Tag Archives: call for help

First Aid Safety, General Safety Issues

WATCH OUT FOR SNEAKY SNAKES!

It’s really not their nature to be so sneaky, because snakes are usually as afraid of us as we are of them.  They like to hide in tall grassy areas and cool places.  If they are residing in outdoor workers’ terrain, it’s wise to know what they look like in order to identify the ones that are venomous.  Rattlesnakes, copperheads, cottonmouth/water mocassins, and coral snakes are common venomous reptiles.  

While playing on the high school golf team, our daughter was bitten twice by a rattlesnake, approximately 4 ½ feet long.  She was in the hospital for a week, with the possibility of surgery to relieve the swelling around the muscles.  Thankfully, surgery was not required, but physical therapy was, in order to straighten out her foot.   If you know anyone who has had this experience, it is certainly not a pleasant one. 

The American Association of Poison Control Centers receives reports of about 5,000 snakebites per year.  Some persons can have an allergic reaction to a bite from a non-venomous snake.  Outdoor workers should be extremely cautious while working in grassy areas, or in desert terrains, where rattlesnakes dwell.  Copperheads live in certain areas in our location, and they may hide in a bucket, under a step, or just about anywhere they choose, their color blending in with rocks. 

The symptoms of venomous bites vary by each individual, and may not show up at first.  Because the types of venom from various snakes are different, listed below are signs to watch for:

  • Severe localized pain;
  • Fainting;
  • Dizziness;
  • Blurred vision;
  • Fang marks in the skin and extreme swelling at the site of the bite;
  • Discoloration, redness and bruising;
  • Nausea and vomiting;
  • Breathing difficulties 

There should be a quick response for medical treatment; treat all snakebites as venomous, just to be on the safe side.  Get to an emergency room as soon as possible.  Antivenin, also called antivenom, is an antitoxin specific to the venom of a particular animal or insect.  Care should be given to test for an allergy to the antivenom before administering the drug. 

While waiting for medical assistance, wash the bite with soap and water.  Keep the bitten area lower than the heart.  Do not use a tourniquet.  Remove all watches, rings, and constrictive clothing, because the area is going to swell.  Try to keep the patient calm. 

When working outdoors, and especially in tall grass, wear thick leather boots and carry some sort of stick.  Whether you are an outdoor worker, or hiker, it is wise to keep a first aid kit with supplies handy.  Having communication with your supervisor or someone could possibly save your life, so keep your cell phone charged.  If you are working alone, or hunting or hiking, it is imperative that you have some sort of communication device with you at all times.

General Safety Issues

SAFETY ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW WHEN YOUR CAR BREAKS DOWN (GUEST POST)

It’s a scenario guaranteed to ruin your day. You’re driving down the highway, and all of a sudden your car stops working properly. Maybe you’ve got a blow-out, maybe it’s a broken belt, or maybe you have no idea what the problem is. Whatever the situation, when your car breaks down, you have to do some quick thinking to keep yourself safe.  However you intend to get help, there is a smart way to stay off the road and make sure nothing worse happens to you while you wait for a tow truck to arrive.  AAA estimates that over 1 million people are stranded on the highway during the summer months, with the number increasing to nearly 5 million in the winter.  Chances are, you will experience a breakdown at some point during the life of your car, so it pays to know the right steps to take.

Move Your Car off the Road

It’s very rare for your car to simply die in an instant. Most of the time you’ll be able to maneuver it to the side of the highway. If you’re traveling on surface streets and your engine shuts off at a stoplight, most of the time you can get a little more juice out of the  battery if you keep trying to restart it. As soon as you know there’s a problem, you should turn on your hazard lights, especially if you can’t move the car right away. Don’t get out of the vehicle in the middle of traffic. Remember that pedestrian fatalities make up nearly 15 percent of car crash deaths in the United States, many from situations where they tried to navigate busy streets and highways.

Be Wary of Strangers

After you’ve called for help, using OnStar or AAA or some other method, it’s a safe idea to keep your hazard lights on and even open the hood so that other drivers will know you’re having car trouble. But be careful with those who stop to help, especially if you’re traveling alone.  It’s always a good idea to stay in the car with the doors locked and simply tell them that help is on the way. For your safety, you should never leave your car, unless you know exactly where you are and how to reach a public place in a short amount of time.   Criminals can often target the drivers of broken-down vehicles, so it’s important you keep a cell phone on you at all times, and if it’s late at night, don’t hesitate to call the police. A patrol officer can find you and wait with you until the tow truck comes.

