It can be very liberating to know that you have the training to handle a health care emergency. It's time to get to a first aid class!
My article Update Your LIfesaving Skills: The First Aid Techniques You Rely On May Need to Change started from a conversation with a young lifeguard at a swimming pool, on the topic of artificial respiration.
This is also called emergency breathing, artificial resuscitation, the kiss of life, and a number of other things.
When I first learned it, there were two procedures taught. The methods I was first shown were mouth-to-mouth artificial respiration, and the Sylvester method of raising the victim's arms up over their head and pumping them down onto the chest.
That was in the days before CPR, or cardio pulmonary resuscitation, was taught to the public. We thought CPR was the Canadian Pacific Railway.
Things have changed.
However, it's not just the methods and equipment used in lifesaving that has changed. It's us!
Each stage of life brings new first aid and lifesaving challenges, though we don't often think about them. When you have a new baby or an infant, safety is an ever-present concern - but how many new parents have learned infant CPR?
Would you know what to do if your travelling partner started to turn blue and couldn't speak? The Heimlich manoevre to dislodge foreign objects from the throat was just a dot on the horizon when I trained as a ski patroller. It wasn't taught then.
Do you know how to manage your travelling partner's emergency health needs? If you found someone unconscious in the seat in front of you on your bus, wearing a Med-Alert bracelet, would you know what to do?
It can be scary thinking of all the ways that things can go wrong - but it's also very liberating to know you have the training to deal with common emergencies.
Taking first aid classes might not be anyone's idea of a great evening out, but what a payoff there is if (Heaven forbid) you actually do need to use what you've learned.
