This first aid trivia quiz has 160 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 160 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
Esmarch also invented the triangular bandage that still comes in most kits, and his manual claimed it could be applied in 32 different ways.
Q 02The 1877 St John Ambulance Association taught first aid in railway centres and which other workplaces?
Mining districts
Its logos differ by country but always carry the eight-pointed white Maltese cross of the Order of St John.
Q 03The internationally accepted first aid symbol is a white cross on a background of which colour?
Green
The red cross on white is legally protected under the Geneva Conventions for humanitarian and military medical use, which is why kits use the other colour.
Q 04Napoleon's surgeon Larrey created an ambulance corps known by what French name?
Ambulances volantes
The name means 'flying ambulances': light horse-drawn carriages that collected the wounded during the fighting rather than after it.
Q 05What adult chest compression rate per minute have guidelines recommended since 2015?
100–120
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
That is roughly a third of the chest depth; rescuers almost always press too shallow rather than too deep.
Q 07What compression-to-ventilation ratio do guidelines recommend when giving CPR to a victim of any age?
30:2
The same ratio applies to adults, children and infants, though for babies the rescuer compresses with only two fingers.
Q 08For untrained bystanders helping an adult in cardiac arrest, which form of CPR do guidelines recommend?
Compression-only (hands-only)
The blood of a collapsed adult still holds enough 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
Putting compressions first cut the delay before blood started moving; newborns kept the old order 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
Its 104 beats per minute sits neatly inside the recommended compression range, which is why the American Heart Association adopted it in training 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 12For each minute a cardiac arrest goes without defibrillation, survival chances drop by roughly what percentage during the first three minutes?
7%
After the three-minute mark the decline steepens to about 10% per minute, which is the whole argument for public-access defibrillators.
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
In 2015 he wrote that both ice and complete rest may delay healing, and 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
Raising the injured limb above heart level is the one step that has survived every rewrite of the protocol.
Q 23An adrenaline auto-injector for anaphylaxis is designed to be fired into which part of the body?
Thigh
Antihistamines, though widely handed out, are poorly supported by evidence and are not a substitute for the injection.
Pantridge's first units ran off car batteries and were bolted into ambulances, creating the mobile coronary care unit.
Q 14How old was the patient in Claude Beck's first successful human defibrillation in 1947?
14
The boy's chest was already open for an operation on his breastbone, so 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
Lying on the side lets gravity keep the tongue off the airway and lets vomit drain out of the mouth instead of down the windpipe.
Q 16For a choking adult, guidelines recommend cycles of how many back blows and the same number of abdominal thrusts?
Five
The escalation starts even earlier: if the person can still cough, rescuers are told to encourage coughing before touching them at all.
Q 17The universal sign for choking consists of a person who cannot speak placing both hands where?
On their throat
It exists precisely because a fully blocked airway makes 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
Cool (not iced) running water within 30 minutes is what actually reduces burn depth and pain.
Q 20The Wallace "rule of nines" for estimating burn coverage is only accurate for people over what age?
16
Children have proportionally bigger heads and smaller legs, so paediatric burn charts use different percentages.
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 25In which year did Charles Richet, who named anaphylaxis in 1902, win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine?
1913
The pair stumbled on it while trying to immunise dogs against sea-anemone toxin aboard Prince Albert of Monaco's yacht.
Q 26Henry Dunant shared the first-ever Nobel Peace Prize in 1901 with which French pacifist?
Frédéric Passy
Dunant's book A Memory of Solferino, printed in 1862 at his own expense in a run of just 1,600 copies, set the Red Cross in motion.
Q 27Earle Dickson invented the Band-Aid in 1920 for his wife, who kept cutting and burning herself doing what?
Cooking
The first handmade strips were 18 inches long and sold so poorly that Johnson & Johnson gave them away free to the Boy Scouts to build the habit.
Q 28The face of CPR mannequin Resusci Anne was modelled on the death mask of a woman said to have drowned in which river?
Seine
The maker chose a female face because he feared male trainees would refuse to practise mouth-to-mouth on a male dummy.
Q 29Trainees' practice phrase to Resusci Anne is said to have inspired the refrain of which Michael Jackson song?
Smooth Criminal
Resusci Anne was developed by Norwegian toy maker Åsmund Lærdal with doctors Peter Safar and James Elam and unveiled in Stavanger in 1960.
Q 30The word 'tourniquet' comes from the French verb tourner, meaning what?
To turn
Early versions were a simple garrotte twisted tight with a rod; surgeon Jean Louis Petit added a screw mechanism in 1718.