Well the answer to this is unknown really! In a recent survey of people who had received cpr training, when asked if they would perform CPR on a non-breathing casualty, only 23% said they would. I took that as a mission to ensure that no one who leaves our training, would ever be in any doubt as to whether they would do it or not.
I’m delighted to say that we’ve had numerous people come back to us and contacted us to tell us of their heroics in saving people’s lives. I’m not saying that we are directly responsible, but we definitely make a difference.
One email was from a lady who was on holiday with her fiancé when he had a cardiac arrest. Even though she was in a foreign country and couldn’t speak their language, she said she was extremely calm throughout the whole situation, and performed cpr on her partner for over 20 minutes till the paramedics arrived. Her actions mean that her partner is still here today, has made a full recovery and they are now actually married, he no choice really did he, after all, she did save his life. All of this happened only a few weeks after attending our training and she firmly believes that without that training, she would not have saved her husband.
First aid comes in many guises, one of those is sports first aid. Whilst going to pick up my son from his football camp, I arrive to see 3 ambulances on scene and nobody playing football. Every parents’ nightmare, is it my child, what’s happened? I then see the paramedics and the sports coach carrying the stretcher with a young girl onboard, who had dislocated her knee. The coach then shouted over to me and said, “just as well I did your first aid training, I knew what to do”. Having the skills and knowledge meant that this coach felt confident to not only deal with the situation, but also the skills to deal with the injured casualty, keeping her calm throughout the whole situation until the paramedics arrived.
On the subject of keeping calm, one of our candidates had the whole family around for Christmas day lunch. Suddenly the family realised that the father in law had gone quiet and was choking at the table. Whilst everyone else screamed and panicked, our brave hero, knew what to do and leapt into action. Firstly providing back blows and then abdominal thrusts until the offending turkey was dislodged, saving his life. You never know when you’ll need these skills.
One of our customers are Bannatyne’s gyms. Bannatyne provide their staff with regular training so they are ready, should the worst happen. One of those situations happened just before Christmas, where one of the members collapsed with a cardiac arrest. Two members of staff performed cpr until paramedics arrive and I’m delighted to say that the member is alive and back enjoying the services of Bannatyne.
None of this happens by accident, nobody just knows what to do. I always joke with candidates and tell them not to watch Greys Anatomy and think you can now take a Bic pen apart and save someone’s life. You have to know what you’re doing or you could make the situation much worse.
So come along, learn some new skills and become the next hero when your skills are really needed.