Could your hands save a life? Americans are woefully unprepared to respond to emergencies.

“The best place to find a helping hand is at the end of your arm.”

Growing up, whenever we were faced with a challenge, my father used to repeat that old idiom, reminding us that we were perfectly capable of helping ourselves, and those around us.

We might have brushed off those words then, but they proved to be remarkably pertinent later in my life as a combat medic for the U.S. Army Special Forces. Through deployments to 30 countries, and four tours of Iraq and Afghanistan, I came to realize that a helping hand was a well-trained one – and having it at the end of your arm was the single best way to ensure lives weren’t needlessly lost to traumatic injury on the battlefield.