What is First Aid?

First Aid is just that--the aid give first, the first help, or the immediate care and help given to someone who is hurt or suddenly ill. First aid--the help given before the victim can receive professional medical help--could prevent infection and serious loss of blood. It could save a limb or even a life.

Ten-year-old John Church was running around a neighbor’s home when he accidentally stuck his right arm through a garage window. Covered with blood and running down the driveway, he was spotted by Scout Patrick Worth. Patrick ran to him, telling a friend to call an ambulance. Patrick used a T-shirt to apply direct pressure to the severe laceration of the upper arm, treated the other wounds on John’s face, and calmed him. Patrick’s clear-headed action and excellent use of first-aid techniques he learned in Scouting saved John from further injury or perhaps death. He was awarded the Medal of Merit by the National Court of Honor, Boy Scouts of America, for his actions.

Files of the Boy Scouts of America are filled with true stories of Scouts in action-- Scouts who have saved lives because they were prepared and gave first aid when it was desperately needed.

First aid may not always be this dramatic. It might be only kind words or a drink of water for an accident victim or a telephone call to the nearest first-aid squad or emergency medical service (EMS) unit. Or it could be rescue breathing, splinting a fractured arm, or bandaging a serious wound.