Here are some important insights into what basic skills and equipment your office needs to handle emergencies. ARC Workplace Training Account Manager Sylvia Benavidez also offered some great safety tips during our in-depth question-and-answer session.

Q: What will employees learn in a basic first aid course?
A: Beside the CPR techniques and the Heimlich maneuver, first aid teaches people the basics of what to do in an emergency and how to recognize signs of heart attack, emphysema, epilepsy, and diabetic coma. It also teaches people what to do for burns, cuts, or major bleeding. A person can bleed to death in less than four minutes.

Q: Besides getting training, what else should employers and employees do to prepare for an emergency?
A: Practice using the skills. In an office situation, that can be as simple as helping someone with a paper cut or a splinter, giving a diabetic person some sugar, or holding someone's hand and monitoring their airways until help arrives. If someone falls and hurts themselves, first aid can be clearing the area of people and things until paramedics arrive.

Q: Why should people practice helping each other out with these sort of more minor emergencies?
A: Remember that first aid is not always dramatic, and yet it can be critical. Also, simple practice helps prepare someone for when a major incident happens. If a co-worker is having an epileptic siezure, for example, someone who has been practicing their first aid will probably know where to find the first aid kit.

Q: What other important safety tips should workers keep in mind?
A: What we try to emphasize is that if all you can do is open an airway and tilt back the head until help arrives, that is better than nothing at all.

In the case of choking incidents, sometimes people who are coughing and choking get embarrassed and go off by themselves into a bathroom - and they die. If you see someone choking, be sure to follow them and encourage them to keep coughing. If we could get that simple thought across, we'd have a much safer community.

Q: What equipment should companies have?
A: A well-stocked first aid kit and the installation of Automated External Defibrillators are great assets for a workplace. Also, if the workplace just becomes more conscious of first aid, it becomes a safer place to work.

Emergencies can happen anywhere, at any time, including in the workplace - and when they do, CPR and First Aid can make the difference between life and death on the job.

Just ask Mark Segreti, a Redwood City, California resident who was registering his truck at his local Department of Motor Vehicles office last year when a fellow customer who was waiting in line collapsed in full cardiac arrest. Segreti, who had been trained in CPR by the American Red Cross, jumped into action.

By opening the victim's airway, giving rescue breathing and performing CPR, Segreti was able to keep the man's oxygen flowing until paramedics arrived and were able to take over.

The incident reaffirmed to Segreti, a branch manager for a San Francisco security firm, all the benefits of regularly offering CPR and first aid training to the 1,000 employees who work for him.

"At least once a month we hold a class in the office because people need to know these skills," said Segreti, who is now an American Red Cross-certified instructor. "Heart attacks are the leading cause of death for people over 43."

In the wake of Sept. 11, more employers are beginning to agree with Segreti's point of view. Increasing numbers of employers are contacting the American Red Cross to schedule emergency response courses for their employees.

"People are more convinced than ever that they should do it," said Sylvia Benavidez, American Red Cross Workplace Training Account Manager. That interest is helping the agency to move steadily toward its goal - to have one out of every four American adults trained in CPR in the next four years.

Of course, some standard of emergency care is legally required in the workplace. According to Department of Labor figures, some 6 million people are injured in the workplace every year at an annual cost to businesses of approximately $125 billion. About 6,000 people die every year from workplace injuries.

Besides heart attacks, another common workplace emergency is choking. According to CPR instructors, salespeople are the most likely to have workplace choking incidents perhaps because they have to close so many deals over lunch.

Such was the case involving Bernabe Lara, Jr., a custodian at a large San Francisco company, who was laughing with a co-worker during lunch one day.

When Lara saw his co-worker turn red and exhibit the high-pitched wheezing noise of choking victims, Lara quickly went into action using his American Red Cross training. He made three attempts with the Heimlich maneuver, eventually dislodging a piece of pear from the man's throat and saving his life.

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration requires businesses to provide immediate access for medical personnel for their workers. For particularly hazardous or remote workplaces, OSHA requires that some on-site personnel be trained to render first aid.

Recently, OSHA has recommended that companies go even further with first aid by urging employers to make Automated External Defibrillators (or AEDs) available in the workplace and train key employees to use them. AEDs cost about $4,000 per unit. Training in their use adds only about an hour to a standard first aid and CPR course.

AED use has a dramatic effect on the survival rate for heart attack victims. The chance for survival increases by 10 percent for every minute you save in getting such defibrillation treatment to the sufferer.

The technology proved its value at the U.S. Department of Labor in December when an employee collapsed in the building, said OSHA spokeswoman Susan Hall Fleming. "Co-workers called the Department of Labor Health Unit and a nurse came and used the nearby AED to treat the victim."

The person was resuscitated, sent to the hospital, and is now recovering from heart surgery. "It was really pretty exciting to have a life saved here," Fleming added.

Another significant benefit to such workplace training is that it promotes a more confident, cooperative attitude among employees.

"When employers contact the American Red Cross, they not only get a class in CPR, they build teamwork in their employee structure," said Benavidez. "It creates trust among co-workers, builds leadership, and strengthens an individual's confidence. Finally, it allows employers to feel confident that they have leaders who can take care of their floor or their department during an emergency."

Classes at the American Red Cross range from $40 per employee to $100 per employee, depending on the level of training. To contact your local ARC chapter, go to www.redcross.org. There are also other, private companies that have been certified by the American Red Cross that can provide such training. You can find those by searching the Internet or by looking in your local yellow pages.

If you have a limited budget for training, you might consider picking out some key people and getting them trained in adult CPR and first aid. If liability is a concern, Good Samaritan laws protect anyone who tries to help to the best of their ability or training.

Even if employees don't end up using their emergency training at work, it's likely that they will use it at home or elsewhere some day.

The training, Benavidez said, gives employees a sense that the companies care about them and their families: "It engenders a real sense of trust between workers and employers."