Background Injury has become one of the major causes of death, illness and disability in Bangladesh. About 1 08 000 people die and over 20,000,000 people estimated to be injured non-fatally in Bangladesh every year. Reasons for injuries are lack of awareness and insufficient first responders in rural areas. To response to injuries Centre for injury prevention and Research, Bangladesh (CIPRB) had trained 373 First Responders through 5 day training at Kalapara sub-district of Patuakhali district in Bangladesh.

Objectives To explore the outcome of first responder training in rural communities.

Methods Of 373 Community First Responder, 271 are female and 102 are male. Specifically, 202 are caregivers of community crèche, 126 are members of Village Injury Prevention Committee and 45 are Community Swimming Instructors. After first responder training, a structured questionnaire, used after every first response, was oriented to the trainees. Later on the structured questionnaires were collected fortnightly from July-December 2017. Collected data had been analyzed through SPSS version 24.

Results Research revealed 397 first responses, 206 males and 191 females, were provided by 98 community first responders in six months. Of this 71 responded were caregivers of community crèches and 27 responded were community swimming instructors. The most first responses were provided to age group 0–10 years, 170 cases and 11–20 years, 106 cases. Cut was treated the most and other injuries treated were burn, drowning, electrocution, shock, animal and snake bite, poisoning and bone fracture.

Conclusion and policy implications The research clearly indicates that due to residing in the same community, first responders can respond immediately after the injury and local community are accepting the first aid from them. Capacity building, in the first response, helps to manage injuries at the community level and at the same time, because of communities direct participation first responder training is sustainable.