Is Your Family Prepared for Summer Emergencies?

A few years ago my parents, husband, brother and I were playing a game called Worst-Case Scenarios. In it, players pit their wits against situations like bear attacks, deadly flora, armed assailants and the like – things we wouldn’t usually experience in our day-to-day vanilla lives.

If you’d asked me to predict the winner, I’d have gone with my brother, a trained mountaineer. Or my husband, an Air Force veteran. Or my father, a lifelong hunter. Who won?

My mom, a high school Spanish teacher. Apparently all those years of imaging the worst that could happen paid off – she knew what to do in pretty much every scenario.

That knowledge makes me comfortable leaving my kids in her care this summer, but it also points out my own mental laziness when it comes to the unexpected. The Red Cross estimates that two-thirds of Americans will be involved a summertime emergency in their lives, and I can easily imagine all the horrible things that could happen to my kids: fireworks accidents, pool injuries, playground falls, heatstroke … I’m less easily able to imagine what I’d do. In that, I’m pretty much in line with most Americans, according to the Red Cross.

And when it comes to natural disasters, I admit to spending more time in REI’s freeze-dried food aisles than checking out emergency radios. The terrible tragedy in the Arkansas campground has me rethinking that.

The Red Cross’ St. Louis Chapter offers classes from babysitting to CPR to a new one this year, Wilderness and Remote First Aid. To sign up for one, visit www.redcrossstl.org and click on Take a Class.

Find out how you too can be as well prepared as your average high school Spanish teacher.

By Amy De La Hunt, Health Blogger for SmartParenting