As one of the people responsible for 1st aid in the company where I work, I have to attend a course once a year to make sure I keep in training. Being also a member of the 1st aid organisation in our village, it is just a welcome alternative instead of spending a day at my desk at work. Today it was again time to have a practice and to refresh the CPR certificate.
Our trainer, Alex, came once again from far off Zürich to put us through our training programme. He works for an organisation specialised in training people for first aid assistance. We were a group of seven people. Three of us working in our business location and the others coming from our daughter companies situated in Emmental and near Basel. A mixed bunch, one gentleman ready for retirement, one man belonging to the fire fighters, a male and female working in the factory and 2 girls both working in the offices, and myself thinking about giving up such extra work as I only have another 4 years to go and could do with some first aid help myself now and again.
The main target was to renew the CPR (Cardio Pulmonale Reanimation) Certificate and to learn the workings of a defibrillator. I had already mentioned that I had no intention of renewing the CPR certificate as my health would not allow that any more. I was told that I should attend the course all the same, so there I was watching everyone else get blue lips from breathing into the nose of a plastic dummy and red hands from pressing on the thorax of the dummy. All movements (2x breathing and 30x pressing) were registered on a paper stripe to see if enough pressure and air was being applied. Nearly everyone had to do the test twice until the results were achieved. As our company has decided to buy 4 defibrillators, we had to learn how to apply these as well. Although my health didn't allow me to bring a dummy back to life, it did allow me to learn how to apply a defibrillator.
What is a defibrillator. If you have ever seen George Clooney in an American hospital film with 2 electric contacts in his hands waiting to be told - now!!! He then applies them to a totally unconscious near to death patient who then jumps in the air with 2,000 Volts being put into his lifeless body, and thus bringing the patient back to life. Our defi's (as we call them) were not exactly the George Clooney version, but they have the same effect. Whilst one of our brave helpers was breathing and pushing on the dummy we switched the defi on. It then started talking, telling us to put the contacts on the body in the right place (they were complete with a map of where to put them) and after a time the machine said stay away from the body (dummy) and press my red button. There was a loud noise which meant the dummy had been electrocuted bringing him back to life. If anyone happens to touch the body during the electric shock treatment, he will also be electrocuted, thus saving one person, but killing another. A defi is not to be underestimated. It was great fun and we all hoped that we would never have to use one of them. After everyone had passed the practical examination and all had blue lips and strained muscles, we had to carry on with the second part of the test.
We were given 15 questions (multiple choice) which we had to answer, allowing only 2 answers to be wrong. We all passed this test so the certification of the CPR test was achieved.
Our trainer still had 3 hours left so he had a few more interesting trials to carry through with us. He left the training room and taking 2 of us with him the remining few were told to wait in the room. After a short time one of the colleagues outside came in to say there had been an accident and help was needed. We all walked to the place of the accident to see what could be done. Our trainer was laying head on the bottom stair and feet on the top stair. He had fallen. Before any of us could start, our fireman decided to take charge of the situation. He decided the best thing to do was to remove the victim from the staire and to lay him flat on the floor. A five minute discussion then arose about the best way to do it. Luckily the victim was unconscious otherwise he may haved noticed that time was going. I did interrupt the conversation by saying in a loud clear voice that it was time for someone to go and alarm the rescue team on the emergency telephone no. Everyone thought that was actually a good idea. In the meanwhile the victim was transported by 4 people to a place where he could lay flat. As he was unconscious he was placed on his side in a correct position. I found that his head should be at a better angle in case he would choke if he happened to vomit. This was actually a good idea, only our trainer had already organised that blood would pour out of his mouth if this was done. It was quite colourful, but the effect it had on us all was helplessness. After a while the victim got up and told us all what we had done wrong. The next 10 minutes was spent in clearning the mess off the floor from the red coloured substance he had put in his mouth.
Next job - this time our trainer disappeared outside with two helpers. We were then called to come and see what has happened - someone was choking. We had put our coats on and went into the cold. One of our members was sitting on a bench choking quite convincingly and pointing to her bag. At first we though a piece of food and lodged in her windpipe, but soon noticed that she neither had asthma, a heart complaint, nor an allergy. We eventually realised that we should search her bag for a medicine that would help. Unfortunately the "victim" suddenly became unconscious as we didn't really know what we were looking for and so we didn't find it. We then had a helpful hint from our trainer who said look at the side of the bag. We then found something looking like a large marker, which on further examination, we found to be an injection instrument containing adrenalin. This is to be used when someone is allergic to a sting from an insect. One of our members "injected" the medicine and the victim was again saved. We felt quite proud of our efforts although our trainer found instead of searching through the bag it would have been more sensible to empty the bag. It would attract less attention if we had been in a public place and would not have been under suspicion of assault and stealing. We had learnt what not to do and are all sure that the next time it will be better.
The finale was a picture show of various injuries caused by burns and cuts where we were told that we didn't have to look as some of the pictures were not exactly asthetic.
After our refresher course we were all hoping that we have no serious accidents where we work and that we will never have to apply a defibrillator. Tired but happy we all returned to our homes glad that this was over for a year.
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