First Aid and Medical Manuals

This page has links for first aid and medical manuals. First aid, as taught in most courses (particularly those for driving licenses and as an office first-aider), are geared towards keeping an injured person alive and stabilized long enough for professionals to get there. In a typical urban scenario this can be as fast as 10-15 minutes.

But when sailing, even close to shore, the requirements are very different. There is no quick ambulance service. There’s no doctor or medic available at short notice. In the case of an emergency, one is left to one’s own devices and to whatever supplies are available on board.

The goal is the same, trying to keep someone alive or preventing deterioration of their condition until help arrives, or one can get to help. But the short timeframe for getting to a professional has now expanded from a matter of minutes or hours or days, and in dire cases, even for weeks.

Books

While I can’t recommend taking an outdoor first-aid course or a marine offshore course strongly enough, there’s a lot that can be done with a good medical cabinet and the information in the PDF files / books listed below. World Sailing has a list of specifications for their certification.

The first aid and medical manuals cover a wide gamut of possible injuries aboard. Some of the information such as dealing with gunshot trauma is less likely to be used, but the treating of injuries is well-covered and the Where There is no Doctor PDF files are great at helping to diagnose less obvious problems.