Today I have a bit of a swollen bruisy area on my right hand, an injury sustained yesterday at the First Aid course I attended where I discovered just how brutal you have to be when delivering chest compressions PROPERLY and to the tune of ‘Nellie the Elephant.’
‘Try not to sing it out loud,’ said Steve, the instructor. ‘It might be frowned upon by some people.’
He was a very good instructor. A paramedic. Engaging, knowledgable and with a quiet and wicked sense of humour. Made the six and half hours fly by. Best first aid course I’ve ever attended.
Anyway, with my left hand pushing down hard on my right hand in order to achieve the correct timings and pressure (the practise dummies were all linked by Bluetooth to a computer programme that told you if you were compressing too hard/too soft/too fast/too slow) I have acquired the aforementioned swollen bruisy bit but I also scored 100% for technique which satisfied my perfectionist nature and more than made up for the discomfort. Anyone wanting a bit of CPR, I’m your gal!
But we’re not allowed to do the breaths bit at the moment. Because of the zombie apocalypse. Best save your collapse for once we are out of lockdown, eh?
Steve showed us a video clip of a chap having a real and actual heart attack. It was caught on film because the chap in question was part of a helicopter rescue team being filmed for a documentary back in 2010. He was a call receiver, had arrived at work that morning feeling ‘a bit unwell’ and the next thing everyone knew, he was having a heart attack. Of course, if you’re going to have a heart attack, best do it when you are surrounded by paramedics. It was fascinating to watch, but I soon had tears dripping down my face because it made me think of my Dad, who died from a heart attack when he was 56. He was at home when it started - I remember him clinging onto the kitchen sink, clearly in pain and trying to be stoical. An on-call doctor was called, who duly prescribed Dad two indigestion tablets.
‘When someone is in severe chest pain, you call an ambulance,’ said Steve, during the video clip. ‘It’s very difficult to tell the difference between indigestion and a heart attack. So you always assume a heart attack.’
I wish that on-call doctor had known that. And called an ambulance. It could, literally, have been the difference between life and death. No point in dwelling though, is there? And I’ve done a first aid course, so I know what to do now, and that’s the main thing.
Anyway, I sat in the corner, watching this video clip (the chap involved survived!), trying not to sniffle too loudly, mopping up my tears with an inadequate napkin leftover from the lunch that was provided, and hoping I wasn’t making a fool of myself. No one asked me if I was okay, so I think I got away with my public display of unexpected emotion: ‘When did your Dad die?’ ‘Oh, well over 20 years ago....’
Can you imagine? Just shows how these things can lay hidden and pop up again with only the slightest provocation.
I used my healer training to ground myself and get my energy centred. Carried on with the course enjoying the high jinks that come with applying bandages to a cardboard tube stuck with shards of plastic to simulate a human arm with an embedded foreign body.
Got a certificate. Went home. Ate biscuits.
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