First Aid & Emergency Response Toolbox Talk

Project: ____________ · Date: ____________ · Led by: ____________

Quick question, no looking it up: what's the street address of this jobsite? If you just hesitated, that's the point of today's talk — in a real emergency, the 911 dispatcher will ask, and severe bleeding or cardiac arrest gives us three to five minutes to get things right before the ambulance is even rolling.

Why it matters

Emergencies on a jobsite fail in predictable ways: nobody calls because everyone assumes someone called, the gate is locked when the ambulance arrives, the first aid kit is a picked-over box in someone's truck. Five minutes of assignments today fixes all of it.

Key points — cover all of these

1. Everyone knows the site address and the nearest gate for emergency vehicles — say it out loud in this talk.
2. In an incident, point and assign: YOU call 911, YOU meet the ambulance at the gate, YOU grab the kit/AED. Assigned beats assumed.
3. Know where the first aid kits and the AED are, and who on this crew is first-aid/CPR trained — by name.
4. Severe bleeding: direct pressure hard, don't let up; tourniquet high and tight if pressure isn't stopping it. Minutes matter more than technique.
5. Don't move a worker who fell from height or took a blow to the head/back unless they're in immediate danger — hold C-spine thinking until EMS says otherwise.
6. Know the muster point and headcount plan for evacuations — and report every incident, including near-misses, so we fix the cause.

Ask the crew

The answers are the point — this is where today's real hazards surface.

• What is this site's address and best access gate — can every single person here say it?
• Who on this crew is CPR/first-aid trained, and where's the nearest kit and AED right now?
• If someone went down in the far corner of the site, how long before anyone would notice? Who's checking on lone workers?

The one thing today

Before first break today, know three things cold: the site address, the nearest kit, and who you'd send to the gate.

Reference: OSHA 29 CFR 1926.50 (medical services & first aid)

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