The Joys of First Aid - Teaching Experience Number One

I say "Teaching Experience Number One" because I feel - or rather fear - that my recent First Aid trainer position will not be a first and last experience. I can safely say that mine and Raffia's paths are about to merge onto a new walkway within the British Red Cross, and that would indeed be trainer-hood.
On Friday we were chauffered to Buckie with manequins in hand to teach a "Save a Lyf" course to an audience we knew nothing about. We had no idea about the environment we'd be teaching in, nor the age range of the people involved. We also solidified our foundations for the course whilst in the car on the way there. So everything was made clear in a very rushed, last minute style.
On arrival to the large stone building in Buckie's Queen Street, the initial nerves faded away. It was a Day Care centre, and we were to be presenting the course to a group of adults - eleven in total - who were a mix of carers and adults with mental health issues. What was so wonderful about this little group of people was the fact that all of them were very willing to include themselves in the course activities, and all showed an interest in what we had to tell them.
They all attempted to answer our questions (a few times successfully) and they cottoned on to the techniques of CPR and the recovery position very quickly, which was surprising, because I can remember my first attempts at both and still finding it a bit hard to grasp.
They also enjoyed listening to the story myself and Raffia told (we were told it by the guy who's now going to continue training us to be trainers - confused? Hehe) which we told at the beginning of the session and left the ending as a cliff hanger, to be continued at the end of the course. However if it hadn't been for a rather switched-on member, we would have completely forgotten to tell them the ending!
This tale is a long story, but in short is based on several car crash scenarios, each a bit bloodsy-gutsy, and the perfect story to tell as an ice breaker because kids love the blood and adults squirm at the thought. It's an all-round winner, cos it catches everyone's attention! Plus the consequences of the story throw everyone, and allows them to focus on the main principles of first aid, which are:
1. Preserve Life
2. Limit worsening of the condition
3. Promote recovery.
There, now you've learnt something about First Aid from today's entry!
Anyway, the whole course was generally a success, and we were even able to answer the questions fired at us by our audience; questions which in the majority of cases weren't even based on the topics covered in the "Save a Lyf" course. I was impressed with both of our answers - we remembered things just off the tops of our heads! I suppose that's a compliment to the dude who trains us in the first place.
So now we're set to become fully qualified First Aid trainers, all thanks to Friday's success. We received a comment from a colleague, saying that we worked well together. My reply was, "Well, they don't call us partners in crime for nothing!"
I think we've just furthered our reputation, reinforced by the fact that according to our Boss, we now have a theme tune; "Here come the girls".

No Respect at Blood Donors...

The title doesn't lie - my colleague and me really didn't get any respect from the nurses at today's session of Blood Donors. Only two out of the whole gaggle of them really gave us any thought, but even then you could tell it was still in a "looking down their nose" kind of way. One of the two only spoke because I made a rather big effort to create a casual conversation with her in the ladies' loos. Personally I find this rediculous. That, and the fact that we weren't expected to help anyone in the ways of first aid. If anyone started to bleed heavily, or fainted, then we were to help them using the basics and leave the nurses to deal with the rest. Ok, fair enough, but the nurses take their time to respond.
What really ticked me off however, was just their plain ignorance. Harsh words, yeah, but at least treat us first aiders with some respect. When we walked in this morning, not one of them said "hello" to us, even when we greeted them. Only one nurse did (but that's because she knew the drill with us; my colleague had had a run in with her before and she probably wanted to keep the peace). It was the same with saying good-bye. Not one wished us a farewell, and our thanks was a brisk "thank you ladies" as the nurse disappeared to lunch. What the hell?
We first aiders are the frontline of the frontline. In any event, big or small, the first people to respond are the first aiders of the voluntary charities, like the British Red Cross, or St John, or St Andrews. We keep the show running until the next frontline - the paramedics - arrive to take over. Then it's down to them to deliver the casualties to the staff at the hospital.
Now in no way am I saying that being a first aider is a higher position than being a fully qualified paramedic or nurse or doctor; what I am saying though is that we work hard too to protect and preserve life. Highly trained first aiders are more or less an equivalent to an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician), just without the drug administrations. So I think that we first aiders deserve a little more recognition and respect from those in the Scottish Ambulance and Hospital positions. Usually we do get a good response from such paramedics, nurses, etc etc, but today was just a joke.
They say (or at least this is what is being rammed into me in college at the moment) that nurses are to be understanding and open minded. I'd say very few of them matched such criteria today.
And saying they were under stress is no excuse; a good care worker should not let stress affect their treatment of patients and colleagues alike, and they were all being very nice to the public.

