First Aid Trivia
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This first aid trivia quiz has 202 free questions with answers and covers the skills every bystander should know and the stories behind them. You will be asked about current CPR guidance (how fast, how deep, and why the order changed in 2010), what an AED can and cannot shock, how to help someone who is choking, and the right way to treat a burn, a nosebleed, a sprain, a snakebite or a tick. It is written for first aid learners, teachers running a refresher, trivia hosts who want a health round, and anyone curious about where ideas like the recovery position, the FAST stroke test or the RICE protocol came from. Along the way you will meet Henry Dunant at Solferino, the Prussian surgeon who coined the term, the drowned woman whose face became the CPR mannequin, and the London fire that gave the world its first emergency phone number. Every answer was checked against a reference page that reflects current resuscitation and first aid guidance, so the facts here are safe to remember, not just fun to know. It is a quiz, not training, so take a real course too.
30 of 202 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Friedrich von Esmarch, who coined 'first aid' in 1870, was a military surgeon in which country's army?
Prussia
Prussia. Friedrich von Esmarch served as a Prussian army surgeon in the wars of 1864, 1866 and 1870–71, and designed the triangular bandage that became a staple of first aid kits.
Q 02The 1877 St John Ambulance Association taught first aid in railway centres and which other workplaces?
Mining districts
Mining districts. The St John Ambulance Association, founded in 1877, ran its early first aid classes in railway centres and coal-mining districts, where accidents were common and doctors were far away.
Q 03The internationally accepted first aid symbol is a white cross on a background of which colour?
Green
Green. The red cross on white is a protected emblem reserved for military and humanitarian medical services, so first aid kits and signs use a white cross on a green background, the international colour for safe-condition signs.
Q 04Napoleon's surgeon Larrey created an ambulance corps known by what French name?
Ambulances volantes
Ambulances volantes, 'flying ambulances': light, sprung horse-drawn carriages Larrey introduced in 1792–93 to collect the wounded during the fighting rather than after it.
Q 05What chest compression rate per minute did the 2015 adult CPR guidelines set?
100–120
100–120 a minute, and faster is not better: pushing too quickly stops the chest recoiling fully, so the heart never refills between compressions.
Q 06How deep should chest compressions be pushed on an adult?
5–6 cm
5–6 cm, about 2 to 2.4 inches: the 2015 guidelines set a ceiling of 6 cm because deeper compressions caused more injuries, but rescuers far more often press too shallow than too deep.
Q 07What compression-to-breath ratio do guidelines recommend for a single rescuer giving adult CPR?
30:2
30:2, thirty compressions then two breaths, the ratio adopted in 2005 to cut interruptions in blood flow; lay rescuers may also use it for children, while trained teams use 15:2 for a child.
Q 08For untrained bystanders helping an adult in cardiac arrest, which form of CPR do guidelines recommend?
Compression-only (hands-only)
Compression-only (hands-only) CPR works because a collapsed adult's blood still holds oxygen for several minutes, so keeping it moving matters more than topping it up.
Q 09In 2010, resuscitation guidelines changed the opening steps for all but newborns from ABC to what?
CAB
CAB: Compressions, Airway, Breathing. The 2010 AHA guidelines put compressions first to cut the delay before blood started moving; newborns kept ABC because their arrests are usually caused by airway problems.
Q 10Which Bee Gees song is famously used as a tempo guide for hands-only CPR?
Stayin' Alive
Stayin' Alive runs at about 103 beats per minute, inside the 100–120 compression range, which is why the American Heart Association adopted it for its hands-only CPR campaigns.
Q 11Which heart rhythm will an AED refuse to shock, despite what television dramas suggest?
Asystole (flatline)
A flatline heart has no electrical chaos to reset, so it is treated with compressions and drugs rather than electricity.
Q 12What does a defibrillator shock do to the heart's electrical activity?
Stops it momentarily
Stops it momentarily. A shock depolarises every heart cell at once, producing a brief standstill that lets the sinoatrial node, the natural pacemaker, restart an organised rhythm; it does not jump-start a stopped heart.
Q 13The portable external defibrillator was invented by cardiologist Frank Pantridge in which city?
Belfast
Q 21Which US sports doctor introduced the RICE protocol in 1978 and later recanted it?
Gabe Mirkin
Gabe Mirkin coined RICE in The Sportsmedicine Book (1978) and later wrote that ice and complete rest may delay healing; newer protocols such as PEACE & LOVE drop routine icing altogether.
Q 22In the RICE mnemonic for treating a sprain, what does the E stand for?
