that’s usually the most, best, low-cost way.
Amanda: So, and that’s kind of where we come in, we come in and we train employees at these organizations.
Amanda: Uhm, OSHA also requires employers to have available for safety kits and, with adequate supplies and, also the personal protective equipment.
Amanda: And then OSHA does require that the company provides documentation of the person trained and OSHA mentions that the requirement for training was going to be American Red Cross certification or something equivalent to that.
Amanda: So, OSHA does require an employer to have an appropriate access to medical care, and that medical care needs to be in place prior to an accident. You don’t want to wait until something happens before putting policies into place.
Amanda: A lot, sometimes the first aid training is not always mandatory. It does differ from industry to industry.
Amanda: So, for example, if you work at a power plant, the first aid training is going to be a lot different than if you just work in a warehouse.
Amanda: Let’s see, and then also if, say you work for a company that has a lot of remote areas. Then each person at that remote area has to be CPR trained or first aid trained.
Amanda: These standards is to ensure that employers are able to provide prompt first aid treatment for injured employees.
Amanda: Alright, so first aid training. So, in order for the first aid training to be valid, these are the different things that you want to look for in a good first aid trainer. So, you want, there has to be a lecture, a demonstration.
Amanda: You want that hands-on practice and, and, and, this is something that a lot of companies got away with with COVID, like I know American Red Cross provided just online training, I don’t feel like online training is adequate at all, you get the knowledge, but you don’t get that hands on experience and that’s one of the biggest key things, is having that hands-on experience.
Amanda: The other, the other thing, you know, I’ve been doing this for a long time and one thing that we do here is, I always like to have the most up-to-date and best equipment for, to train on, you know, our mannequins are probably the closest that you’re going to see to a real-life person and that, and I find, that very important.
Amanda: And then the other thing is doing that examination. So, you want to be trained by a certified instructor, and, so that you can get that proper feedback, making sure that you are comfortable and confident to perform these skills if you ever have to do it in a real-life situation.
Amanda: So, this, this list here on this next slide is just a, all the different, this is the minimum first aid training. So, just if you go just the general, this is the minimum first aid training that that is required by OSHA and it, it covers everything from respiratory arrest, cardiac arrest, you’ve got eye injuries, poisoning, drug overdose.
Amanda: And you know, hypothermia, hyperthermia, bleeding, it just has a wide range and, and oftentimes in this training it just gives you a basic knowledge and there’s always more in depth first aid training, especially when you get into those specific, like if you work in construction, there’s going to be specific first aid training that goes a lot more in depth to the injuries that might happen on a construction site.
Amanda: Again, you want to make sure that first aid kits are accessible to all employees. The, the kits should be annually reviewed.
Amanda: We do offer these kind of services here at Arise Safety. We will come in, we will look over your first aid kit, we will test your AED, and make sure that you have the types of supplies that you need for all your employees, for what you do in your industry and again, at a bare minimum, what every first aid kit should include again, I’m not going to go through this whole list, but you want to have gauze.
Amanda: There’s several different types of gauze, and you want a few different types of those bandages. You want a blanket. A blanket is really important, and I think a lot of people don’t think, oh, I need a blanket in my first aid kit, but if someone going into hypothermia or if they’re going into shock, that’s going to be that, that lifesaving piece, is just that blanket course, scissors and gloves, and you want pocket masks or breathing barriers.
Amanda: And I think a lot of times we don’t think that these simple things are important, but they will definitely be lifesaving if you happen to need them. Right.
Amanda: So, personal protective equipment, this is something that employer also must provide at no cost, and PPE, you know, as limit is includes, but it’s not limited to, to eyewear, to gloves, having face Shields, head protections, gowns and, again, specific industries, they’re going to require different types of PPE.
Amanda: So, for example, loggers are going to need leg protection, construction workers will need hats, and those aren’t things that you might necessarily need, say, in a health care facility.
Amanda: Alright, let’s see. And then a blood borne pathogen training. This is another common that often goes along with the CPR training. Anybody that might have some sort of occupational exposure to their eyes, to their skin, to their nose, mouth, any contact with blood or saliva is going to need blood borne pathogens training.
Amanda: And, and oftentimes what companies do is they will provide a safety team. Now in their general work day, they may not have exposure to this, but now they would have to get Bloodborne pathogen training for their safety team because their safety team would be the ones that would possibly be exposed.
Amanda: Alright, so American Red Cross, I said. I talked about that, OSHA requires an American Red Cross or equivalent.