Still, after that rant I think I shall end on a positive by saying that my colleague and I were still able to have a laugh by throwing insults at each other, based mainly on our tea-making abilities. What a way to brighten up a duty which revolved around handing out various hot and cold beverages, with a few biscuits on the side.

Resus Support - having fun with your airway!

So today was the Resus Support course at the good old Red Cross office. All in all it was an incredibly well taught session (I think all who were present there would agree) and it was a good banter too; who knew airway management could be so much fun?
So now I, along with various other people who turned up today, am qualified to insert an airway (the long things that go down the back of an unconscious casualty's throat to help maintain an open windpipe, for those who didn't know) and administer oxygen, use a bag, valve and mask, use a b.p (blood pressure) monitor (both electric and traditional - ok, so I nearly squeezed someone's arm off with it, but hey, that's what these sessions are for) and am also able to monitor vital signs in relation to breathing and pulse rates. At the end of the seven and a half hour course, all sixteen of us were issued with certificates to prove we had passed the session, and we are now able to do all of the afore mentioned on duties, when need be of course, and not just when the fancy takes us. Although I imagine wrestling an airway down the throat of a perfectly alert and conscious casualty would be something worth watching.

Speaking of casualties...

"Casualty" was absolutely amazing tonight!! Even if you aren't a fan, I say jump on BBCi Player right now and watch it, because it was just...wow! The effects were just fantastic, and there was a brilliant amount of humor in there to balance well with the action and blood and fire. Yes, fire!
So seriously, just watch it if you can. I so can't wait until part two tomorrow night, cos...wow! That'll be well worth the watch too, so really people, if there is anyone out there who actually reads this, and wants to watch some really good telly, then series 23 of "Casualty" is the way to go!! It's the best one yet!

Even more too tired for words after the Moray Marathon...

Now for event number two of this past weekend - the Moray Marathon. This run was split into three categories; the first one being the full Marathon, the second being the Half Marathon, and the third being a 10K run. With six of us on duty, the day was quiet and relatively casualty-free, excluding the three that myself and my colleague had.
Each pair of first aiders honed a vehicle, with Red Echo 6 - aka "the Bucket" - joining our Elgin fleet for the day. The "Bucket" is so called because it really is like a rickety, rusty old bucket; it's old and falling a part slightly at the seams, but it's still useful. Also in the fleet was our beloved Red Echo 2 - aka "Thunderbird", or the "Bouncy Castle" - and Red Echo 8; the new Renault Ambo which isn't really that new anymore, especially as it now has a dent after the excitement of HBOS the previous day, so I should stop calling it "new".
My fellow first aider and I were in the Thunderbird on a side road leading to Lossimouth, and twice we received a call on the radio; once to say someone somewhere had stumbled and fallen, cutting their face and various other body limbs, and the second time to go and retrieve a man who had pulled a muscle and needed a lift back to the start line. On both occasions we sped off from our position at the start of the 10K run to tend to our casualties, and to zoom along the road with a sense of purpose added some excitement to our long and dragging day. Our third casualty came to us voluntarily because she had strained a muscle in her knee. Other than that, there was nothing else, with Red Echo 6 and 8 remaining quiet all day.
Perhaps the perk of today's duty was finishing an hour earlier than planned, which meant we could all go home and sleep, because all of us, a part from one, had been at HBOS, and I don't know about anyone else in the team today, but I know I was desperate for my bed and a hot bath.

So where am I now?

Sitting in front of my laptop, up-dating my blog, unable to pull myself away from checking various e-mail accounts and Bebo/Facebook profiles incase I miss any interesting comments.
I think I need to prioritise; my health and mood over my internet accounts. Or the other way round?

Yup, I'm gonna go to bed now...after I be a computer geek for one last time.

Too tired for words after HBOS...

And now to write two blog entries on the events of this past weekend, despite the fact that I am absolutely shattered now that I've finally slowed down to a stop. If things don't quite make sense, or there are any spelling mistakes which go unnoticed, I apologise in advance, and ask you to have some pity.
I shall begin with the first duty I covered with the Red Cross; a large cross country mountain bike event known as HBOS.

