Emergency Outdoor First Aid Course

You’d think at a Sailing Club incidents of drowning would be a fairly high, but in fact, the commonest accident that occurs is being hit on the side of the head by a poorly managed boom. This is not surprizing in a sport that achieves propulsion by relying on fickle wind to whip a sail with a bar of metal at its base across the vessel just at head height.

The First Aid Course today though was a refresher that dealt with all the serious scenarios that are determined to wrest life from the living, from heart attacks to strokes, severe bleeding to anaphylactic shock. I’ve been to a fair few courses over the years and in general, although necessary, they are not inspired. This one was excellent though.

Ross, the tutor, was enthusiastic, thorough, built up confidence and used a variety of teaching methods to help our learning. There were the ubiquitous resusci-annies of course clicking and wheezing their way into a facsimile of recovery and also a new teaching aide that none of us had seen before.This was to give us hands on practice of the Heimlich manoeuvre (for dislodging obstructions from the airway), without damage to, or reprisal from your partner. 

As it happened, I was the choking volunteer for this. Ross handed me what looked like a red buoyancy aide, with a flexible plastic wine bottle attached on the front, to put on. Between the shoulder blades was a firm pad so as I coughed he could give a good thwack to the back, rather than the usual feeble tap. Then, to do the manoeuvre, instead of just demonstrating the position under the ribs and squeezing gently, he threw his arms around my waist, dug the base of his thumbs into the front of the bottle and sharply thrust them in and up. Just like doing the real thing but without risk of cracking ribs. AND, this was the fun and unexpected bit, as he did it, a foam rubber chip, lurking in the innards of the bottle shot out through its mouth, halfway across the room.  Way to go!