Don’t Try and Repair the Car

You might be familiar with car engines, but the chances are slim that you’ll be able to repair the problem without any tools or parts. And if you’re not sure what’s going on, there’s a chance you could damage the engine or make the situation worse. If your tire blows and you know how to put the spare on, be very careful. The tire could be on the side of the road that’s nearer to traffic, which makes trying to change it with cars speeding by at upwards of 70 miles per hour very dangerous. If you’ve never changed a tire before, you shouldn’t attempt it. It might seem possible to save time and hassle by doing things yourself instead of calling for roadside assistance, but actually the opposite is true.

Know Your Location

Many people break down on the highway during a road trip or can’t pinpoint their exact location for whatever reason. That’s why it’s important to always keep in mind what highway you’re on and which exits you have passed, and any signs that tell you which exits are coming up or how far you might be from the next town. If you have OnStar, they will be able to pinpoint your location, but many people don’t have access to that technology. So when you call for help, you have to be prepared to identify landmarks and estimate how long it has been since you left the house or got on the freeway. If you’re near a mile marker or a phone box, it can be easier for authorities to locate you in an emergency.

Experiencing a break down can be really scary, especially if you’ve never been through one before. The best way to handle any emergency is to be prepared before it happens, and if you have a realistic plan for what to do if you’re stranded on the highway, it’s a lot less likely that your safety will be in jeopardy. Stay calm and use common sense, and you can help protect yourself on the road and off of it.

Amy Thomson blogs for  Monkey Car Insurance.  Check out  her other articles at Twitter @VroomVroomAmy .

General Safety Issues

Benefits of 2-Way Radios (Guest Post)

Guest post by Charlie Curtis-Jones

Planning an event is never easy at the best of times. Perfect preparation may prevent pretty poor performance but all your best laid safety plans may go to waste when hundreds of people descend on one space and the chaos begins. It’s not always possible to prepare for every eventuality.

The life of an event planner may call for a cool head and organisational skills that border on obsessive but there are certainly a few tools out there which can make life somewhat easier. In recent years, the 2 way radio has become something of a life saver for those hoping to keep an event flowing and ensuring everything and everyone is in the right place at the right time.

The key benefit of having instant communication at an event, and large events in particular, is safety. Having tens, hundreds, or even thousands of people in one place at the same time can be difficult to manage and it is even harder to ensure everyone arrives safe and goes home in one piece.

This is an area where 2 way radios can really help. The primary benefit of instant communication across a whole site is emergency response to an incident. If your event is a large one, say a festival, wedding or party or club night – or any place where alcohol is served – then it is paramount you are able to keep on top of everything and limit any possibility that someone could get hurt or cause damage.

Being able to contact either an on-site medical team or designated first-aid personnel instantaneously could prove to be vital, and that is something the use of 2 way radios can grant you.

Coupled with the ability to call upon medical assistance straight away is the fact that with mobile communications you are able to co-ordinate more efficiently, and therefore even further restricting time that could be wasted if an event organiser and other parties are not constantly instantly contactable. The fact signal won’t ever drop out like it does on mobile phones further increases their benefit.

Improving your control of a site and in turn your control of events, is undoubtedly helped by increasing communication.

If for example, an event planner is charged with organising a large wedding then it is not only important to make sure guests are in the right place and ready to move on to the venue or to the dining area to keep the day running smoothly to ensure everyone has the best day possible, but to also keep everyone safe.

If, say, caterers are setting up a dining area with cutlery, glasses and crockery and guests are coming in and out of the area then an accident is a real possibility.

Through communicating across a large space, an event organiser can ensure every person at the venue is away from the hustle and bustle and enjoying themselves while behind the scenes everything is set up seamlessly to ensure they have a day to remember for all the right reasons.

Before an event, those charged with organising it will put hours of planning into making sure everything runs smoothly across the day. Having the right communication device can be paramount in ensuring that these well laid plans are administered and adhered to ensure the safety of visitors and guests at any event.

Guest post by Charlie Curtis-Jones who writes for Brentwood Communications, a leading UK supplier of digital and analogue two way radio communication equipment.