On Friday 13th July Joe, Emily and I set off to North Harrow to take part in a St John’s Ambulance first aid course. As the managers of the Chorleywood, Rickmansworth and New Homes departments, it is important to have a first aid officer for each office/ department and with the company directors already qualified, we wanted to make sure we always have a first aid officer at hand in case of an emergency.
Emily & Joe bandaged up!
At Sewell & Gardner we already follow a variety of strict first aid, health and safety regulations to ensure the security of our team and this course allowed us to expand on our knowledge. We learnt what a first aid kit is to comprise of, how to put on a sling or bandage, what to do if someone is bleeding, but most crucially we learnt how to check someone is breathing, put them in the recovery position and how to perform CPR. We hope never to need to use these techniques nevertheless this knowledge is critical and we now have the peace of mind that if something was to happen, we know what to do and can make the difference between someone surviving or not.
This knowledge will help us in the office and in general day to day life but may also help a client or viewer if we are ever caught in a situation where somebody unexpectedly falls ill.
Emily providing first aid
As well as learning the serious live saving techniques, we also had fun learning how to bandage each other up, although I am not entirely convinced about Joe’s head bandaging techniques and I did end up looking like Mr Bump!
Joe attempting to bandage Kirsty's head
We found the course both interesting and helpful, but we also had fun learning and are really pleased that we took the time to go!