This blog post is from Andrew MacPherson, MD
Member, American Red Cross Scientific Advisory Council

Pop Quiz! Name those Olympic injury owners (answers at the bottom):

1) Which US snowboarder separated her shoulder while practicing her moves on the half pipe?
2) Who was hit by a speeding bobsled?
3) What famous Russian skater pulled out of the men’s competition because of severe back pain?

You may not be an Olympic athlete, but like me, you are inspired by them to get moving in our winter wonderland. This can often lead to injuries. Do you know all you need to keep safe?

Here are my top tips for preventing common winter injuries.

1. Runners. You have it extra tough trying to stay warm and dry without getting bogged down. Whether you are a casual jogger or elite marathoner, when you run in winter weather wear layered lightweight clothing; it keeps you warmer than a single heavy coat. Moisture-wicking layers can keep you dry and moving when the temperature drops.

2. Skis and Skates. Winter sports mean skiing, snowboarding, skating or ice hockey, and enthusiasts have a range of proper safety equipment designed for protection. But it only works if you wear it, so never skimp on recommended gear – especially helmets and goggles.

3. Off-road. If you prefer your activities off the beaten track, always think obstacles: snow-covered trees and rocks can really ruin your day. Outdoor ice skaters should be sure their lake is frozen safely solid by consulting local official sources. Most importantly, let someone know where you’ll be and when to expect you back for that cup of hot chocolate.

4. Brrrrrr. When you work up that outdoor sweat, it’s easy to forget that Jack Frost is still ready to bite. Know the signs of frostbite – numbness, flushed gray, white, blue or yellow skin discoloration or a waxy feeling – and get inside and get help. If you are feeling confused, dizzy, exhausted or experience severe shivering, those are signs of hypothermia and it’s time get medical attention pronto.

5. Sunblock. Just because it is cold doesn’t mean it isn’t sunny! Sunlight can reflect off the snow and getting sunburn can be faster than on the beach. Wear a good activity-proof sunblock whenever you are active outside.

Still have questions? The Red Cross has a great, FREE First Aid app that covers all the basics. Download it from Apple iTunes or Google Play Store or go to the Red Cross mobile apps page.

Answers
1) Arielle Gold
2) An Sochi bobsled track worker was hit by a bobsled
3) Evgeni Plushenko

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Many of us who have taken a Red Cross CPR/First Aid class always hope we never have to put our training to work. If we do, it usually means something bad just happened.

According to a Red Cross survey, 1 in 4 Americans have been in a situation where someone needed CPR. If there’s approximately 317 million people in the U.S. that’s a LOT of people who have witnessed a potentially life-threatening situation.

Such a situation unfolded yesterday on the side of a highway in Florida…Pamela Rauseo’s nephew Sebastian suddenly stopped breathing while he was in his car seat…and they were in the middle of a traffic jam.

Emergency situations like this rarely give you warning that they’re about to happen or happen somewhere where you can get immediate help. However, being trained in First Aid and CPR can greatly help you respond to the situation, which in turn, gives the person being helped a much better chance of surviving. Thankfully, Pamela jumped into action, called for help, and CPR was being performed shortly thereafter. The latest reports indicate that Sebastian is in stable condition.

We wish Pamela’s family all the best, and would like to encourage you to consider taking a Red Cross CPR course – you never know who’s life you may have to save, or where you will have to save it, but having the skills and knowledge of how to respond will help you feel much better equipped to help.

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By Deborah Mandell, VMD
Member, American Red Cross Scientific Advisory Council

Pop Quiz*

1. Your dog tipped over a bottle of antifreeze in the garage and is standing in a puddle of liquid. Is there anything to worry about?
2. Your cat jumps onto the counter, knocks over the Valentine’s Day roses and lands in the broken glass. Her paw starts bleeding. What do you do?
3. Your dog won’t stop licking his paws after playing in the snow. What should you do?

Hi! I’m Dr. Deborah Mandell. I helped develop the new American Red Cross Pet First Aid App, and also the Dog and Cat First Aid guides and Pet First Aid course.

