First Aid — why everyone needs it
February 2014: Jane’s story …
If you have to use First Aid, it’s an emotional thing which will stay with you for….I don’t know how long for. I write this with tears and hairs on my arms raised….but I know I did my every best, although not correct — any first aid is better than none.
One afternoon about three weeks after completing First Aid, I was taking the rubbish out to the bin…across the lane from me (I live in a resort so very small) a lady approx. 25 years of age came screaming out of her holiday villa. Her mum had become unconscious while in the bathroom. Her boyfriend was still in the villa.
The first thing I did is exactly what you are not meant to do being the First Aider on the scene. I rang emergency services and talked with them. It took time for me to realise that I needed both hands available, I basically told the adult daughter to “suck it up, you have to do this call, please stop crying and do this” and threw her my phone….being in a resort I told the boyfriend to get up to reception to direct the ambulance. Being responsible for doing First Aid can make you very bossy.
I went to work on the lady, performing CPR. It was such a scary situation I’m having trouble just writing about it. The time I was working on her seemed like forever, and yet it seemed like only seconds past, I think it was 7 minutes untiI the ambulance arrived. I will never know if I did it right, if I broke a rib….anything.
I will never know how it ended, I was never given a form to fill out, the daughter came over about 20 minutes after the ambulance arrived to give me a hug and inform me that they were off to Cairns Hospital following mum in the ambulance (I had gone back to my house as I have children, and to be honest was freaking out and had turned into a shaking mess) — her mum was doing ok.
I don’t know their names, I don’t know what part of Australia they live in, and I’m sure they are all ok — one thing I do know is that I am eternally grateful I had done my First Aid Course … and so relieved I was able to help save someones life.
Now ask yourself this … What’s one day out of your life to complete training, when it could save someone elses?
Sign up today for the next First Aid Course with Far North Training & Consultancy.
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