First Aider!!

Just completed my Occupational First Aid course at the Red Cross last week. It was a 3 day training with an examination on the last day. It was very informative and very practical indeed. I am glad that I chose to be part of the training by my Health & Safety Committee. I almost regretted when I heard abt the exam and how tough it was going to be. However, having learnt about the experience of the director of the association on how his family failed to adminster first aid or rather failed to realise the serious consequences of a fall of a mother who had just delivered a baby. It resulted in the death of the lady due to internal bleeding in the head. It was such a sad story and it cld hv been prevented if the family had 1st Aid knowledge.

It was a fun experience knowing people from various industries e.g. chemicals, constructions, etc and how stringent their facilities are. My practice buddy, a middle age Malay lady, who was extremely talkative and kept harping on how my hair made her unable to tie a secure bandage. It was pretty annoying at first when she kept at it, however, after the 1st day, I gave up and decide to accept her as she is and resign to my fate :)

It was like a crash course, we had to cram everything within 2 days and sit for the Theory test and Practical on the 3rd Day. All of us were so stressed up. Luckily, for me, I managed to read thru the text and even scored one of the highest in class :P As for the practical exam, all of us were so excited and anxious. We tot that it wld be the same during the practice session, however, this tester who is very experienced, created scenarios and bombarded us with questions that made all of stumped. Of course those were things that wld happen in reality which was good that he tested us instead of going through the motion of just doing the standard drill and CPR procedure.

There was this candidate whereby she was questioned on the next course of action when the casualty had bluish fingernails and toenails even after she performed all the necessary steps to revive the casualty. She was dumbfounded, and all of us were stucked as well, scratching our heads trying to recall what had been taught. Guess what the answer was? Check if its a female and also is she wearing blue nail polish!!!!!! We bursted out laughing...what the heck, man!!

Then we realised that the tester does have a reason for asking such questions, its to make us think practically and not to panic when we are in the real situation and apply what we learn accordingly.

All of us managed to pass the exams and got certified as a First Aider, a little accomplishment for me before end of 2006 :)