Move It with Manual Handling

Ok, so this post is a bit delayed, but better late than never.

Last Saturday we did a Movement and Handling course, taken by our Manual Handling expert extraordinaire, Yvonne.
I'll be honest here; when you first hear you're signed up for a full day manual handling course your first thought is, "this is gonna be a looong day."
However, when Yvonne teaches it, it is indeed a long, but very good, day.
It was actually loadsa fun, and a good laugh. It involved wheeling people around in wheel chairs, which was a main contributor to the fun factor. It also came to light that some people suited the patient-in-a-wheelchair-role better than others. I'm nae gonna mention names (don't want to embarrass the poor guy!) but he looked so convincing tucked up in a wheelchair with a blanket across his knees that when crossing the road (yes, we basically had a mini wheelchair parade across the main road of South Street) that a driver actually courteously stopped his car to let them cross. This was incredibly entertaining to the rest of us. He even earned the name "Grampa" for the rest of the day. Bless.

Anyhoo, the manual handling course proved to be more entertaining than it's title lets on, but then with our Red Cross gang you can always be set for a laugh in any situation (or there abouts).

Here's an example actually; last night at our normal weekly meeting, we were thrown into the deep end of the scenario pool. With three casualties on the loose and slowly dying, the rest of us were left to make a first aid post (it had to be realistic with all equipment) and plan out our first aid patrols. When ready, we were led out by Ronnie to find and treat the casualties.
Casualty number one (well, for my patrol) was a stroke victim. And it was bloody terrifying. The acting was even better than mine, so it was pretty damn good (sorry, egotistical moment there, hehe) and it totally threw us. At first it could have been an anaphylactic shock by the inability to speak and general slobbering of our casualty. But then there was the give away of the one-sided limpness. Ok, so we've established it's a stroke. Now what?
Bit of a brain freeze when it came down to it, but once we got going we managed to deal with it. Basically you need to sit the person up in a semi-recumbent position (a.k.a the "W" position, cos it looks like a "W"...although on reflection, it's more like a slanted "N"...I digress...) and keep the side of their face leaning to one side so any saliva can dribble freely fae the mouth. Lovely, I hear you cry. Well welcome to the world of the human body and what it can cruelly do to the individual.
The next scenario was a heart attack, which, from a personal point of view, I find easy to diagnose and treat. The tell tale signs are, of course, the old pain in the chest and on left side of body. So once again its into the not-so-W-more-like-a-slanted-N-semi-recumbent position and monitor their vital signs, i.e. pulse, breathing, skin colour, etc. If you have asprin on you, then give them one Asprin tablet (I think it's 500mg, but if I'm wrong someone correct me before I go overdosing some random heart attack victim when on duty) and allow it to dissolve underneath the casualty's tongue. This way it gets into the blood stream quicker, and thusly will dissolve the blood clot quicker. But if the casualty has a history of heart problems like this, then they'll probably have their own medication to take for it. Either way, you want to call an ambulance too - don't forget the ambo! Although there's one thing to be careful of when treating someone with a heart problem. It could be angina - like a heart attack, but with one difference; with angina the pain will gradually ease when you sit them in the semi-recumbent position. The pain of a heart attack won't. If anything, it'll get worse.
Now, did you also know that another name for a heart attack is a Myocardial Infarction? Ok, I'll stop being scooby now...

Our final casualty was a spinal - yay. Spinals. That's just "apply a properly measured collar onto the casualty's neck and then give them the old heave-ho onto the spinal board." Well, maybe not so casually, but you get the general idea.

So there you have it, I've finally gotten round to posting the above stories. Admittedly part of it is very first aid manual-like, but that means those of you who know nothing about first aid will have learnt something today! And if you are knowledgeable of first aid, and find I've written everything wrong, please tell me so I can take it off and stop myself from looking like a right know-it-all ass.