I took an emergency medical response course in college (~40 hours, all in-person, with a mix of verbal lessons and practical exercises in each class), and the most important thing I learned was that having memorized what to do in an emergency is not sufficient to get you to actually act. [ETA: Also, to call 911 in an emergency!]
I got 100% on the written test and still remember much of it to this day, but I am an absolutely terrible person to go to in an emergency because I panic and freeze every time. I’ve seen this play out in myself many times over my life, not only when witnessing real falls, car accidents, and other incidents, but even in the practical exam for the course. The exam involved diagnosing and describing the treatment for instructors acting out different emergency scenarios, and while there were other contributing factors, ultimately the fact remains that I got 0% on the practical and failed the course because I had a panic attack and had to leave.
Knowing how to do chest compressions on a dummy is better than not knowing how to do that. But doing chest compressions on a dummy is extremely different from being faced with an unresponsive person, knowing that they’ll die if you don’t act, and knowing that even if you successfully save their life, administering CPR means a good chance of breaking some of their ribs. It’s better to know how to drag someone out of a burning building than to not know, but dragging an unconscious person through a smoky inferno is going to be different than doing the same motion in a brightly-lit classroom with a conscious and cooperative partner, where there are no real stakes for messing up.
On balance I’m still glad I took the course. But I caution anyone against thinking that just studying flashcards is sufficient preparation for real-life emergencies — at the very least, take a class like Jason did, with some in-person practical components.
In addition to training, Leo Prinsloo mentions the value of “pre-visualization” in this video. Could work well with Anki cards—don’t just review the card, pre-visualize yourself putting the steps into action so it becomes automatic under pressure.
I took an emergency medical response course in college (~40 hours, all in-person, with a mix of verbal lessons and practical exercises in each class), and the most important thing I learned was that having memorized what to do in an emergency is not sufficient to get you to actually act. [ETA: Also, to call 911 in an emergency!]
I got 100% on the written test and still remember much of it to this day, but I am an absolutely terrible person to go to in an emergency because I panic and freeze every time. I’ve seen this play out in myself many times over my life, not only when witnessing real falls, car accidents, and other incidents, but even in the practical exam for the course. The exam involved diagnosing and describing the treatment for instructors acting out different emergency scenarios, and while there were other contributing factors, ultimately the fact remains that I got 0% on the practical and failed the course because I had a panic attack and had to leave.
Knowing how to do chest compressions on a dummy is better than not knowing how to do that. But doing chest compressions on a dummy is extremely different from being faced with an unresponsive person, knowing that they’ll die if you don’t act, and knowing that even if you successfully save their life, administering CPR means a good chance of breaking some of their ribs. It’s better to know how to drag someone out of a burning building than to not know, but dragging an unconscious person through a smoky inferno is going to be different than doing the same motion in a brightly-lit classroom with a conscious and cooperative partner, where there are no real stakes for messing up.
On balance I’m still glad I took the course. But I caution anyone against thinking that just studying flashcards is sufficient preparation for real-life emergencies — at the very least, take a class like Jason did, with some in-person practical components.
In addition to training, Leo Prinsloo mentions the value of “pre-visualization” in this video. Could work well with Anki cards—don’t just review the card, pre-visualize yourself putting the steps into action so it becomes automatic under pressure.