Amanda: So, the what’s equivalent to American Red Cross? Well, we’ve got the American Heart Association, the Health and Safety Institute, the Emergency Care and Safety Institute, National Safety Council, and First Response Training international. All of these is what the Red Cross considers to be equivalent to what they teach.
Amanda: And a lot of these kind of specialize a little bit more in different areas. So, I know we offer American Heart, the Red Cross, and the Health and Safety Institute, because there are some specializations within those.
Amanda: Now here at Arise Safety and CPR, we are an American Red Cross partner. There there’s a difference between being a provider for the Red Cross and a partner and we’ve been pretty fortunate to be a partner, because we are set to those higher standards. The Red Cross does monitor our classes and how we teach them.
Amanda: We are set to Red Cross standards which is a little bit higher than what the, what most companies would have to be set to. Again, we are regularly observed and evaluated by the Red Cross. We have a really good relationship with them.
Amanda: Other companies that we here at Arise Safety partner with, we partner with Overdose Lifeline. This has been a really good relationship, you know back in 2018, the opioid epidemic became a thing and Overdose Lifeline is actually an Indiana based company and we’ve partnered with them to help teach Naloxone training and also overdose awareness and one thing that I always like to point out with, with when I talk about addiction, Narcan is, a lot of times people, there’s a big stigma behind it and a lot of people think that these are just drug addicts that we’re treating, but the reality of it is.
Amanda: Oftentimes, like, I have a mom who is a little bit older and we had a situation where she took the wrong medication. She thought she was taking her blood pressure medicine and she was actually doubling up on her pain medication and it caused her to overdose.
Amanda: And thankfully, she was in a facility where they had Narcan and they were able to bring her back from that overdose. And so, and that’s a very, very common thing I hear, I work with a lot of nurses and nursing homes, and you hear a lot about how there’s accidental overdoses for, for reasons like that. So, we’ve got a good partnership with them.
Amanda: The other we do work with the American Heart Association. We are considered to be a training site, we hold in-house classes, almost, almost daily.
Amanda: We partner with the University of Indianapolis. We teach a lot of their students.
Amanda: The American Heart Association is more geared towards that healthcare, so we help teach that basic life support for healthcare.
Amanda: Another partnership we have is the American Safety and Health Institute. This is geared more towards warehouses and your construction companies. They go a little bit more in depth with the first aid portion.
Amanda: Another organization that we work with is The Safety Compliance. So, we’re also a safety compliance awareness trainer and so, they, they, this one has a bunch of different branches that, the only one that we are currently doing is the active shooter and the workplace violence, which this has been a huge, huge one for us recently, especially I mean here in Greenwood that, that’s very, very fresh and very recent in our, in our memory right now.
Amanda: But we are getting a lot of requests to come out there and, and teach people how to respond to an active shooter.
Amanda: Our most recent partnership has been with Sunny Dog Ink. We are also providing pet first aid and pet CPR. Now, I do want to point out that most, in most workplaces, it is an OSHA violation to bring your pet to work but, we, a lot of us, do have furry friends at home that we love to take care of, and this training does go into details about how to care for our dog and cat family members.
Amanda: It’s great knowledge for how to take care of your pet before they go to the vet. Obviously, in no way, shape or form a replacement for VET care. But we do teach you how to do CPR, and your pets, how to wrap them if they have an injury, how to care for them if they have bug bites, how to transfer them when they are injured, and then so many other, other precautions.
Amanda: And, and that’s kind of why I have these two, these are our first aid dogs, this is this is Pie and Blue, and they’re both based on actual animals that our instructors have. So, these will be the animals that we teach you how to wrap up and do first aid on.
Amanda: All right. So, I’m going to end with this, my story and how CPR saved my life.
Amanda: So I do have a background as a medical assistant. I went to, to college and I worked in neurology and urology, cardiology and kind of, all the different -ologies, I was all over the place. I did end up losing my job, and a lot of other things, because I, myself, have, have suffered from addiction.
Amanda: And when I was I, I had went to treatment back in 2018 and was able to find recovery. And when I did that, that is when I started working with the Red Cross and teaching CPR. And one thing that we learn in treatment is that connection is the opposite of addiction, and so, how CPR changed my life that I was able to travel all over the state of Indiana and make connections with people by teaching them how to teach, how to do CPR and how to save lives.
Amanda: And so that’s kind of where my passion for CPR and safety comes from. You know, I was given, I was given a second chance at life, and I, I, my goal is to see other people get that second chance of life. And that’s a big reason why we do partner with Overdose Lifeline and some of these other organizations.