Setting off on the Friday evening, we travelled through to Aviemore for our briefing. Firstly we left from Elgin in one of our fellow first aider's car, and scooted through to Inverness where the Red Cross depot is for all of our various vehicles. There, we picked up Red Tango One, an old Ford transit mini bus, and continued on through to Avimore. But before I go on, I'm firstly going to explain about the interior design of this particular transit. It has three seats in the front - one driver (obviously) and two passenger. In the back there are a further four seats, all placed in seemingly random positions around the bus, with enough room to squeeze in a trolly bed. Upon this trolly bed we shoved our luggage, and because there was five of us in total, there was a lot of luggage. Therefore, it was a particularly interesting journey, because everytime we went round a tight bend in the road, or round a roundabout, everything tended to fall from this trolly bed and roll across the floor of the vehicle. This meant that myself and my pal had to lean across from our seats and hold everything in place before it went tumbling through the far side of the transit. I imagine it must've looked quite amusing to a driver in the car behind who could see us through the rear windows, with the two of us stretching to save ourselves from being crushed beneath the weight of everybody's personal gear.
Anyhoo, we eventually arrived in Aviemore at the MacDonald Highland Resort Hotel, which brough on many memories of the MacDonald Hotel at the Manchester National Assembly, but that's a previous tale we won't delve into again.
After a quick trip down to a local chippie to buy some supper, we arrived back at the hotel just in the nick of time for our briefing.
The resort was equally as fancy - and the food equally as, well, crap - and we got through our briefing before anyone fell asleep, amazingly.

The next day was event day. An early start (5 bloody o'clock in the morning) should've meant people falling asleep in their breakfasts (I know I nearly was, after only five hours of sleep) however I suppose people were kept awake by the excitement and anticipation of that day's forthcoming challenge. The previous night for myself and four fellow members had been spent in a total stranger's house, thanks to the Field Hospital nurse finding us accomodation there (obviously the nurse knew the woman, but to us she was a stranger). It had been an interesting sleeping arrangement (hence the five hours sleep) and I think we'll just leave it at that!
Anyway, I digress. That morning, after breakfast, at 7.30, myself and another Elgin Red Cross loon were abandoned in the middle of Rothiemurchus woods, at a watering station, waiting for the casualties to roll in - literally. We were there for a good few hours before we finally saw any action, and even then it was short lived. I'm not complaining; we never hope for any casualties, and it's a good sign that we become bored because it means that everyone is either fit and healthy and not needing our help, or some other First Aid patrol has picked them up further up or down the line.
Our first casualty was a young man who had knocked the scab off a previous biking wound and just wanted something to cover it up and clot the bleeding. It was quite a nasty wee leakage actually, but an alcohol-free wipe and a swab stuck down with some Micropore tape soon put a stop to that!
A wee while later, we received another casualty, this time asking if we had any heat pads or such that he could put on sore joints. We didn't have heat pads, but heat spray had the same effect. It's clever stuff actually, I'm not sure how it works, but the fact that it helps relieve pain is god enough for me.
Following this we had another bloke who'd already received first aid treatment from a previous stop, but the swab and Micropore tape combination wasn't working for him. So he removed it (he gave himself a thorough leg-waxing in doing so) and I bandaged it up instead, which seemed to do the trick.
Finally, another man wanted a heat pad, or the equivalent, for aching joints. Out came the heat spray yet again, and that was another happy customer.
In between all this, the rain thundered down, the wind blew a gale, it became ice-cold, and my colleague and I froze our high-visibility-uniform-covered asses off.
Finally, the two fellow first aiders who had originally dropped us off came back to collect us in Red Echo 2 (Elgin's very own Emergency Response Vehicle) and after helping a guy change his punctured bike tyre using our tough-cuts (101 things to do with tough-cuts; they're not just for first aid!) we found a chance to leave and drive down to Loch Morlich where the Field Hospital (Red Hotel) was located. After our first six or so hours out in the freezing cold weather conditions of water station 4, we were allowed to regain warmth in the hospital and do a spot of first aid there too.
Of course, on the way there, the four of us decided that we really deserved a decent hot beverage after all of our work out in the cold (especially myself and my colleague). So we had a very quick pit stop to grab a warm cuppa. That's as much as I'm going to say about that; if you want to know the full story, and you're not my Service Manager, then please ask and I'll tell you. Until then...