Elevation
Elevation. Raising the injured limb above heart level helps fluid drain and limits swelling; elevation also kept its place in later protocols such as PRICE and PEACE & LOVE.
Q 23An adrenaline auto-injector for anaphylaxis is designed to be fired into which part of the body?
Thigh
Thigh. The auto-injector is pressed into the outer mid-thigh, through clothing if needed, because the large muscle absorbs adrenaline quickly; antihistamines are not a substitute for the injection.
Belfast. Pantridge built his first portable defibrillator at the Royal Victoria Hospital in 1965; it ran off car batteries, weighed about 70 kg and rode in an ambulance, creating the mobile coronary care unit.
Q 14How old was the patient in Claude Beck's first successful human defibrillation in 1947?
14
14. Beck's patient was a 14-year-old boy on the table in Cleveland in 1947 for a funnel-chest operation; with the chest already open, Beck applied the paddles directly to the heart.
Q 15The first-aid recovery position is meant for a casualty who is unconscious but still doing what?
Breathing
Breathing. The recovery position is for an unconscious casualty who is breathing normally: lying on the side keeps the tongue off the airway and lets vomit drain from the mouth instead of into the windpipe.
Q 16For a choking adult, guidelines recommend cycles of how many back blows and the same number of abdominal thrusts?
Five
Five. The Resuscitation Council sequence is up to five sharp back blows between the shoulder blades, then up to five abdominal thrusts, repeated until the object clears; if the person can still cough, encourage coughing first.
Q 17The universal sign for choking consists of a person who cannot speak placing both hands where?
On their throat
On their throat. Clutching the throat with both hands is the universal choking sign; it exists because a fully blocked airway makes speaking or calling for help impossible.
Q 18For a heavily pregnant choking victim, rescuers should apply thrusts to which part of the body instead of the abdomen?
Chest
The same substitution is advised for very obese people, and for babies under one, who get back blows and chest thrusts rather than abdominal pressure.
Q 19Which traditional kitchen remedy for burns does medical guidance say is not recommended?
Butter
Butter. Fat traps heat in the tissue and has to be scrubbed off later; cool running water for 20 minutes, started within three hours of the burn, is what limits depth and pain, then cover loosely with cling film.
Q 20Under the adult rule of nines, each whole leg counts as what share of body surface?
18%
18%. Wallace's rule of nines gives each leg 18% of body surface, each arm and the head 9%, the front and back of the trunk 18% each, and the perineum the last 1%.
Q 24'Biphasic anaphylaxis' describes symptoms returning after resolving, within a window of up to how many hours?
72
Most second waves arrive within eight hours, which is why emergency departments keep patients under observation after a reaction.
Q 25Henry Dunant shared the first-ever Nobel Peace Prize in 1901 with which French pacifist?
Frédéric Passy
Frédéric Passy, founder of the first French peace society, shared the inaugural 1901 prize with Dunant, who had set the Red Cross movement in motion in Geneva in 1863.
Q 26Earle Dickson invented the Band-Aid in 1920 for his wife, who kept cutting and burning herself doing what?
Cooking
Cooking. Josephine Dickson kept cutting and burning her fingers in the kitchen, so Earle stuck gauze onto strips of tape; early Band-Aids sold so poorly that Johnson & Johnson gave them free to Boy Scout troops.
Q 27The face of CPR mannequin Resusci Anne was modelled on the death mask of a woman said to have drowned in which river?
Seine
Seine. The face was cast from the death mask of L'Inconnue de la Seine, an unidentified young woman supposedly pulled from the river in the 1880s; the maker chose a female face so male trainees would not balk at mouth-to-mouth.
Q 28Trainees' practice phrase to Resusci Anne is said to have inspired the refrain of which Michael Jackson song?
Smooth Criminal
Smooth Criminal. Its refrain 'Annie, are you OK?' echoes the check-for-response line trainees say to Resusci Anne, the CPR mannequin introduced in Norway in 1960.
Q 29The FAST stroke mnemonic (Face, Arm, Speech, Time) was developed in 1998 by clinicians in which country?
Britain
Britain. FAST was devised in 1998 by stroke physicians and ambulance staff in Newcastle upon Tyne as a training package for crews; the later BE-FAST version bolts on balance and eyesight checks.
Q 30When stopping a nosebleed, which way should the head be tilted?
Forward
Forward. Leaning forward lets blood drain out rather than down the throat, where it causes nausea and airway trouble; pinch the soft part of the nose, not the bony bridge, without letting go to check.