Time is your best friend in a crisis, or Time is your worst enemy. The sooner an allergic reaction is treated, the better the outcome. The faster a bleeding injury is stopped, the better the outcome. The faster CPR is given, the better the outcome. 

There’s something called the Chain of Survival that’s used to show the various elements involved in providing care for someone with a traumatic injury or medical illness, and the importance of your role in that chain. One broken link can have catastrophic consequences.

While different situations may have additional or different links in their chain, for our purposes the Chain of Survival includes:

• Early Recognition of a medical emergency or traumatic injury
• Immediate First Aid while awaiting professional care
• Rapid use of an AED (Automatic External Device), when appropriate
• Rapid Arrival of professional care by trained EMT’s or Paramedics
• Advanced Life-Support measures within a hospital setting

Early Recognition, Immediate First Aid, and the Rapid use of an AED are where you come in, and as is to some degree the Rapid Arrival of EMS.  You have control over each of those “links” in the Chain of Survival.

Early Recognition: Ignoring warning signs and delaying medical help can sometimes be of minor concern, in others it may be a life-threatening delay.  If in doubt, seek help!  Again, time is either your best friend or worst enemy in any crisis situation.

Immediate First Aid : Knowing what to do in those early minutes before professional help arrives, be it basic bandaging, caring for a child who’s fallen, a choking emergency, or something much worse requiring CPR or Rescue Breathing, is your responsibility to your child and often the most important link in the Pediatric Chain of Survival.

Rapid use of an AED: Adults need CPR hundreds of times more often than a child and children typically suffer from a respiratory crisis (choking, drowning…) rather than a cardiac event.  But when needed, an AED used for cardiac arrest can dramatically improve the odds of survival.

Rapid Arrival of professional care: Everyone, including baby-sitters and grand-parents, must know exactly where you live and the fastest way to your home (cross-streets, etc).  Sending someone out to the street to wave them down can save precious minutes.  Putting away the dog, holding doors open, clearing a wide path to your child, every minute saved increases the odds of survival in a life-threatening situation.

Advanced Life-Support Measures: Sometimes even the most experienced of Paramedics can’t provide the care a child might need to survive.  Getting them to a hospital rapidly for ALS (Advanced Life Support) care is a vital link in the Chain of Survival. And while this is the responsibility of EMS, it also goes towards your knowing your local emergency numbers and providing clear directions to your home, child-care center, or wherever your child is at that moment of need.

Calling EMS for any life-threatening situation is of course necessary, but there are other less-critical situations where you may want to or need to drive your child to an ER or Urgent Care. Do you know where the nearest Urgent Care facilities are, and what their operating hours are?  Do you have their medical records handy to take with you? Some hospitals have dedicated emergency departments for Pediatric patients – does yours?  

There’s much you can do to shorten the time between an injury or illness and professional medical care, and therefore minimize a child’s suffering or trauma. Being prepared, having the first aid supplies needed on hand, and knowing what to do in the first few minutes can literally be the difference between life and death.