Task 33: Go on a first-aid course

This was suggested by a couple of friends and seemed a very sensible idea. We have a first-aid book at home but if it's an emergency, I wouldn't want to spend time looking up what to do, and of course if we're out of the house it would be useless. Also having seen quite a few accidents over the years and not been able to do anything to help other than ring for an ambulance, I felt I should learn how to make myself better prepared and more useful.

I'd assumed it would be fairly easy to find a course in the area and was very surprised that there was hardly anything available, except for comprehensive courses run for employees who require training as voluntary first aiders. Surely it's a good thing for members of the public to be able to access training too and at a reasonable price?  There are some helpful videos on the internet, but that's not really a substitute for hands-on practice with an experienced instructor.

The only two options I could find were St John's Ambulance, for which I'd have had to travel a long way - either Dunstable or Kent - or the British Red Cross, in Wimbledon. Neither was exactly cheap but at least the money would be going to a good cause.  As the nearer of the two, I plumped for the Red Cross, made my booking and headed there yesterday morning.

It didn't get off to a promising start, as I got lost on the way and arrived to find that no-one could access the building as the instructor had been misdirected to a course in Sutton and he had the only set of keys. Luckily he turned up only 10 minutes late (he extended the end-time so we had our full four hours) and we got cracking. 

There were 14 of us taking part, for a variety of reasons. Four were intending to apply for jobs - firefighter, cabin crew, archaelogical dig in remote part of desert, health project in Nepal - where although first aid training would be supplied if they were successful, it would help their chances if they could point to having already done a course. A couple roughly the same age as me had recently retired and were planning to travel widely in developing countries where access to medical support could be sketchy. Another had become a carer for her mother, two were running martial arts courses and thought some first aid training could be useful, and one seemed to have been involved in so many accidents already that knowing what to do seemed a very good idea.

One of the first things we covered was how to check whether someone was still breathing and if they were, how to place them in the recovery position. I decided it would be sensible to practise this again when I got home, and asked Peter if he would be my unresponsive body. He obligingly "collapsed" on the living room floor and it was interesting how much harder it is to put someone in the correct position when surrounded by furniture. He became rather more responsive when I accidentally banged his knee into a cupboard.

Giving chest compressions was exhausting, especially now that the recommended rate has doubled from one to two per second, and you may have to keep it going for a very long time if the ambulance can't get there quickly:

Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation became more successful when someone gently suggested that the mouth of the dummy should be open, not closed:

When we moved on to how to help someone who is having a seizure, I found myself struggling not to laugh, which would have been wildly inappropriate. It reminded me of what had happened when my brother, many years ago when he was in the Territorials, had taken part in an army first aid session. His role was to speak to the dummy that was lying in the road, convincingly plastered with blood and gore, and provide it with soothing words of comfort and reassurance. The problem was that in climbing out of the jeep, in combat gear, he had accidentally stepped on the dummy's face and smashed it in with his boot. An order is an order, so he had to spend the next twenty minutes telling the splintered remains not to worry, everything would be fine.

One of the most surprising things I learned is that if someone is having a severe allergic reaction and uses an epi-pen, it will provide only 5-20 minutes' relief. It's therefore very sensible, if you are at risk, to carry two with you rather than just one.

We covered a lot in four hours, including all the items on this list that have been ticked:

And here is my certificate:

I hope never to have to use what I've learned - although if I don't, it's likely I'll forget much of it unless I watch internet videos every now and then to remind me. However as you never know when you might need it, I'm very glad I've been on the course and would certainly recommend it.