Airway Management Course in Calgary

One hour, almost all of it hands-on, aimed at the minutes between the moment you find a patient in trouble and the moment a transport crew takes over. It runs as an evening class in Calgary, typically 18:30 to 19:30, which means a shift worker can fit it in without giving up a day. Delta Emergency Support Training is a Canadian Red Cross Training Partner, and this course is taught by working paramedics, firefighters and emergency professionals who manage airways on real calls.

The hour opens with recognition, because that is where time gets lost, and it is a few minutes of talk rather than a lecture. You will work through the difference between a patient breathing badly and a patient not moving air at all: what snoring, gurgling and a high-pitched noise on inhalation each tell you, why a silent airway can be the most dangerous one in the room, and why a pulse oximeter reading lags behind the problem and should never be the thing that decides your next move.

From there the equipment is in your hands for the rest of the session, and the pace stays quick because the clock is short. Manual positioning, including head-tilt/chin-lift and a jaw thrust when you suspect a spinal injury, and how to hold an unresponsive patient's airway open while you deal with everything else happening around you. Sizing and inserting oropharyngeal and nasopharyngeal airways (OPA and NPA), plus the judgment call about when an adjunct helps and when it provokes a gag and a vomit you now have to manage. Rigid suction: how deep, how long, and under what view. Choking in adults, children and infants, including what changes the moment the person goes unresponsive. The drills are short and repeated rather than drawn out; you are here for reps, not a leisurely walk-through.

The single biggest share of the hour goes to bag-valve-mask ventilation. BVM looks simple written down and rarely is on a floor: mask seal, thumbs-down versus two-person technique, rate and volume, and how to tell your ventilations are reaching the lungs rather than inflating the stomach. Be honest with yourself about what an hour buys: enough time to have your technique corrected and to feel the difference between a seal that works and one that does not, but not enough to make the skill permanent, which is why this is a sharpening session that rewards repeating. Be clear on scope too. This is manual and basic-adjunct airway management, not an intubation or advanced-airway-device course. If your site protocol includes a device beyond that scope, tell us in advance and we will tell you honestly whether it is in scope for this session and whether it belongs under your medical director rather than in a public class.

Airway Management was written for people who may have to hold a patient's breathing together with their hands. Industrial and oilfield medics working remote Alberta sites a long way from the nearest ambulance. Event and mass-gathering medical staff covering Calgary venues, races and festivals. Corporate emergency response teams, mine rescue members, and camp or rural clinic staff around Leduc and greater Edmonton. Working responders whose airway skills have gone quiet between calls and who would rather find the rust in a classroom than on a driveway.

It also suits people about to start a longer course. An hour will not front-load an entire Advanced First Aid (AFA) or Emergency Medical Responder (EMR) intake, and we will not pretend it does. What it buys is first contact: if you have handled an OPA, run suction and squeezed a bag once already, the airway block of that course is not the first time you touch the equipment, and you can spend that block refining technique instead of learning where your hands go. For one hour of one evening, that is a cheap head start.

There is a group we would rather send elsewhere first. If you hold no current first aid or CPR training at all, a one-hour airway class is the wrong starting point: it moves fast by design and assumes you can already assess a patient, recognize cardiac arrest and start compressions. There is no time in the hour to build that underneath you. Basic First Aid, Basic Life Support or Advanced First Aid gives you that foundation, and airway management then lands on something solid rather than on nothing. Tell us where you are starting from and we will point you at the right course, including the one that is not ours to sell you.

Expect almost no lecture. We spend a minute or two on why a skill works, then put the equipment in your hands and let you repeat it until it stops feeling awkward. You will size and place adjuncts on manikins, run suction, and ventilate with a BVM both alone and with a partner, because the two-person seal is what you should be reaching for whenever a second set of hands exists. Group sizes are kept small for exactly this reason: in a one-hour class, waiting your turn is time you do not get back.

There is no separate scenario block at the end. An hour does not have room for one, and we would rather you spend that time on repetitions than on staging. The pressure is built into the drills instead: your patient vomits while you are ventilating, or the airway has to be held open while a partner keeps compressions going. Our instructors take those complications from calls they have actually run, which is why the awkward details show up.

