Cyclists & First Aid

[punkedmonkey]

I was thinking about this particularly in the context of commuting, but realised it is also quite a general cyclist thing. Cycling, like anything can be dangerous - but we are more exposed and the potential to be injured is greater due to this exposure.

On that basis I was wondering how many people here are first aid trained?

I would probably consider it quite important for anyone cycling to be first aid trained as we can often be in remote places (particularly MTB'ers) and knowing how to treat someone who has an incident can potentially make a massive difference to the outcome while the Ambulance is getting to you. Also, away from cycling its a great day-to-day skill.


BTW I have done a first aid course-I did a great 1 day £35 course from the St John Ambulance I would thoroughly recommend. Thankfully I have never had to use it. I came close when cycling home from work one day to find a guy literally in the middle of the road under a bus, but fortunately the police had just turned up and where handling the situation as I arrived at the scene.

 

[mark barker]

I am first aid trained and have (in the past) been a first aid trainer. You're right, it is a skill that is useful to cyclists, but I'd go further than that and say its something that everyone should have a basic understanding of.

As for using the skills, I've had to on a couple of (serious) occasions, but neither involved cyclists.

 

[ufkacbln]

I agree fully with that.

But again not just as a cyclist - this is not a dangerous activity that needs first aid training in order to carry it out safely

I was a First Aid Trainer, held ALS and BLS skills and occasionally flew with Search and Rescue.

The most important thing to realise is that First Aid is everyone's responsibility and you should be able to deal with your child falling over, your elderly Granny's bleeding nose and the slip on the bathmat indoors.


Yes you should get First Aid Training even if it is a two hour first response course.

 

[Cringles]

This should be mandatory in school really. It's more important than being able to draw a bowl of fruit!

 

[addictfreak]

This should be mandatory in school really. It's more important than being able to draw a bowl of fruit!

Absolutely bang on.

I have been trained for many years. Firstly in the Army Cadet Force, then the Regular Army followed by the Fire and Rescue Service.
Have been called upon many times over the years to use the skills from minor injuries to full on major trauma.
It gives an emmense amount of satisfaction to know you helped make a difference. I would encourage everyone to have some form of training.

 

[2Loose]

+Millions for training at school.

I've been a work First Aider for about a decade and although I have only needed it at work a couple of times for minor things, it really has been very useful in various situations outside work.

The main good thing about it is feeling confident that you can help and you are not going to make things worse, only better.

 

[PoliceMadAd]

I have a Bas + Emer FA Cert which i did off my own back, as i was once at work, two FA trained managers on shift and when a woman collapsed, 1 just held her, no checks or anything and the other ran around getting stuff together. I was the 1 to phone 999 as i expected them to do something, i was more than shocked to find they hadn't. So i vowed to take a course myself, in case anything happened again. Not come across anything whilst cycling, i do think everyone should have basic training during secondary school.

 

[punkedmonkey]

This should be mandatory in school really. It's more important than being able to draw a bowl of fruit!

I guess I was quite fortunate really - my first taste of first aid was the lifesaving certificates (so mainly water focussed) I did when I was quite young and had regular swimming lessons. That was always good fun as well as being immensely practical.

We also had a teacher in our school who was a PADI instructor (?) and taught first aid and arranged for the whole sixth form to do a course!

But yes. It should be a mandatory part of the PSE (Personal & Social Education) curriculum...

 

[Matthames]

+1 with first aid training being part of the school curriculum. I was fortunate in that my form tutor had the foresight to include first aid lessons as part of our personal development classes. Since then I have attended other first aid courses. I had to put my first aid training into practice a couple of weeks ago when riding home I came across a woman who was out walking her dog had collapsed and was fitting.

 

[fimm]

I agree that it would be a good thing to be taught first aid in school, but might I point out that First Aid certificates only last a certain length of time (3 years IIRC?) and so it is something all of us should be keeping up to date with. I've done at least 3 first aid courses in my life, but the last one was a number of years ago. I really should get a refresher - but the thing is, what I really should do is a Mountain First Aid course, as I do a fair bit of hillwalking. Now that's a remote situation - not "wait 20 minutes for an ambulance" but "wait an hour and more for people to come and carry you out (or a helicopter if it is serious enough/there's one available)". (I appreciate that this does go for mountain biking too.) I think they teach a lot more interventions, such as splinting, on that sort of course, because of the possibility of a much longer wait.