Loving your furry friends means knowing what to do in an emergency. Today is Love Your Pet Day. I’m celebrating with Sonewmana (we call her Mana), Polly and Ranger (Power Ranger Gio, the brown ranger!) and it’s the perfect time to make sure you know how to recognize and handle a pet emergency.

Whether it’s a common injury or contact with a pet-poisonous substance, the American Red Cross Pet First Aid course will give you key first aid guidance and need-to-know information. The course is available in some areas and allows owners to practice treating a cardiac or breathing emergency.

The Red Cross Pet First Aid app is a great go-to source for important pet care information too. The app walks you through more than 25 common emergency medical situations for cats and dogs and includes how to perform CPR with the newest guidelines and how to care for choking. It covers how to include your pet in your emergency and disaster preparedness planning and is loaded with useful information on routine pet care, too.

You can get the app in the Apple iTunes or Google Play Store or go to the Red Cross mobile apps page.

Don’t let Love Your Pet Day go by without making sure your love includes pet first aid.

*Answers
1. Antifreeze can be deadly if your dog licked it. Take your dog to a veterinarian immediately. An antidote can be started if caught early, if not, antifreeze can be fatal.
2. Remove any embedded objects. Clean the wound with a warm water/Epson salt solution. Apply gauze and direct pressure until bleeding stops. If blood soaks through the first gauze, place another gauze on top, do not remove first gauze. You can place a light bandage on the paw and take your cat to the vet.
3. Puppy’s paws might be irritated from ice balls or de-icing chemicals. Gently wash his paws, including in between the toes, with warm water. Check for any cuts or wounds. Always clean your dog’s paws when he comes inside. Use pet friendly salt or de-icing products.

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This post is from Winnie Romeril, who is deployed to the Philippines to help with the Red Cross relief efforts following Typhoon Haiyan

Today I sat with Tito Aure and Lady B. Tito is a university professor who sits on the local Red Cross board and acts as their MC at important events, such as today’s visit of Richard Gordon, Chairman of the Philippine National Red Cross. The microphone Tito grips is repaired with cellophane tape and the cord is woven through his fingers in a special pattern, the only way it will work. “This microphone is a survivor of Yolanda, just like us,” he flashes a wry smile, using the name Philippinos call last November’s killer-storm Typhoon Haiyan.

Tito sent his family to Manila before Yolanda hit. He stayed in Tacloban, working late into the night pre-landfall with hundreds of other Red Cross volunteers packaging food and other relief items for distribution post-landfall. “We knew it was a big storm coming, but we did not understand this term ‘storm surge.’ It’s even hard for us to say, ‘storm surge,’” he slowly enunciates.

“Lady B” as she is known on the air, a.k.a. Evelyn Baccol, owns a local TV channel in Tacloban, Anaton Channel 7, AAC-24. She quickly agrees about the confusing term. “We reported on the storm surge, but no one really understood how it would look. If they had explained to us that it would be like a tidal wave or a tsunami, we would have reported it that way. Then the people would have understood and moved inland. Lives could have been saved.” The storm death toll stands at 6,200 with 1,785 still missing.

Lady B lost all her possessions in the storm- in her home and, it seems more importantly to her, at her office, including all her equipment for broadcasting, interviewing and video recording. She doesn’t talk about the night Yolanda made landfall. I can only imagine why. Harrowing accounts of narrowly escaping from fast-rising ocean waters in your living room and treading water in the dark while your neighbors corpses float by are practically commonplace here in Tacloban. “I was so badly traumatized I could not report on the situation.” She left the city for a while to stay with her parents in Samar, the island to the north. “I am back now, but I still go home often. Having family is so comforting,” she says holding a professional grade camera in one hand, a gift from her daughter who works in Oklahoma.

I ask, “May I take a photo? I want my friends to meet you.”

