Letter from Chair

As we look back at 2006, let us remember all the great strides that ECSI has made over the past year. I want to especially thank each instructor and coordinator who supported our organization this past year, making it stronger each day. ECSI is now solidly recognized as an international emergency care training organization thanks to the consistent support of many like you. As I conclude my term as the National Advisory Council Chair, I want to wish each of you a very happy and prosperous 2007. I am confident that 2007 will prove to be an even better year for our growing organization. On behalf of the entire 2006 Advisory Council, we look forward to seeing great things in 2007 as we assume our positions as National Faculty!

Regards,

Hudson Garrett Jr.
2006 National Advisory Chairperson

On behalf of the 2007 National Advisory Council members, it is my pleasure to serve as chairperson for this year's group. Like the former Councils, this one is comprised of many leaders from our field. These leaders bring with them substantial experience in operating training programs in local, national, and international communities. I would like to introduce this year’s members:

As we move into 2007, I would like to remind each of you that a student’s opportunity to "experience the ECSI difference" begins with you. Whether you teach one class per month or several classes daily, remember that we are all champions of ECSI and should be proud of our organization. We all have unique teaching styles and preferences, but here are a few points that we should remember while training others:

The Big Picture

2006 closed as an excellent year of growth for ECSI. Now with over 1200 Educational Centers worldwide, we have begun to seek national contracts and expand our presence among school districts and public safety providers.

We are pleased to introduce Mr. Brian Rooney, who will oversee Marketing and Regulatory Affairs for ECSI. Brian is already hard at work preparing the new ECSI catalog that will publish this March, just in time for distribution at EMS Today. If you plan to attend, visit us at booth number 466 to pick up your copy. If you have any questions about regulatory or approval issues, please contact Brian at BRooney@ECSInstitute.org.

Winter Safety: Ice and Cold Water Safety
Submitted by Michael McLeieer

Each winter we learn of someone falling through ice, or falling into a river because they believed it was frozen solid and safe enough to travel across. The result is often deadly. These preventable accidents happening each and every day can be avoided by using common sense. Education plays an important part in avoiding such accidents, and parents should take the time to teach children about the dangers of thin ice and the effects of cold water on the body.

According to the U.S. Coast Guard, each year there are over 7000 drownings and 20,000 near-drownings in the United States. Over half of these incidents occur in cold water: people are injured from exposure; skaters and ice fisherman fall through the ice; and boaters and canoeists overturn their crafts.

To help ensure a safe winter season, here is some information to remember when venturing near or on frozen bodies of water.

How thick is "safe" ice?

How cold is "cold" water?

Any water that is cooler than body temperature (98.6°F) is by definition cold water. Cold water drains away body heat 25-30 times faster than air. Cold water does not have to be icy; it just has to be colder than you are to cause hypothermia. The lower the temperature of the water, the faster the onset of hypothermia.

What is Hypothermia?

Hypothermia is the excessive lowering of body temperature. A drop in core body temperature below 95 degrees Fahrenheit causes shivering, confusion, loss of muscle strength, and if not treated and reversed, hypothermia leads to unconsciousness and death. Experts estimate that half of all drowning victims die from the fatal effects of hypothermia, not the fatal effects from water-filled lungs.

Safety Tips

Michael McLeieer
Firefighter, EMT-FR, Certified Public Fire & Life Safety Educator
President, E.S.C.A.P.E., Inc.
www.escapeinc.org
1-800-707-1718

E.S.C.A.P.E. stands for Education Showing Children Awareness and Procedures for Evacuations. It is a non-profit community agency that works full time to educate children and families about fire prevention and life safety, including CPR and First Aid instruction in the Great Lakes and New England regions.

Education Center Spotlight
Submitted by Brad Weilbrenner

Rockingham Ambulance became an ECSI Educational Center to provide our employees, clients, and the general public with quality training programs. We became an ECSI Educational Center in June of 2005 with the intent of streamlining our education efforts to our clients, mainly CPR. One of the most difficult tasks was convincing people that the ECSI programs met the same guidelines as the other well-known, established programs. As we began to show our clients the high quality of the textbooks and the no non-sense content of each program, they became more and more interested.

One of the best advantages to becoming an ECSI Educational Center is the ability to allow each facility to have their own instructors. This was accomplished by conducting an Instructor Development Course (IDC), which was graciously hosted by one of our clients at no charge to the instructor candidate or the client. Our first IDC produced seven very eager instructors who have already taught a number of CPR courses at their respective facilities. Because we have a very good working relationship with our clients, classes are able to be conducted with minimal preparation. Here is how it works:

Employees also benefit from our being an ECSI Educational Center. We are able to give ECSI reciprocity to our employees who are already instructors for other programs. After an orientation to the ECSI program, they are then able to teach ECSI's high quality programs. We are also able to conduct courses in-house and eliminate the delay in receiving cards. We are currently preparing to conduct another IDC which looks to have the same great success as our first one. Rockingham has offered the Babysitter Lessons and Safety Training (BLAST!) program to the community at no charge. These offerings have become such a success that we needed to create a waiting list!

We have found ECSI to be a pleasure to deal with. They always welcome suggestions and feedback and offer a wide range of programs that allow us to better serve our employees, clients, and the general public. The courses that we have offered to date include: Professional CPR; Adult, Child, and Infant CPR/AED; Wilderness First Aid; and Babysitter Lessons and Safety Training. We have plans to expand our program offerings in 2007, and are looking forward to our continued relationship with ECSI for many years to come.

