First Aid Course

St. John Ambulance.

This weekend, I am doing a re-certification course in First Aid and CPR for school.

It is very important to know what to do in case of an emergency.It can save lives. Simple measures could mean the difference between life or death to a loved one or someone you know.

I recommend that everyone take this course at least once. You learn things that you never knew.Even though this is the second time I am taking the course, I've learned some knew things because some of the practices have changed.

The instructor in my course has shared some personal stories about people in her life that were seriously hurt because First Aid was not applied, or was applied incorrectly.

Her aunt suffered from low blood pressure, but the symptons of low blood pressure and high blood pressure can be very similar. A neighbor with good intentions decided to help by giving her aunt her own medication for high blood pressure, because the neighbor thought that her aunt was suffering from high blood pressure. The result: her aunt's blood pressure fell even lower and she became unconscious and had to be hospitalized. She survived.

Her nephew, was two years old, when he swalled some DRANO; the stuff used to unclog faucets. It is a grainy white power that looks like sugar. It is a dry chemical, that gets activated when interacted with water. That chemical had already started to work in his mouth because of the saliva, but his mother, acting on instinct rather than knowledge, decided to give him water to wash it away. He died.

Her grandmother's friends's grandaughther was seven years old and was playing with a balloon. The balloon suddenly exploded and part of the rubber went into her mouth. She suffacated and died.

When something is blocking your air way, and it happens to be plastic or plastic material, an abdominal thrust will NOT help no matter how hard you try, because a person's inside is moist and wet and plastic sticks to it.

There is soooo much more that you can learn. You learn about AED (Artificial External Defribilator) which is used to shock the heart when a person has become unconscious and has stopped breathing. This machine is idiot proof. There is a voice that tells you exactly what to do, so you don't have to feel nervous about using it on someone.

I learned today, for example, that what we see on TV, when the doctors wait for a flat line on the heart monitor to shock the patient, is incorrect. When a person's heart show a flat line you can no longer ressusitate them, and the AED no longer works. It is too late.

Before a person's heart stops beating completely, it "quivers" for a while. It is only at the time that shocking the heart will be effective.

I learned how to immobilize a person's arm and leg when it gets injured or broken.

I learned how to seek help and to remain calm.

I learned about burns, and bleeding wounds, and chocking.

I learned that it is no longer recommended to ask a person with a nose bleed to put their head back. The practice now is to ask the person to put the head down and let the blood drip all out until it stops. The reason being is that if the person tilts their head back and there is lots of blood to come out, they might choke on their own blood, as it deposits in the throat area.

I also shared with the class that I have many times received an email that "teaches" you what to do when you suspect that yourself or someone around you is having a heart attack and there is no help around. The email suggests that you encourage the person to cough really hard.

My instructor said that this is a terrible urban legend and you should NEVER do that. The reason, simply put, is that you cannot "encourage" the heart to start beating again by coughing. That is medically impossible. And if you are having a heart attack and force yourself to cough you could injure yourself even more.

When you are in the middle of an emergency, the last thing you want is to built up on your anxiety and fear because you don't know what to do.

In this case, knowledge is power.

It is one weekend of your life that is very benefial.

Highly recommended. For more information, contact http://www.sja.ca/

Cheerios,

PS: I also learned today that when helping someone that is chocking you no longer say that you applied the Heimlich maneuver, you say that you applied abdominal thursts. That's because Dr. Heimlich wants royalties for people using his name. (LOL)