PADI Emergency First Response (EFR) Course

Emergency First Response is PADI's CPR and first-aid programme, and it is deliberately built for everyone — divers, non-diving partners, parents, travellers. There are no prerequisites, no age limit and no diving involved: just one focused, hands-on day that teaches you what to do in the minutes when it matters most.

The course has two parts. Primary Care covers life-threatening emergencies: assessing a scene safely, performing CPR, using rescue breathing, managing choking, serious bleeding, shock and spinal injury awareness. Secondary Care covers everything urgent but not immediately life-threatening: injury assessment, bandaging, splinting and illness assessment while professional help is on the way. Everything is practised physically on mannequins and with partners — by the end of the day your hands know the skills, not just your head.

For divers there is a practical bonus: a current EFR certificate (within 24 months) is the required medical prerequisite for the PADI Rescue Diver course and the professional Divemaster rating, so many students take EFR and Rescue back-to-back as a package of consecutive days. The course fee includes the instructor, the EFR manual and completion card, lunch with drinks during the day, and hotel transfers within Hurghada; hotels in Makadi Bay, Sahl Hasheesh and El Gouna are served for a €20 per car per day surcharge.