Anonymous
I undertook a two day First Aid course trained by Ken from Allens Training recently. The course held on the 6 & 7 April, 2006 provided training and competency in a whole gambit of emergency first aid. Included in the training was CPR.
The following day (Saturday) I was at Balmoral beach walking along the promenade with my wife enjoying the sunshine after just having a coffee at one of the many cafes in the area. As I was walking along the promenade I noticed in front of me a 4WD had just mounted the footpath, on the other side of the street, and hit a tree. The driver had just been pulled out by another passer-by and lay on the footpath.
I ran across the road to find the driver not breathing and with no pulse. With the two females who had pulled the driver from the car we immediately assessed the situation and applied CPR. I remember at the time it was less than 24 hours since I had been trained and here I am working on a real person. Going through my head was 'am I doing it right and did I learn enough from the training to be using this so soon';.
I did not know the names of the two females involved. One of the females did the breaths, the other checked the pulse and I conducted the compressions. It is as Ken said at the training, a person comes to the fore and takes control and assists in directing the others. The female checking for the pulse counted us in and assisted us in keeping the rhythm going. After about 5 minutes the man had a weak pulse so we placed him in the recovery position and spoke to him loudly to keep him conscious. However his pulse stopped so we repeated the procedure. Again 5 minutes passed and his pulse returned. Placing him in the recovery position we again spoke to him but again his pulse stopped. For the third time we repeated the operation saying 'where is the ambulance'. During the last 5 minute stint the police turned up. The police officer saw what was going on and pulled a resuscitation mask from the glove box and gave it to the female doing the breaths. We worked on the guy for at least 15 minutes which seemed like eternity when the ambulance turned up. They then took over and after another 10 minutes had a pulse. In doing so they used a defibulator (I think that is what it is called) and injected him using a series of needles. He was then taken away by ambulance. I asked the female who was checking his pulse how she was trained and she said she was a registered nurse working in intensive care. I thought that is good solid support. She said it is so different doing something like this outside of a clinical situation where all the equipment is available. I do not know of the man's recovery or which hospital he was taken to but when he left in an ambulance he had a pulse and was breathing so that was good enough for me. The course is one of those courses you go to where you hope you never use what you have been taught and here I was using it the very next day. Ken you were right - after 15 minutes of CPR my shoulders were a bit sore. Thank you Ken for the training