Amanda: You, you know, I always tell the story. When I first started doing this, I, I literally, it was me and a 2003 Mitsubishi Gallant that was held together literally by duct tape and a prayer. And we traveled all over the state doing this, now, when I started this business, the reason that I named it Arise Safety in CPR is because we can arise from anything.
Amanda: And so, I that’s why that I got the name and then the, the colors that I chose. The color purple is the color of addiction awareness, and it’s also the color of suicide awareness, and it’s also been my favorite color since I was three years old, so it was a really good fit.
Amanda: And then the red that I chose is because, that’s just kind of a shout out to the Red Cross for giving me that second chance at my life today and, and so, and that of kind of concludes my presentation and I appreciate you guys letting me be here. Thank you.
Ryan: Amanda’s, I have a question for you. How does a business find out or understand what parts of their training components that they need to have. So, for example, a, you know, small boutique retail establishment, how do they find out what things their team needs to know?
Amanda: So, I think the best way is, you know, we, we will come out and kind of go through what your needs are. We are full service like that. I have myself and then I’ve got one other person.
Amanda: We, we like to get our get, be hands on and be one-on-one and kind of do that personalized, you know, customization, customized for people. But yeah, we don’t have a problem going in and walking around your facility, helping you determine what kind of first aid supplies you need.
Amanda: You know, if you need an AED and so that’s kind of something that we do is, is help you figure that out. ‘Cause it’s, and it differs, you can have two of the almost the exact same businesses. And, you know, those customizations might be slightly different, but.
Kristen: I have a question and this is, it’s very specific, but I, I swear I saw recently or heard recently that in CPR the mouth to mouth is no longer a component of that. Did I read that right?
Amanda: So yes and no. So, they’re now, with COVID- so, OK, let me back up. So, what they did, like several years ago is, what they were finding out was people were calling into 911, and they were, the 911 operator would walk them through on how to do CPR, and what they were finding was that people weren’t willing to do the breaths, so that they wouldn’t do anything.
Amanda: So, there is a compression only CPR training that you can do. But, what we have learned, you know through science is, when you are doing compressions, when you’re doing CPR, your brain needs the oxygen, and the blood, to go to your brain.
Amanda: Now, when you’re doing the compressions that you’re getting the blood to your brain, but if you’re not doing the breaths, you’re not replenishing that oxygen. So eventually, it’s just, you’re just going to be pumping, you know, unoxygenated blood into the brain, so we find that it’s important to do both, but we will, we do teach that, if you’re not comfortable doing the breaths for whatever reason, and there could be a whole range of reasons why, then at least doing compressions is, is, is good enough.
Kristen: Are there, is there equipment that can help, like so, if you’re not like comfortable with the face to face on face like that, it’s like, kind of, 1 especially with COVID and everything, it’s like that’s a that’s a thing so, right?
Amanda: Right. No, we, I know we specifically train you how to use face Shields. We train you how to use pocket masks, and we train you to use bag masks. Typically, if you’re out in the real world, you’re probably going to get a face shield, which is just like this plastic piece that you put over that has a valve on it.
Amanda: Oftentimes, if you have access to an AED, you’re going to find that there’s a pocket mask in there, and that’s usually preferable, if you have that, and that’s going to provide you that protection you need.
Kristen: Thank you.
Ryan: Amanda, it sounded like you recommend that workplaces check or audit their first aid kits once a year. What are some of the other places that businesses should have first aid kits available? Like what, what are some of the locations you’d recommend?
Amanda: So typically, you see a lot of them, um, by the bathrooms and towards the front door, those are pretty, the common places that you would see it, somewhere that’s easily accessible to everybody. And I think bathrooms are a great place because everyone at some point goes to the bathroom so they’ll pass it and so they’ll remember where it’s at.
Ryan: That’s a good point, yes.
Kristen: You’ve used the term AED couple of times, what does that stand for?
Amanda: It stands for Automated Electrical, oh, Automated External Defibrillator.
Kristen: Oh, AED.
Amanda: So, yeah, AED.
Kristen : OK. Now I know what that is. Thank you.
Ryan: Does anyone else have questions for Amanda? Not all at once now. All right.
Ryan: Well, Amanda, can you tell everyone how they can reach out to you if they want to know more or get signed up for a class?
Amanda: We, we do run classes every week, about two or three a week.
Amanda: Uh, my, our website is arisesafety.com and then you can just find all the information you need on there, or you can reach out to me directly at [redacted].
Ryan: Well everyone, let’s give Amanda a hand for her presentation today.