Assessment is continuous and practical. Your instructor watches you demonstrate the skills and coaches on the spot rather than saving feedback for the end, which is the only way it fits inside an hour. Be clear on this point: completing the session is not the same as being certified. Certification requires full attendance and successful evaluation of your skills. If a skill is not there yet, we will work it with you during the session rather than quietly signing you off, and if it needs more time than the hour allows we will tell you that and book you back in. Ask us which certificate is issued and how long it is valid when you register, and we will give you the current wording rather than a guess.

Airway management and oxygen therapy are two halves of the same job, which is why we run them back-to-back on the same evening and why most people book the pair. Airway runs first, typically 18:30 to 19:30, with Oxygen Therapy following it from 19:30 to 20:30, so both skills cost you a single evening rather than a working day. Opening and protecting an airway without knowing how to deliver oxygen appropriately leaves the work unfinished, and delivering oxygen to a patient whose airway you have not secured is worse than unfinished. If you are buying training for a site medical kit that includes suction, adjuncts, a BVM and cylinders, take both.

Understand the relationship to full responder training. AFA and EMR are broad courses covering patient assessment, trauma, medical emergencies and documentation, with airway as one component. Airway Management deepens that one component for an hour. It supplements responder training, it does not replace it, and no one-hour class ever could. If your role is medic on site, a responder-level certificate is usually the credential an employer is looking for, confirm which one with them, and this course is how you keep the sharpest part of it sharp between recertifications.

On the EMR pathway specifically, we say the same thing on every page: a Canadian Red Cross EMR certificate is not an Alberta College of Paramedics-approved program, and it does not confer College registration or a practice permit. It may meet selected PCP-school admission requirements, but you must verify your exact school and intake before you spend money on that assumption.

Workplace requirements vary the same way. Many Alberta employers, prime contractors and site owners value supplementary skills such as airway and oxygen alongside a responder-level certification, but the specific requirement is written into your contract, your site's medical plan or your employer's policy, not into this course. Confirm your exact requirement with your employer or safety lead before booking, and send us the wording if you want help reading it.

Public sessions run in Calgary at 1550 5 St SW #300, scheduled in the evening so you do not have to give up a shift, with dates added for the Leduc and greater Edmonton region as demand supports them. Ask us what is currently on the calendar. For groups, we come to you. Onsite delivery is available at worksites across Alberta, elsewhere in Canada, and internationally on request; onsite carries an additional fee that depends on travel, group size and what equipment you want us to bring. Tell us your crew size, your shift pattern and your nearest airport or lease road and we will quote it properly.

Bring clothes you can kneel and work in, tie long hair back, and bring your glasses if you need them to see a mask seal properly. The hour is physical: you will spend most of it on the floor and holding sustained ventilation, with very little sitting down. If you have a mobility, back or shoulder limitation, tell us before the session and we will adapt what we reasonably can.

Arrive a few minutes early, because a one-hour class starts on time and there is no slack in it to catch a latecomer up. One other thing that makes a real difference: if your workplace stocks specific gear, bring it. A cleaned unit of your own portable suction, your BVM, your adjunct set. Training on the exact equipment in your kit is worth more than training on ours, and it regularly surfaces gaps such as a missing paediatric mask or an adjunct range that stops one size short.

A public seat is $130, in Canadian dollars, with GST added at checkout. That is the per-seat price for the one-hour session; Oxygen Therapy the same evening is priced separately, and the pair is the usual booking. Onsite and group training are quoted separately, so request a written quote for your crew and you will see the travel and equipment components broken out.

Public sessions run in Calgary, with dates in Leduc through the year.

We also deliver this course at your worksite for groups, useful for crews who can’t release staff to travel. Onsite delivery carries an additional fee on top of per-person pricing. Request an onsite quote.

We travel for private and group training across Canada, and internationally by arrangement. If you’re outside Alberta, tell us where you are and we’ll price it.