Respectfully Submitted,

Brad D. Weilbrenner, NREMT-P
Education Center Coordinator
Rockingham Regional Ambulance
Nashua, NH

Medical Journal Reviews
Submitted by Alton Thygerson

Interesting News Reports

Madison, WI – The FBI will review evidence in the drowning deaths of eight young men in La Crosse-area rivers over the past nine years. All disappeared from taverns in the college town, and police have said they believe all eight were drunk and simply fell in.
Source: Associated Press, November 1, 2006

Pasadena, CA – A 62-year-old woman is recovering from a broken neck after a shopping cart that had been hoisted up a supermarket's flagpole fell on her. She untied the flagpole rope and the cart plunged to the ground. Police said they believe the incident was meant to be a prank.
Source: Associated Press, November 3, 2006

Indianapolis, IN – A 10-year-old girl bitten by a bat died of rabies. She was bitten in June, hospitalized in early October, and died on November 2nd. Rabies is extremely rare in humans, causing only one or two deaths a year in the U.S. It is caused by a virus that attacks the brain and spinal cord and is most often spread by the bite of a rabid animal, such as a bat. Once symptoms appear, the disease is almost always fatal.
Source: Associated Press, November 3, 2006

Grand Canyon National Park, AZ – A man running on a trail at Grand Canyon National Park suffered an ankle injury and scrapes and bruises in a run-in with a bull elk. The man saw the elk acting aggressively so he headed off the trail into the woods. The elk pursued him and knocked him down.
Source: Associate Press, September 21, 2006

New London, WI – A 12-year-old boy found buried in sand died. The boy was practicing snowboarding on a sand hill when he fell, causing an avalanche of sand to cover him.
Source: Associated Press, September 20, 2006

Ossian, IN – A teen who crashed her SUV into a hollow tree stirred up tens of thousands of bees that sent her, a neighbor, and eight emergency responders to the hospital. The teen driver suffered broken legs and multiple bee stings. By the time rescuers had arrived at the scene, a cloud of bees had engulfed the car. Firefighters in full safety gear had to douse the bees with water and foam while they tried to free the driver. The volunteer fire chief was stung at least 50 times.
Source: Associated Press, August 4, 2006

St. Paul, MN – A 10-year-old girl died from eating poisonous mushrooms picked by a relative. The girl was among seven people from two Hmong families who were hospitalized. The others recovered. The mushrooms appeared similar to edible ones that grow in Southeast Asia, but were a toxic variety known as Eastern American Destroying Angels.
Source: Associated Press, September 27, 2006

Chatham, MA – In the back of a speeding ambulance, a paramedic delivered a baby girl—his own daughter. He was on duty when his wife called to say she was having contractions.
Source: Associated Press, August 25, 2006

Medical Journal Articles

One in Five AEDs Recalled

Harvard Medical School researchers found that during the past decade, one in five automated external defibrillators were recalled because of the potential for malfunction, and devices that failed were associated with 370 deaths. But the devices have saved tens of thousands of lives, and the benefits out weigh the risk of malfunctions. The study underscores the importance of properly maintaining the AEDs, which deliver a shock to restore a normal heart rhythm.
Source: Journal of the American Medical Association. 2006 Aug 9;296(6):655-60.

Yellow Jackets Have a Variety of Stings

The severity of a yellow jacket sting varies by species, not by the lateness of the season as has long been supposed. After repeatedly stinging 111 allergic volunteers, a research team reported that 41% of highly allergic volunteers reliably had bad reactions to one yellow jacket species, Vespula maculifrons. Only 15% of those volunteers had bad reactions from Vespula germanica, the other common East Coast yellow jackets. The two species look very much alike.
Source: Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. 2006 Mar; 117(3):670-5.

Goodbye Ipecac

As recently as the late 1980s, syrup of ipecac was frequently administered to both adults and children to induce gastric decontamination after ingestion of real or potential toxins within the setting of the ED. Beginning in the early 1990s, concern was raised over the safety and effectiveness for use of ipecac in the ED. The American Academy of Pediatrics and other groups no longer endorse the use of ipecac outside the hospital setting.
Source: The American Journal of Emergency Medicine. 2006 October: 24(6):759-761.

Putting Together a Home First Aid Kit

You should stock the items below in your kit which you can take with you when traveling. When you use-up an item, replace it. Check the kit every few months to make sure medications haven't expired. Dump expired drugs down the drain or garbage disposal.

Where should I keep my kit?

Many people store their first-aid kit in their bathroom medicine cabinet, but humidity and heat from the shower can break down the medications. Instead, store it in a cool, dry, dark kitchen cabinet or bedroom closet. If you have children, place it high on a shelf behind a locked door.

Anything else I should know?

Source: Postgraduate Medicine. 2006. Jul/Aug:119(2):100.

Hip Pads for the Elderly

Hip fractures are a major threat to the health and well-being of older adults. Due to an increasing population, increasing life expectancy, and increasing susceptibility, the global incidence of hip fracture is expected to exceed 6 million by 2050. In most cases, the immediate cause of hip fracture is a sideways fall with a direct impact to the greater trochanter of the proximal femur. Although surgery can repair or replace hips, there is 30% 1-year post-surgery mortality and 40% of surviving patients do not return to pre-fracture functioning. Clearly prevention is the best option. One approach to hip fracture prevention is physically shielding the upper trochanter with hip protectors (HPs), soft padding, or hard shell. HPs are a relatively new innovation, although prototypes have been around for decades. They are intended to protect the hip bones during a fall by diminishing the force transferred to the proximal femur. Absorbing some of the force of the fall or shunting the energy of the impact away from the greater trochanter to the surrounding soft tissues, or both accomplishes this. Adoption of HP use, however, has been slow, especially in the United States.
Source: Journal of Safety Research. 2006:37(4):421-424.

Upcoming Conferences for ECSI/Jones and Bartlett Publishers

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