Proper First Aid Course? - I keep forgetting everything!

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Babylon

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Its that time again - three years since the last one - and I'm looking to do another First Aid course.

The problem, my brain no longer being like a fresh young sponge, is that after each one I seem to forget everything except something about an elephant.

Would one of the three-day courses be any more effective in getting the stuff to stick?

Any recommendations?
 
Babylon said:
Would one of the three-day courses be any more effective in getting the stuff to stick?
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Non, as they say in France. Practice, practice, practice is the key! How many times do we get to practice first aid? In the last 20 years I've only directly dealt with three major trauma injuries, and one of those was holding a motorcyclist's hand and making sure he was happy with the entonox while the paramedics sorted out his legs!
 
That's exactly the problem - not enough practice! That's why I was wondering about a three-day course, with opportunities for revision and testing...?

Short of popping over to Syria or Afghanistan to see if I can be of any help, the only first aid incident I've ever been involved in was a couple of years ago when an old woman had some sort of cardiac event ahead of us and ploughed her hatchback at 30mph into the stationary truck in which I was a passenger. Me and a young rural lad who was nearby, and on his fourth Sunday afternoon pint but who had recently done a first aid course, checked her for internal injuries, kept talking to her (and pinching her arm), then got her out of her car onto the pavement and started CPR. Then the local GP came out of the Co-Op, briefly took over but shortly pronounced her dead.

I'm after more practice on dummies, plus decent revision of other injuries/states and how to deal with them.
 
the three day course has a much wider syllabus. If it is basics you need to practise (and not advanced stuff like canula work), then ask St John if you can come along to the local group evenings, just to keep your basic skills alive.
 
Do the course, You will forget most of the filler. Some things change anyway by next time. I still go back to the stuff I learned as a cub scout.

If you can remember to clear an airway put some one in the recover position and apply direct presure to bleeding even if you forget evrything else, you may just save a life.

I hate first aid. I faint at the description of blood before I even see it. as for other bodily fluids. yuk.
I like to stand well back and do crowd controle and hope someone else will do the first aid.
Unfortunatly Ive had to do it a few times. So far during the nasty bit Ive managed to avoid throwing up and passing out until it was over.
Its amazing what I have remembered when I had to.
Its also amazing the foul languge the casualty used while I was trying to figure out how to make a sling with a tringular bandage for his broken arm. In fact he got so mad he took it from me and made his own. The amount of noise idicated he was breathing ok. He also told me to F!@# Off when I offered him a cup of tea for shock apparently this is no longer an aproved first aid tecnique or so I was told.

Mine expirses in about six months. Il have to do the two day course again and because I work in a remote location more than 20 minutes from a hospital I have to do the transportation course. God help the poor sod I ever transport.
 
I am totally disillusioned with the fact that 'things-change' ..... after all! ..... the body is still the body! .... is it not!?

The last time I completed a First-Aid course it was in Rosyth (91) where they had us take charge of a simulated major incident.... & it's amazing how realistic they made it all look with their bags of dye, simulated skin, coloured shredded rubber & bits of simulated bone...... yuk!!!

But! .... can someone please explain (apparently the new method) why you do-not provide mouth to mouth resus if the casualty isn’t breathing? :confused:
 
OGITD said:
But! .... can someone please explain (apparently the new method) why you do-not provide mouth to mouth resus if the casualty isn’t breathing? :confused:
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CPR pumps blood round the body, some of the red cells will have O2 attached that can be used (Inhaled breath =21% O2 exhaled= 16% O2 so you are using the 16% to provide the O2). All fine if the paramedics are 10 minutes away and heading in your direction at 60 MPH with blues and twos ... S. F. A if you are 5 miles offshore or 8 hours from the nearest road.

Had a fantastic lecture from a doctor on first aid in remote places... he pulled a bag of mince from under the table and said this is what your skin will look like after a climbing fall. Mike, my climbing partner who liked a pint of heavy, turned green, left the room and threw up!
 
