First Responders!

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First Aid has to be one of the most important things that a person must learn. It’s a must-have skill because we can never know when an emergency will happen. You could be slicing an onion and mistakenly cut yourself, your kid could be playing and have a bad fall, or someone could be walking under the hot sun and suddenly just faint. There are so many scenarios, and if you don’t know First Aid, their lives could be very much at risk.

But with First Aid treatment, you could end up saving lives. You could clean up injuries and save them from getting infected, you could give someone CPR and keep their heart beating long enough for the doctors to arrive, and you could give them the much-needed care. First Aid is something that, no matter what, everyone should have knowledge of because it’s basic and the bare minimum for safety.

In my home, we don’t technically have an actual First Aid box. We do have something similar that we use to keep our First Aid implements. We have plasters, bandages, penicillin, painkillers, we even have thermometers, and the machine used to check the blood pressure. Many times, and seeing how we don’t have kids at home presently, we barely make use of it, but I remember the time when I had to use every one of those tools.

These things come in very handy. I remember when my Mom had a minor accident late one night and sprained her ankle. It was so bad that she couldn’t do anything with the leg. She needed a doctor, but it was too late to go for one. But we used a bandage to wrap it up tightly, which made it a bit easier for her to stand and even walk. And the next day, she was able to go to the hospital for the doctors to look at her ankle.

I’ve never had to do CPR for someone before, and I’ve never been in such a situation. The only place I learned all that was back in Pry school during Health Science classes. In secondary school, a lot of my classmates joined the Red Cross society, but I wasn’t a member because I joined the Jet club. So, I don’t have a lot of experience when it comes to CPR and mouth-to-mouth. Although from what I’ve learned about it so far, I know it’s not easy and can be stressful as hell because you have to keep pushing the heart to keep beating even after it has stopped.

I might not be able to run CPR effectively, but I do know how to treat a wound. I know how to stop a bleeding wound and clean it up nicely. Granted, it’s mostly little cuts and injuries that I’ve worked with. I’ve never had to work with stab wounds or gunshot wounds before, but I know that in such a scenario, the main goal should be to reduce the flow of blood as much as possible, and this can only happen if adequate pressure is applied to the wound.

First Aid is really important, and the more people take it seriously, the better for society at large. Because it can be frustrating when someone gets hurt or faints, grown adults would be running around like headless chickens, not knowing what to do. This should be like a follow-come knowledge, the same way we know the national anthem or something like that.

It’s not crazy to assume that if more people knew First Aid, then the fatal cases would not be so much. As a matter of fact, some cases would never get to the emergency ward because they were treated on the spot. Well, we can only hope!

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_{Thank you for reading. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below, I would love to know what you’re thinking. Till we meet in the next post.}

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_{This post is inspired by the second topic of this week which is First Aid. Feel free to try it out.}

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_{N.B: All images used in this post are mine. The thumbnail was designed using Canva.}

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