First Aid - Health & Safety with Dean Turner

After retiring from the military, Dean met up with the Red Cross and found that it was a good fit, a “flexible way of delivering the program.” So he joined the Red Cross as a Community Service Coordinator managing the First Aid Department for the Region of York. He has done that since 1998 and is still there today as a volunteer.

Dean was growing his first aid training business in 2004 and  he now has eleven employees and an organization that trains approximately 7,000 people a year in life saving techniques.  His company is WSIB Recognized and is a partner of the Canadian Red Cross and the Heart & Stroke Foundation of Ontario. Dean and his employees travel across Canada educating people in the “practical skills needed to treat injuries and save lives.” In addition to providing services,  they offer a variety of products including first aid supplies, emergency supplies, safety and protective equipment and defibrillators. Two studies printed in the New England Journal of Medicine state that “a 74 percent survival rate was achieved among adults who experienced ventricular fibrillation and cardiac arrest -- if they received defibrillation within three minutes.”iii

Dean has volunteered their people, equipment and skills to a variety of not-for-profit organizations and events, including: Heart & Stroke Big Bike, Canadian Red Cross, and World Conference for Disaster Management and many others. 

Proud winner of two awards at the Canadian Red Cross Training Provider Banquet on May 9, 2012, his company won first place for training the most students in Marine First Aid for 2011 and second place for the most Emergency Medical Responder Training. “We have a great team” says Dean.