OGITD said:
can someone please explain (apparently the new method) why you do-not provide mouth to mouth resus if the casualty isn’t breathing? :confused:
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Camelia's right that it uses the oxygen still left in the blood. I don't think it's meant to replace mouth to mouth for people who are trained to do that, the point of the adverts is to get people who have never and will never do a first aid course to at least be able to do something useful. Trying to train them in the full technique via TV adverts ain't gonna work, but "push up and down here, with this rhythm" is just about within the grasp of the below-average bored tellypunter to take in and remember.

Also some people would be reluctant to "snog" a stranger (may be daft in the circumstances, but it's still a factor) so if it was full CPR or nothing they might choose nothing - or at least dither over it and "choose" by default. Again, this gives a simple and beneficial action for untrained members of the public to get on with until the ambulance arrives. I believe there have been a handful of cases now where it's considered to have worked.

Pete
 
Exactly Pete.

I'd also say, anyone with a smartphone, download the British Heart Foundation CPR app (free). If you ever have to do it for real, keeping the phone on the patients chest will get Vinnie Jones shouting at you if you're not pushing hard enough.

Basically, when carrying out CPR, if you can do more than two minutes straight, or the patient hasn't got a bruised / broken ribcage, you're not pushing enough.
 
I think if you can remember ABC (airway, breathing, circulation) checks, do whichever version of CPR you can remember, treat for shock, put in recovery position & have an adequate first aid kit on board then you're doing pretty well...
 
Babylon said:
Would one of the three-day courses be any more effective in getting the stuff to stick?

Any recommendations?
Click to expand...

I did the (normally 4 day) Proficiency in Medical First Aid last year. At the end of it I certainly felt more confident than I did at the end of the 1 day RYA course I did 7 years ago. Although the course covers more you're often repeating the basics of CPR in the scenarios you role play so it gets hammered home a bit more.

The Medical First Aid course is still about "First Aid": ie managing a situation until help arrives. There's not even anything about basic wound dressing.

If considering this course I would recommend doing it somewhere geared towards yachties. I did it at warsash and my fellow students were either in the shipping industry or working on superyachts, and almost all company-funded. Consequently the scenarios all involved calling the bridge for help and using commercial splints and stretchers rather than improvised stuff. Moreover there was rather too much taking extra long lunch breaks and knocking off early: Appreciated by the others who were ticking a box on the way to a master's ticket but not by me wanting to get as much practice in as possible.
 
OGITD said:
But! .... can someone please explain (apparently the new method) why you do-not provide mouth to mouth resus if the casualty isn’t breathing? :confused:
Click to expand...

It's still part of the training (or was last year) but as Pete said it is being emphasised that even if you're not prepared to do mouth-to-mouth, get on with the chest compressions. People might be concerned about things like Hep-C or just not be prepared to do mouth-to-mouth on a stranger who has just vomitted. You don't want people to just do nothing because CPR is taught as an all-or-nothing package.
 
sarabande said:
the three day course has a much wider syllabus. If it is basics you need to practise (and not advanced stuff like canula work), then ask St John if you can come along to the local group evenings, just to keep your basic skills alive.
Click to expand...

Agree. The 3-day course, doesn't give more practise (except you may get to work on "casualties" who are people who act it out for you). It covers a lot more ground. The aim of mine was to enable you to carry out instructions from a medic on an HF radio link, and to be an effective assistant for a medic.
 
The vomiting bit is quite common as many people end up doing compressions on the stomach which pushes the contents north! Inflations are the "gold standard" but chest compressions do a pretty good job of inflating the lungs, a bit like bellows.
 
laika said:
It's still part of the training (or was last year) but as Pete said it is being emphasised that even if you're not prepared to do mouth-to-mouth, get on with the chest compressions. People might be concerned about things like Hep-C or just not be prepared to do mouth-to-mouth on a stranger who has just vomitted. You don't want people to just do nothing because CPR is taught as an all-or-nothing package.
Click to expand...


Different sort of situation, but we were taught that direct mouth to mouth was for emergencies only - ideally use a shield or even one of those little things with a bulb you squeeze. For all the HEP-C, HIV and so on reasons, direct contact - especially with a patient you don't know - is regarded as a risky proposition for the first-aider.
 
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