They lean in for the shot. A pink banner in solidarity with Tacloban from Red Cross chapters across the Philippines serves as a backdrop. “Tell them we are smiling, not like victims, but as survivors. We have survived and we will rebuild,” Tito says. “Please tell everyone you talk to how grateful we are for their prayers, support, every little show of solidarity has meant so much to us. Thank them all.”

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The American Red Cross aims to help people prevent, prepare for, and respond to emergencies in a variety of ways. Dedicated employees and volunteers meet the basic needs – shelter, food, and clothing – of those affected by natural and manmade disasters, communicate emergency messages between those serving in our Armed Forces and their loved ones back home, and teach lifesaving skills like water safety, first aid, and Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) to community members of all ages.

But the American Red Cross can only do so much. At some point we – the people the organization has informed and trained and supported – have to do our part. So that we can respond swiftly and appropriately should an unavoidable crisis affect us, we need to build emergency preparedness kits, create disaster action plans, stock first aid kits, and review first aid skills. And so that we can lessen our risk of suffering from an (in many cases) avoidable crisis – such as a heart attack caused by an unhealthy lifestyle, for example – we need to take prevention into our own hands.

So today, in honor of Heart Health Month and Valentine’s Day, here are a few tips to help you strengthen and protect your heart.

• Visit your doctor for an annual check-up, even if you feel healthy.
• Maintain a healthy weight for your height and build.
• Exercise (at a moderate intensity level, or working up to a moderate intensity level) at least 30 minutes a day, five days a week.
• Make healthy food choices (fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, complex carbohydrates, and non- or low-fat dairy) and avoid processed food as often as possible.
• Drink more water and cut down on salt consumption.
• Manage blood pressure and control cholesterol by eating foods low in saturated and trans fats.
• Quit smoking.
• Stay positive. Make small changes, one at a time if necessary, and recognize that the journey is toward a healthy lifestyle, not a perfect lifestyle.
• Give yourself credit. Set small goals and reward yourself (with treats other than sweets) when you reach them.

This year, be your own Valentine and give yourself the gift of a healthy heart!

As always, knowing how to recognize the signs of a heart attack and perform CPR can save lives and are therefore of the utmost importance. Click here to find an American Red Cross First Aid and CPR class in your area.

Source: University of Wisconsin Health

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Today, our fearless paper craft hero Clarence Barton is attempting to find some love… will he be successful or is he doomed to spend this special day alone?

Ouch!

Oof.

Will Clarence ever find love?

…

…

Go Clarence! So glad to see a happy ending. Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!

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What to do when you’re snowed in….why not see what the internet is up to! Here are a few funny snippits to keep ypu entertained on this cold, snowy day.

Snow in DC – why not make snow angels with Abe Lincoln? courtesy of Getty Images

Schooooool’s OUT. FOR. WINTER! We want to know how these guys acquired one of those coveted “ugly sweaters” from Team USA

Since we have so much time to watch the Olympics – we thought we’d try our hand at couple’s figure skating – it didn’t go so well

We also decided to look at a few Snowmen that people are making – these ones made our heart melt:

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This post is from Winnie Romeril, a Red Cross volunteer deployed to the Philippines.

Impressions at 4 a.m. Entering Day Two

I can’t sleep. My mind is filled with vivid images from yesterday.

We drive through miles of lush green rice paddies punctuated by graceful white herons. Occasionally we see people working the fields, cows finding shade under storm-felled coconut trees, the brightly-colored Philippine flag twisting in the hot, humid breeze. It looks deceptively refreshing. It is not. The heat here is impressive. We stand in the sun for hours with the Philippine Red Cross volunteers organizing and carrying out the relief distributions. I sweat off my sunscreen in minutes. Reapplying it is futile. I feel very far away indeed from my snowy home 13 time zones away.

The smiling chorus of “Thank you, mam’! Thank you for helping us!” evaporates my petty discomfort.

The full relief package is too much for one person to carry, especially for the elderly and pregnant women. So village men join the Red Cross volunteers ushering their neighbors through the line with their arms full of mats, mosquito nets, tarps, boxes and bags of food, and other relief supplies. When everyone has received their goods, the men get their turn.

