Melbourne, Australia -- (SBWire) -- 03/07/2014 --The Australian educational programme NeckSafe is ready to expand its reach worldwide and is now raising 50,000 dollars with a non profit Indiegogo campaign that will fund several international initiatives.

NeckSafe has become an Australian educational must over the past two decades for all those associated with pre-hospital care, especially those likely to be first at the scene of an accident to deal with the acute management of spinal cord injury (SCI).

The Indiegogo page for NeckSafe points out that critical research has confirmed that up to twenty-five percent of all those sustaining a potential spinal cord injury actually deteriorated neurologically from the time of the initial incident till they arrived at definitive hospital care. The important conclusion to this research is that up to one in every four spinal cord injuries can be potentially prevented through education and awareness of their occurrence, and via specific and detailed instruction in the acute management of the spinal injured patient. This is where NeckSafe has found it can make a difference in the pre-hospital care of accident victims.

NeckSafe has been registered as a formal course within the Australian National Training Information Service (NTIS) framework since 1990. The training resulting from this programme has undoubtedly resulted in the prevention of dozens of SCIs over the past 25 years.

“Research on students of NeckSafe has shown that not only do they increase in the competencies required to handle a Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) patient in the acute setting, but their confidence increases too. They are more willing and more able to participate at the scene of the accident,” the Indiegogo.com page states.

After its success in Australia, NeckSafe is ready to move forward with several initiatives for its education programmes. The Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign taking place in the first quarter of 2014 seeks to raise 50K in initial funding to complete their online Learning Management System that will eventually be available anywhere in the world. The monies raised will also go towards producing a minimum of three Smartphone apps for general, aquatic and football variations of the NeckSafe memory aid. Finally, the funds will be used to improve face to face learning material and teaching aids.

The campaign is accepting donations of anywhere from 25 dollars to 3,500 dollars. Contributors receive a variety of perks including pro-rata access to NeckSafe training materials and free copies of the apps, plus an opportunity to have a face to face course presented at their chosen location.

About NeckSafe
NeckSafe is an educational programme based in Australia that trains first responders to manage acute spinal cord injuries. The 25 year-old programme is looking to make its training available worldwide in 2014. For more information visit, necksafe.com or http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/necksafe