Ready for any emergency!
06/29/2015
This has been the year for first aid training for my family. Along with renewing CPR and First Aid training in January, my girls (teenagers now!) and I attended an amazing Mental Health First Aid course this month put on by Youth and Shelter Services here in Ames. I cannot say enough positive things about that unique training in helping people cope and get help in anguishing situations. If the opportunity comes around again, I highly recommend it. If that wasn’t enough, we topped off our education with a full weekend course of Red Cross Wilderness First Aid training with our Girl Scout troop. It feels like we should be prepared for anything! I just hope some of it sticks in those quick retrieval files in our brains.
After all of that preparation, our Girl Scouts had a wonderfully fun and “uneventful” trip (at least as far as our emergency training went!) canoeing in the Boundary Waters last week. Knowing what to do when camping in lightning storms did come in handy!
Being prepared as much as possible ahead of time can definitely make a difference in a real emergency and helps with that “remain calm” part as well. Here is a link to detailed emergency planning info for animals:
AVMA Animal Emergency Care
As I try to reiterate often, most true emergencies need more than I can offer with a housecall visit.
The most important thing for us here in Ames is to keep the emergency number handy for the Iowa State Vet College which is open 24 hours: 515-294-4900