S1E73 - Bex on Basic First Aid for Emergencies

Episode Summary

Bex and Inmn talk about first aid and why it's super important for everyone to know a little. They talk about different trainings you can take, different situations you might need to know first aid for, what the world of street medics is like, and when to seek higher levels of care. They also talk about a really helpful zine by Riot Medicine called Basic First Aid for Emergencies.

Host Info

Inmn can be found on Instagram @shadowtail.artificery.

Guest Info

Bex can be found nowhere. However, Riot Medicine, the writers of Basic First Aid for Emergencies, can be found at riotmedicine.net where you can find a lot more resources on learning about first aid, and responding to emergencies and all sorts of situations. You can read Basic First Aid for Emergencies here.

Publisher Info

This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness.

Transcript

Live Like the World is Dying: Bex on First Aid

Inmn Hello, and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm your host Inmn Neruin and I used to them pronouns. This week we're talking about something super important that we've covered in bits and pieces in other episodes and that is first aid. This episode was used on our other podcast that I host called Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. On that podcast we have a voice actor narrate our monthly zine and I do an interview with the author. This month we chose to use our zine Basic First Aid for Emergencies by Riot medicine and invited our friend Bex to talk about first aid. Bex is not the author of the zine but does know a lot about first aid. And since this is a very much a Live Like the World is Dying topic, we decided to feature it over here. Content warning, we talked about blood and bodies. I mean, the precious light that fills our bodies. There's no blood in us. Bex has been on Live Like the World is Dying before to talk about treating gunshot wounds and it was one of the first episodes. So, go back and listen to that one if you haven't already. But first, we are a proud member of the Channel Zero Network. And here is a jingle from another show on that network. Doo doo doo doo.

Inmn Real quick. We just launched a Kickstarter for Penumbra City, the TTRPG that we've been writing--we being Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. The Kickstarter launched on June 1st, which might have been yesterday or might have been a long time ago. Watch the game that inspired the short story Confession to a Dead Man come to life. We also have an actual play recording of us playing that game that just came out on this feed right before this episode. So give it a listen. And check out the Kickstarter at kickstarter.com/projects/penumbra-city/penumbra-city. Find your friends. Kill the God King.

Inmn And we're back. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today and for talking.

Bex Woo!

Inmn And for talking to us about this thing that is just so important and something that we will...a topic that we absolutely can't cover in a single podcast episode but we're gonna try to get through the basics of. Would you like to introduce yourself and just tell us a little bit about your background in first aid and like responding to emergencies?

Bex Yeah, my name is Bex, thanks so much for having me on the podcast. Stoked to be here. I first got involved with doing first aid or like emergency medical response in 2010 when I took my first street medic training with the Rosehip [Collective] medics out of Portland. Previous to that I, you know, was like a youth lifeguard and things like that. But, I feel like that's that training in 2010 kind of kicked me off on a different path and I've been sort of running as a street medic since then and running medic trainings and street medic trainings for the last 10 years. And, now work professionally doing wilderness first aid trainings as well. I'm having...I'm not like an expert medical practitioner, but I do have a bit of experience and I'm extremely passionate about education and sharing knowledge and making this skill set accessible to folks who are interested in it.

Inmn Yeah, yeah. And it's funny because I feel like people who...like there are a lot of people who are like, extreme experts in a field or something, but are like, maybe not as excited about teaching or education or finding ways to introduce people to those worlds as much. So.

Bex Yeah, and especially in the sort of medical industrial complex, I feel like it's a place where people often feel extremely alienated both from their own bodies and also from being able to access information about how to take care of themselves or take care of people around them. And, I feel like trying to break that down and make that...change emergency medical response from something that is, like, highly specialized and professionalized to something that is available and accessible for everyone is tight.

Inmn Yeah, yeah, it is a very, very cool thing. And, you know, that's part of what this zine is supposed to do, it's supposed to kind of break down the barriers to just, you know, people who have no medical training to have some kind of foothold in responding to different emergencies. But to kind of back up from that--although listeners, we are probably not going to like go through this zine, page by page in this interview because that would, one, take way more time than we have on this podcast to talk about all the topics and, two, because it is possibly not the best way to learn about the minutiae of these topics. So, we're gonna focus mostly on talking about what first aid is and why it's important and how you can learn more about it outside of an hour long podcast. But, Bex, Could you could you tell us kind of like what...what is first aid? And what is kind of the scope of first aid?

Bex Yeah, the like, general gist of first aid is: it's the very first care or intervention that someone receives, or gives to themselves when a illness or injury occurs. So, this is usually what's happening by a layperson, someone who's not a professional, and is happening in, you know, where the injury or illness is happening rather then in a clinical setting. And this can range from the everyday first day that we give ourselves at home, like, "Oh, I got a cut. I'm gonna wash it out in the kitchen sink and put a band-aid on it." Or it could also be in a protest scenario or it could be in a wilderness scenario or it could be anywhere. Anywhere there are people doing things there is first aid happening.

Inmn Cool. That is a very great explanation for first aid. And, for folks who are kind of like less knowledgeable--maybe they're hearing these phrases for the first time--what is a street medic? And what do street medics do?

Bex What do street medics do. [inflected