...The Field Hospital was a lot warmer than the great outdoors, and dryer too, so personally I was very happy to remain there for the rest of my duty. A few casualties came and went, but as the day wore on, they became less frequent.
The rest, as they say, is history. Some of us finished at around seven o'clock (myself included) and a part from Raffia, those of us who arrived in Red Tango One, left in Red Tango One.
We dropped the transit back at the Depot, along with Red Echo 2 oddly enough, and picked up our driver's original car. Then it was the long drive back to Elgin, and the warm comfy bed which I knew was waiting for me back home, coupled with the dry, cosy pyjamas that would replace my wet, dirty, and now ripped, Red Cross boiler suit.

The Horse, the Car, and the consequential get away...

My driving instructor told me to pull over at the side of the road. I had just had a few shots at speeding along the country road at 40 miles per hour, and was pretty pleased with myself at being able to change through gears without any problems at all. I had been enjoying my Thursday drive, mainly because I was finding my chances to cruise along a lot of fun. I was finding driving on roads a lot more fun than driving figure of eights around a muddy Moto X car park, in fact, which on reflection isn't surprising.
"Let's park over there and we'll talk through tackling junctions," my instructor said.
So I did.
We stopped by a field with two horses in it and my instructor took out several sheets and started guiding me through the different types of junction and how to deal with them, and so forth. It was warm in the car; the windows were wound down to let the cool, crisp, country air in.
Then suddenly, we found we had company.
The two horses, appearing to be friendly and curious, had trotted over to the fence, and one was now stretching it's head and neck over the fence and poking it's nose in through the half-open car window!
Fortunately, both myself and my instructor like horses, so we stroked its muzzle, at which point the horse must've decided it didn't like the instructor and attempted to bite her.
Then, on missing, began to bite the window of the car door as a replacement.
Suddenly it was craning it's neck to advance on my instructor, who promptly said, "I think this would be a good time to move a little bit?"
I laughed as the horse tried to nuzzle her, and then realised that yes, maybe it was a good time to move.
Suddenly my instructor leaned back and said, "Drive Sarah, drive!"
So it was down with the clutch, into first, apply the gas, bring clutch up (less hastily this time) handbrake off, gas, clutch up, and away down the road, all in the space of a few seconds flat, just to avoid getting eaten by an overly-curious horse.
We pulled over again by some bushes, and burst out laughing.
Typical; second lesson and I become a get away driver, from a large mammal with a vice for chewing car doors apart.
Well, after the excitement and a short breather, it was time to continue with junctions, driving round tight bends, cruising along Pluscarden road (another country road for those who don't know where Pluscarden is) and learning to "crawl" and "peep" in first gear at busy junctions.
And all of it went pretty damned well! I'm yet to stall, that's one thing.
I thought my first driving lesson was fun, but in comparison with this week's, it was easy going!

Tune in next time for more banterful tales from the world behind the steering wheel.
Until those next lessons (there's two next week) I'll be able to regale you with stories from Red Cross, as this weekend I know I have a couple of what could potentially be interesting events.

Weekend = Party Time :)

Saturday night became a drunken banter, if I remember rightly, hehe.
It was a mate's belated 17th birthday bash, and this involved camping in his back garden, which in turn involved a lot of smuggled-in booze.
Because I'm a total light weight, it didn't take long (half a smirn-off ice, two WKDs, one and a half vodka and cokes, and a couple of vodka shots to be precise) before I was verging on being very drunk, but was also balancing on the line of being sober enough to hold a relatively decent conversation with our only pal who wasn't drunk, because she stuck to orange juice all night. What a smart lassie.
I felt a bit bad actually, because when one of our mates was on her hands and knees throwing up over the birthday boy's lawn, I was slightly too drunken to be of any use first aid wise. Don't get me wrong, usually I'm very good at dealing with drunk people (Speyfest and particularly Rockness are good examples) but on Saturday night, I was too involved with the bottle of alcoholic beverage in my own hand to be able to think up a decent solution for my pal. Oops, and I apologise profoundly. However, my orange-juice high mate was on top form and kept an eye on her anyway, so it's nae as if she was left totally alone in her predicament. And I did make an appearence - albeit a rather drunk appearence - to see if there was anything I could do.
But luckily she soon recovered, and everyone made it through the night until 5 o'clock in the morning, when we finally fell asleep after the excitement of "truth or dare". We were then woken up an hour later by a buddy who needed to set off for work at 6 am. Grr...
Later on that morning, despite everyone looking a little worse for wear, we all made it through breakfast, and the majority of us went home to collapse in our own beds and catch up with the sleep deprevation.
I know I did.