Senior First Aid Certification - Why bother.....?

I've heard more than a few grumblings over the years from paddlers resenting the idea that to become a Sea Leader, guide or instructor, you need to have a valid Senior First Aid certificate. It's a course I've taken myself off to three times now since getting into kayaking & one I figured would come in handy some day. Besides a few minor emergencies with my kids and my clumsy self, I've been fortunate enough to never have to actually use the skills my mate, & St Johns Educator & First Aid guru, Bruce McNaughton has taught me at the refresher courses. That all changed on Saturday when I was driving through suburban Marrickville & spotted a guy slumped against his driving wheel, with a couple of cars behind him honking as he blocked their exit from a popular local market. I stopped the car & ran back to find him unconscious, with blue lips, not looking too cheery. I pulled him out of the car, told a shell-shocked bystander to call an ambo, got another guy to stop the traffic which was still trying to manoeuvre past, then put old mate into the recovery position, checked his airway, remembering Bruce's DR ABC (Danger - Response - Airway - Breathing - Circulation). Another bloke out of the crowd, now over a dozen, checked his pulse which was pretty weak, & I tried to check if he was breathing. Once we'd figured out that he was neither breathing nor had a pulse - a surprisingly difficult thing to be sure about - I started CPR. With Bruce's words flooding back, I gave the guy a couple of breaths, then set up to do the compressions when he let out a big snore like breath & started to splutter, his blue lips started to turn red again & I figured the emergency was over. We then kept an eye on his dodgy breathing for a few more minutes until the Ambo's arrived.
In the post-match questioning from the police, it was amazing that nobody else present - more than 20 in the end - had any first aid skills, and basically they would have stood around & watched this poor dude expire while waiting for the ambulance. Although I've previously never done anything so drastic before, it's a tribute to the training you get from Bruce & the St Johns people that you have a reasonable idea of what to do, even two years removed from my last refresher. The moral of the story, if you don't have First Aid qualifications, seriously consider getting them. For a sea kayakers, especially those of us who from time to time deliberately go looking for adventure, it's something you owe your fellow paddlers. I think it's one of those civic responsibilities that we should all have at some level, preferably from a first rate educator like St Johns. You can check the course options HERE. I can guarantee that more than a few of the powerless spectators on the weekend will be heading off to research the getting of First Aid quals. A couple of them were really traumatised that they didn't know what to do & were silently cursing themselves as the poor dude on the ground went a deeper & deeper shade of blue. Marrickville Police range me on Saturday night to say that the guy was OK & was released from hospital on Sunday night, all is well that ends well. First Aid certification.....? Please bother...