Relief distributions need lots of space— for people to assemble, trucks to line up, and for survivors to gather up their supplies. Every barangay (town) has one perfect space for this. THE singular most important outdoor meeting space in every village is… (drum roll, please)… the basketball court. I had no idea Philippinos love basketball so much!

Last November’s Typhoon Haiyan, known here in the Philippines as Yolanda, was the strongest storm in history to make landfall. The basketball courts, being flat and made of cement, weathered the torrential rains and devastating winds better than any other structure.

Many inland villages were 70-95% destroyed by the typhoon. Survivors tell stories of their houses being swept away by raging rivers or blown away by the gale-force winds. The more highly populated costal cities were served first. It’s disaster triage. Care for the highest number of survivors in the quickest way possible.

Locals are making notable progress nearly three months on. Here and there alongside the rice paddies we see newly framed out structures of freshly milled coconut wood- not normally a common construction material since the wood is soft. However with 33 million coconut trees damaged or destroyed, people are using what they have available. It will take years to fully recover, but today they got a boost to help them along the way.

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Today, the team at the Global Disaster Preparedness Center is hosting some fantastic speakers to discuss issues and lessons learned around urban disaster preparedness. In the last few years, big events like Hurricane Sandy and Typhoon Haiyan have surfaced a multitude of questions about how technology and partnerships can address many of the challenges we face when a major event devastates a highly dense, urban area.

Watch and learn from panelists who have extensive experience working in disaster response and preparedness by clicking on the link below. The schedule is also listed here (in Eastern time).

Watch the livestream here

8:45 – 9:00am : Welcome and Introduction
9:00 – 10:00am: A Close Look at Hurricane Sandy: What did we learn about urban preparedness?
10:00 – 11:00am: Allure of the Alliance: Creative approaches to resilience partnerships
11:00 – 11:15am: Break
11:15 – 12:00pm: Where the Rubber Hits the Road: Perspectives from the Philippines response
12:00 – 1:00pm: Chartering New Ground: Success with urban risk reduction
1:00 – 1:15pm: Closing

To join the conversation online, you can comment and engage with participants on Twitter! You can also join the GDPC website and share your own learnings, participate in the conversation, and provide feedback.

Tweets about “#gdpc OR @preparecenter”

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By: Dom Tolli,  VP Preparedness Health and Safety Services 

We all know power outages are miserable, especially if they drag on for hours or days.  While you can take steps to keep yourself comfortable-like having fully charged phones and backup power for your electronic devices-there are some steps you must do that will keep you safe.

1. Make sure you have a light source other than candles.   Most people don’t think about this but candles are the first thing many of us reach for in a blackout. Resist the urge. Left unattended or misused, they become a fire hazard. Flashlights, LED powered candles, or battery operated lanterns are safer, give off more light and won’t catch the drapes on fire.

2 Keep refrigerator and freezer doors closed as much as possible.  Nobody wants to replace the ketchup, mustard and everything else in the fridge. You don’t want to make the blackout worse by getting sick too. You can minimize food loss but it’s important to know how long food will keep. First use perishable food from the refrigerator. An unopened refrigerator will keep foods cold for about 4 hours. Then use food from the freezer. A full freezer will keep the temperature for about 48 hours (24 hours if it is half full) if the door remains closed.

3. Check on your neighbors. Those who are elderly or infirm may not have an easy time getting access to heat.   A warm meal, extra blankets, some time near your fireplace or a ride to a local warming shelter (if available in your area) would certainly be welcome.

4. Know how to operate a generator, if you have one. Used improperly, generators can become a source of deadly carbon monoxide flumes. Never operate a generator inside the home, including in the basement or garage. Don’t hook a generator up to your home’s wiring. The safest thing to do is to connect the equipment you want to power directly to the outlets on the generator.

You can find more specifics about staying safe during power outages by going to http://www.redcross.org/prepare/disaster/power-outage

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