Cypress County offering free First Aid course to residents as part of AHS grant funding

By ANNA SMITH Local Journalism Initiative on October 18, 2024.

Thanks to the aid of grant funding from Alberta Health Services, Cypress County is offering a free course in First Aid to residents.

Starting last year, AHS began giving out grants to fire departments to support any kind of medical training, said Jason Linton, director of emergency services at Cypress Country. The county chose to use part of the funding to deliver these lessons to the public as well as increasing its own staff training.

“Our No. 1 call for emergency services for Cypress County is medical first response to support EMS,” said Linton. Often, fire services are the first on the scene, providing medical aid until the ambulance arrives.

However, says Linton, many calls with the best outcomes are those in which family members have started CPR or attempted some preliminary health care before fire services arrives.

“For rural residents, it’s important to have some First Aid, or, you know, some type of emergency care before both we and EMS get there. So we thought of doing a pilot project to do a family first aid course,” said Linton.

This non-certified course will teach attendees the basics of emergency aid, such as how to perform CPR, deal with choking and some basic injury care, among others. The point of the course is to provide preliminary skills to help family members until help with advanced training and equipment can arrive.

The course, which runs from 9 a.m. to noon on Nov. 2, is free to attend, but must be registered for. A link to register can be found on the Cypress County Fire Services website, or by calling Fire Services administration to be signed up manually.

All registrations must happen before Oct. 25.

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