I’ve been working as a carer for well over ten years now. For most of those years it was a very casual job where I just signed a form from the disability services and got paid in cash. For what was three hours a week, I guess it was okay. Then the provider of funds changed to the NDIS (national disability insurance scheme) and it’s all formalised with proper pay, benefits, etc. Not to mention the pay has increased considerably from the previous arrangement.

Anyway, it’s been three or more years now and I was only just asked quite recently whether I had a first aid certificate. No, I didn’t. A first aid course was arranged and at the end of last month I had my training.

It consisted of a day-long course at one of the St. John Ambulance locations. I’m not exactly an early riser so the biggest challenge was getting to sleep the night before. That didn’t really work out too well but I did get up and I got to the place on time. It was easier to reach than I expected although it still took nearly twenty minutes due to traffic.

We did the CPR component in the morning because one of the students was only there for that part of the training. I was a bit underprepared because I didn’t get some information on the online part of the course before we started and so I was going in blindly. I guess under those circumstances I picked it up quickly.

We ended up partnering with other students and practicing the CPR on dummies. There was an infant and an adult dummy. Plus we practiced using the defribillator which was something I had no idea about at all. It was all a bit overwhelming but I feel I got enough from it to be able to handle it should a need arise.

We had a break at lunch time and did various other scenarios during the afternoon. I was interested in the methods for handling choking. Here they don’t recommend the Heimlich manoeuvre because of the risk of damage to internal organs.

I was also interested in the handling of snake bites because that has changed so much over the years. The limb affected is effectively wrapped up snugly to slow venom from spreading through the body,

Other things like broken limbs and sprains were pretty similar to what I expected. I suppose that hasn’t had a need to change as much over time.

The teacher was quite engaging and made it sort of fun for us. I learned a lot and hope I can retain it. It’s supposed to be updated once a year and I can see why because there’s so much there that it’s easy to for you to forget, especially when you don’t have to make use of the information much.

Anyway, I am certified in first aid here in Australia and finally feel somewhat equipped to deal with an emergency.