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The Red Cross First Aid app: free, offline, and in your family's language

The free First Aid app from the Red Cross keeps step-by-step first aid and CPR on your phone without signal, quizzes you so it sticks, and switches language for grandparents and carers.

A grandmother sits on a lounge room couch reading her phone while a toddler stacks wooden blocks on the rug beside her, a small first aid kit on the coffee table

Nan is minding the kids on Saturday. Your toddler grabs a hot cup, or chokes on a grape, and you are forty minutes away. Nan did a first aid course once, in another country, in another language.

The First Aid app from the Red Cross is free, works without signal, and lets each person read it in the language they think in under pressure. The Australian Red Cross has customised it with advice that fits Australia.

Get the app free

What it is

The app is made by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) with the French Red Cross and its Global First Aid Reference Centre. In Australia it is called the IFRC First Aid app, and the Australian Red Cross points everyone to it from its own site.

It does four things well:

  1. Step-by-step help in an emergency. It walks you through what to check and what to do while you wait for the ambulance.
  2. First aid topics parents need. Choking, burns, breathing trouble, injuries, someone who won't wake up, bites and stings.
  3. Practice. Short lessons and quizzes, with your progress tracked, so you learn it on a quiet evening, not mid-emergency.
  4. Safety tips for water and the road.

It also has a call button for the local emergency number, so it works on holiday overseas as well as here. It lists psychological first aid too: panic attacks, someone hyperventilating, calming a heated moment down.

Does it work without signal?

Yes. The content comes preloaded, so the guides open with no mobile data and no wifi. That matters at the beach, in the bush, or in a dead spot in your own house. Calling 000 still needs coverage.

Who it's for

What it costs

Nothing. It's free on the App Store and Google Play.

Set it up in five minutes

  1. Open the App Store or Google Play and search First Aid IFRC. The Red Cross logo is on the icon.
  2. Install it and open it once.
  3. Choose the language. On a grandparent's phone, choose theirs.
  4. Read the choking guide and the burns guide now, while nothing is wrong.
  5. Do one quiz a night for a week.
  6. Put it on the home screen of everyone who minds your children.

How it fits with the others

The Red Cross app and the St John First Responder app do different jobs. St John's is made for WA: defibrillator map, urgent care wait times, and alerts to help a neighbour. The Red Cross app is the one to learn from, with quizzes and other languages. For telling 000 exactly where you are, add Emergency+.

An app reminds. Hands-on practice is what your body remembers under stress. Royal Life Saving WA's free one-hour online course covers CPR for babies and children: our write-up is Free online first aid learning. For a hands-on class, see Tiny Tots First Aid.

Get the app free

Sources