Could you be a life saver ?
TRIGGER WARNING: This short piece includes reference to extreme sickness and death.
At the beginning of the year, I attended a First Aid course put on by Wisborough Green CC for the coaches, it was excellent and covered a massive amount of first aid knowledge in a short space of time from choking to suspected heart attack and revival.
I was surprised by how much had changed since I had last taken the course, even the advice around the number of compressions and breaths was different since I’d completed my first aid certificate a few years prior.
Of course you hope you’ll never have to use it, but last Monday it was put to the test when a man dropped down outside Morrisons in Billingshurst from a seizure and landed so hard he cracked his eye socket which had swollen with blood pouring from his eye, broken his arm and was unconscious foaming at the mouth with blood and vomit, eyes rolled back in his head and continuing to seize constantly banging his head on the concrete floor over and over.
Of the three of us that quickly ran to help him, we quickly determined I had the most first aid knowledge so was able to apply what I knew to keep him breathing until the ambulance arrived. We were told by the ambulance crew we had done everything right and when they took him away, he still had a strong pulse although he was not conscious. It was a horrible and frightening experience which I never want to repeat. At one point I thought he was going to die in front of me! Since then, the hardest thing has been not knowing what happened to him and if he was OK, but I do know I put in to practise what I’d learnt from the training I received at WGCC and was able to stop him from swallowing his tongue or choking on his vomit until medical help arrived.
It could have been any one of us that day and I am sharing this story to support getting as many people to take first aid training as possible, there are courses you can attend for just £25 and last 2hrs, so not a big commitment of time or money, and some workplaces and clubs will provide this for free if you ask – it really could be you with someone else’s life in your hands.
Sarah Meurer – Head of Women’s and Girls Cricket