Practical Trauma Exercise
Knowing what to do is not the same as being able to do it under pressure. This is where you find out.
Every first aid course at CGT ends with an instruction to practise. The reason is captured in what we call “the 72-hour curse”: the pattern, observed repeatedly across our students, of people encountering a real emergency within days of completing their training. The person who saved a choking baby 25 minutes after leaving a course. The delegate who performed CPR on a cardiac arrest victim the morning after completing theirs. The first aider who arrived first at a stabbing three days later.
These people acted because their training was fresh. A Practical Trauma Exercise is how you keep it that way.
The exercise uses live actors, realistic scenarios, practical distractions and a deliberately pressured environment to test your skills in conditions that are as close to the real thing as a training setting can safely achieve. Instructors are present throughout to observe, pause scenarios, answer questions and improve your technique, not to pass judgement. The goal is to build the mental resilience and muscle memory that make action automatic when it counts.
The content is based on Position and Consensus Statements from the Faculty of Pre-Hospital Care and the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.
Content note: by its nature, this exercise covers subjects that some delegates may find disturbing, including catastrophic bleeds. Please ensure you are prepared for this before booking.
Scenarios Covered
Scenarios are drawn from the following categories:
- Acid and alkali attacks
- Chemical and other burns
- Catastrophic bleeds, including limb, junctional and torso wounds
- Crush injuries
- Knife and stab wounds
- Fractures and dislocations
- Head and spinal injuries
- Chest injuries
- Unresponsive casualties requiring CPR and AED
- Multi-casualty scenarios
The specific scenarios used vary across events and can be tailored for private bookings at your premises.
Course Details
| Format | Fully face to face with live actors. Hands-on throughout |
| Frequency | Twice per year at our Knutsford training centre |
| Private delivery | Available at your venue by agreement, with scenarios adapted to your requirements |
| Prerequisites | Delegates should hold a current first aid qualification or have recent first aid training |
| Certificate | Certificate of participation issued by Chris Garland Training, PDF as standard |
| Venue | Knutsford training centre (scheduled events), or at your premises (private bookings) |
Who Should Attend?
This exercise is designed for trained first aiders who want to pressure-test their skills and build confidence. It is particularly valuable for first aiders in higher-risk environments, security and events teams, those who have completed our Critical Injury Responder course, and anyone who has not had a practical first aid assessment in some time and wants to know where their gaps are.
Course Certificate:
- This bespoke course is certified by Chris Garland Training
- A4 sized pdf certificates are issued.
Course duration:
- 4 hours, plus breaks
- Arrive: 10.15am
- Course start: 10.30am
- Course end: 3pm approx.
Test:
- Practical assessments throughout the course.
Course Pre-requisites:
- Candidates must be over 18.
- You need to hold an in-date first aid certificate, such as;
- Emergency first aid at work/First aid at work
- Forestry Commission “+F” first aid courses
- Paediatric first aid
- Outdoor first aid/Forest school first aid
- You will be required to demonstrate first aid procedures as you would in a real activity environment. This includes providing first aid to a casualty who is on the floor, therefore you must be physically capable of doing so.
Candidates:
- All courses have a minimum and maximum number of candidates that we can take on a course.
- Minimum: We need a minimum of 6 candidates booked on an open/scheduled course for the course to run. Click here for more details.
- Maximum: We limit the number of candidates on this course to a maximum of 12. Should you have more than 12 candidates to be trained, please contact us to arrange a private course.
Venue:
- This course runs at our training centre in Knutsford, Cheshire.
- For Corporate clients, we may be able to run this course at your premises across the UK. Simply fill in our quote request form to request a quotation and discuss your requirement further.
Joining instructions:
- Visit this page to read the course joining instructions.
- Where your course is not being run at our main training centre, you’ll also receive an email with additional joining instructions including the venue address.
Private courses:
- To arrange a private course for yourself or your colleagues, please fill in our Quote Request Form.
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