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Developing a First Aid Emergency Action Plan—Assess, Alert, and Attend

This is an excerpt from Sport First Aid-6th Edition by Robb S. Rehberg.

Emergency medical situations may arise at any time during an activity or sport event, so the sport first aid team must be prepared. In order to provide optimal care to sports participants in an emergency or life-threatening situation, expedient action is required. Developing and implementing an emergency action plan (EAP) ensures that you are prepared to respond when a participant suddenly needs your help and that they receive the best possible care.

Effective management of emergencies requires proper planning. Preparation is the key to ensuring that appropriate resources and procedures exist. Preparation should begin well in advance of the sport season, and it should be dynamic in nature. Athletic organizations have a duty to develop an EAP that can be implemented immediately when necessary and to provide appropriate standards of emergency care to all sports participants.

Formulating an EAP specific to sports has many prerequisites, including proper education and training of individuals, development of appropriate first aid procedures for events, maintenance of appropriate medical emergency equipment and supplies, and utilization of appropriate medical emergency personnel. Through careful preparticipation physical screenings, adequate medical coverage, safe practice and training techniques, and other safety avenues, some potential emergencies may be averted. However, accidents and injuries are inherent to participation in sports, and proper preparation on the part of the sport first aid team should enable each emergency to be managed appropriately.

Developing the medical EAP must take many components into account, such as what personnel will be involved, what rules will be followed, what equipment will be available, where the arena for the contest or practice will be located, when the plan will be rehearsed, how the plan will be evaluated, and what the education processes will be for the stakeholders of the EAP. The person in charge of developing the medical EAP should ensure that all involved parties are part of the planning process. The EAP must provide detailed instructions for who will act, what actions should be taken, and how and where they will be taken.

The medical EAP should be readily available to all the members of the athletic health care team at each athletic venue. When visiting teams are coming to a venue, they, too, should be provided with a copy of the medical EAP. A separate venue-specific EAP should be developed for each venue, complete with detailed instructions and information including the address of the venue, a description of the location of emergency equipment, communication methods (cell phone, radios, landline telephones), a list of emergency telephones, a list of emergency hand signals (for use on the field), and detailed instructions for staff and emergency care personnel.

A response plan should lead the athletic health care team through conducting a thorough evaluation of an injured athlete, activating the emergency medical system (EMS), and providing effective first aid. To get started on creating your EAP, use the following guide (adapted from American Safety & Health Institute 2015):

• Assess—How do I evaluate the scene and the injured athlete?
• Alert—How do I activate the EMS?
• Attend—How will first aid care be provided?

Assess

First, your plan needs to specify how you will evaluate an injured athlete. This plan should address issues such as

• what to do first when you arrive at an injured athlete’s side,
• how to evaluate the safety at the scene for the injured athlete, and
• steps for evaluating responsive and unresponsive athletes.

Chapters 4 and 5 provide more detailed guidelines for evaluating injuries and illnesses.

Alert

Next, your plan should indicate how to activate the EMS. If medical personnel are not present, how do you send for medical assistance while evaluating and providing first aid care to an athlete? To help the response go more smoothly in the event of a health emergency, you should develop a plan, before the season begins, for activating the EMS. Here’s an example of an effective step-by-step approach:

1. Delegate the responsibility of seeking medical help. Choose a person who is calm and responsible. It can be an assistant coach, a parent, or an athlete. Make sure that this person is available during every practice and game.
2. Make a list of emergency phone numbers. Save a digital copy of the list in your mobile phone, and put a printed copy in your first aid kit to take to every practice and game. Include the following phone numbers:
   • Rescue unit
   • Hospital
   • Team physician (if applicable)
   • Police
   • Fire department
   Before traveling to an away game, talk to the host coaches about emergency medical services.
3. Take each athlete’s emergency information card to every practice and game. This information is especially important if an athlete is unresponsive and unable to tell you who you should contact or to give you that person’s phone number.
4. Give an emergency response card to the contact person calling for emergency assistance. It will prompt the caller to provide critical information to the emergency care staff. It will also help calm the caller by providing everything they need to communicate to emergency personnel. Figure 2.6 provides a sample emergency response card.
5. Complete an injury report, and keep it on file for any injury that occurs. This form should provide the information requested in the sample shown in figure 2.7.

Attend

Finally, your plan needs to indicate how first aid care will be provided. If medical personnel are present at the time of the injury, assist them as needed while they assume the care of the injured athlete. If medical personnel are not present, provide first aid care to the extent of your qualifications. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 cover first aid basics and the proper way to move an injured athlete. Part II discusses care of specific injuries.

More Excerpts From Sport First Aid-6th Edition

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