 

[Zoiders]

I like many of you have sat through many first aid courses, both the usual red cross ones and some containing more nasty/complex stuff and the usual casualty evacuation scenarios etc etc.

After many years you start to get the impression the CPR does very little except make you feel better and give you something to do until help arrives, if they are down long enough they are brain damaged and a very small proportion of CPR cases that make it to hospital alive actually survive, they tend to die later, that doesn't mean you don't do CPR but I would not get your hopes up either.

In all circumstances the major issue is getting them to hospital or at the very least getting paramedics to them that have a full kit for stabilising a casualty before they can be moved, the old practice of scoop and run is much underated and I do have worries that people focus a bit too much on the aid side and not enough on rescue/prompt treatment.

 

[PpPete]

On a related topic ... how many of us carry a small first aid kit when cycling? I started to do so last year when riding with a buch of kids training for JoGLE. A few weeks later I put it to good use on the first casualty.... myself !
I was very glad to have a wound dressing and crepe bandage as it meant I could finish the ride and go to A&E later (7 stitches in torn elbow)

We had another incident on JoGLE itself....nothing life threatening, but kid was very shocked by amount of blood and it was useful to be able to do a fast patch up job and get them off to A&E in the support vehicle. Even more satisfying to get the feedback from the A&E that our roaside efforts (basically just stopping the bleeding but otherwise essentially a scoop & run) were "exactly right thing to do in the circumstances", despite the fact that my FA certificate expired several decades ago.

After those two incidents ... I consider a first aid kit to be just as important a part of my ride kit as a puncture repair kit or spare inner tube.

 

[subaqua]

This should be mandatory in school really. It's more important than being able to draw a bowl of fruit!

and where do you plan to fit this into the school day.

national curriculum fills the day and then some already.

like the idea but the practicalities are nigh on impossible.

 

[Zoiders]

[QUOTE 1327634"]
Another interesting snippet -remember resuscitAnnie, the doll you practiced CPR on? Well, given the likelihood of a heart attack victim being an overweight, middle-aged man they've recently introduced a new version called Big Fat Bob. Much closer to the real thing.
[/quote]I wouldn't touch a resusci-annie doll if you paid me.

Have you seen the average fat spotty teen in the St Johns Ambulance?

They certainly aint making it with the ladies so that doll must be a temptation, you have no idea what might have been in it's mouth.

 

[subaqua]

[QUOTE 1327633"]
In an interview someone once asked Harry Hill (who used to be a doctor for those who don't know) if A&E was really like casualty with all the shouts of "clear!", CPR and shocking people. He said no, because it doesn't really work.

I've not been in a situation yet where I've had to use CPR but I've been there when it's happening, and have heard many hospital and St John stories about it. No it doesn't work very often, but there are occasions when it has and has saved a life.

People may not be aware, but the stats are so promising about starting treatment on heart attack victims immediately rather than later on that there are programmes to install AEDs (defibrillators) in public places around the country. Many stations now have them, for example. And these days they're so easy to use (you can't go wrong as long as you follow the spoken instructions, and you certainly can't make things worse) that they should be available to untrained people at the sites. The scenes still shown on Casualty about rubbing paddles together and pushing them onto someone are long gone.
[/quote]

the first thing i was taught on the 4 day first aid at work course was if they are unconsciuos and not breathing ( no need to check for pulse anymore it delays response and watch out for agonal breaths too !!) whatever you do in the way of CPR it isn't going to make things any worse than they are.

have done it once for real and its something i never want to do again. the crunch of ribs cracking is not a sound you forget . the guy didn't make it for long after but long enough for his wife to get to the hospital so i feel proud that i helped her get the chance to say goodbye.

and yes he was a "big fat bob" who keeled over at a bus stop - all happens in slomotion too for the first 2 seconds until training kicks in .

I bought a proper pocket mask after that rather than the face shield and it gets carried in the rucksack i go virtually everywhere with. it also fits coat pocket nicely if going out for the night and gets some odd looks from doorstaff when they search you on way into places.

am trained to administer O2 for diving related incidents but not in general, thats next on the list after AED training.

well worth it