Proper oxygen use can help save lives in initial medical emergency response.

For many people who deal with medical emergencies--some human resource managers, emergency team administrators, CPR and first aid instructors, EMTs, nurses and physicians--the topic of oxygen use by nonmedical responders at the workplace is poorly understood. Workplace emergency response administrators may find it helpful to become familiar with the current emergency medical literature and learn that the previous literature may no longer apply. Furthermore, fear that use of emergency oxygen by nonmedical responders is "playing doctor," and will lead to some imagined uncontrollable catastrophe is based on statistically and medically unfounded misinformation. As is the case with many uncertain events, the perception of risk is unrelated to the actual risk. Refusing to allow appropriately trained nonmedical responders to use reliable emergency oxygen when it is available is a potentially grave error and makes emergency care in the workplace less efficient and valuable. There are many cases of workplace injury or illness in which oxygen use is not only appropriate but may help save a patient's life. Ensuring that the proper emergency oxygen equipment is available where appropriate and properly training personnel are responsible for first aid can, in some cases, lessen the severity of workplace illness and injury incidents.