CPR Saves Lifes
Dramatic roadside images capture the moment first responders saved baby’s life after he turned blue in car gridlocked on highway
- Five-month-old Sebastian stopped breathing while in aunt’s car
- Police officer and fire crew stuck in traffic rushed to help perform CPR
- Baby Sebastian is now recovering in hospital
When a five-month-old baby stopped breathing while being driven along a Florida highway on Thursday there was plenty of help at hand.
As Pamela Rauseo pulled over and screamed for someone to help her nephew, Sebastian, a police officer and two firefighters who were stuck in traffic rushed to her aid.
In a twist of fate, award-winning photojournalist Al Diaz was also in the traffic hold up, and captured a series of dramatic pictures showing the emergency crews saving the baby’s life.
Sebastian, who suffers from respiratory problems after being born prematurely, had started to turn blue as Ms Rauseo drove along a highway at 2.30pm.
She quickly pulled over and lifted him from the car, screaming for help.
Diaz, who works for the Miami Herald, said he heard a woman ‘screaming that the baby can’t breathe’.
QCPR Resusci Anne
The Resusci Anne® with QCPR® is an adult CPR training manikin now improved for multiple feedback options that provide opportunity to focus on student competency. Measurement, assessment and quality feedback are key factors in developing competency.
The Little Anne is the staple manikin used for all first aid training. Looking to ensure HDP offer the best teaching equipment, we tested the new Resusci Anne QCPR manikin with SkillGuide. We were so impressed we order two.
The SkillGuide is a small electrronic device that when attached to the manikin, records and displays real-time feedback on the core parameters of CPR performance (depth, rate, incomplete release and ventilation volume).
We all strive to ensure that students attain Guideline compliant CPR but judging the quality of CPR performed can be a challenge and imprecise. With the SkillGuide providing real-time feedback, the instructor and student can see straightaway the level of CPR being performed and what aspects need to improve.
Students can be self-directed in their CPR practice with the feedback on the SkillGuide guiding their improvements until they reach the required standard. And with the SkillGuide’s summative feedback and scoring function, we can now be certain they have reached that standard.
The student feedback has been really positive. They seem much more engaged in the training and more motivated and competitive with themselves to improve their scores. The sessions are noticeably more fun and interactive.
I can certainly see a measured improvement in CPR performance compared to previous training. Using feedback is definitely the way we will move forward to improve CPR competence in our organisation. Along with continuing to invest in the best equipment.
Welcome Nigel!
HDP is proud to announce the arrival of Nigel to the fold. Nigel was born in Norway in 2014. Nigel is not like the other personnel that you meet on a First Aid Course as he is made to challenge and report back on your CPR and Airway Skills.
Nigel is, of course, our new Laerdal QCPR Manikin, named after a candidate on our FPOS Intermediate course at the time of his arrival in the UK. He is, unlike most competitor’s manikins, the top of the range, reporting on CPR, Airway and Defibrillation skills. He does have a sister, who is currently on her way from Norway to join him, having only just been born. These two are the first of a planned four manikins of this model at HDP, before we up the tempo!
Nigel stands as testament to HDP’s claim that we only utilise the finest, and most effective equipment and materials to teach you. This serves to assure you that you are competent in your skills, and that your pass in FAAW, EFAW, FPOS etc is worth the money that you paid for it. For employers, it provides a record of your staff, allowing confidence in their abilities.
Despite the cost of Nigel and his family, our investment proves our commitment to excellent customer service, but costs you no more than the industry standard rate, representing added value for all.
‘Tis the Season
I just lost my mum. Not to any of the seasonal conditions, I might add.
But it is the time to think of the elderly and vulnerable in our communities.
Whilst some of us are gazing upon a winter wonderland, the crisp white mornings, perhaps playing in snow, please spare a thought for those people, who, for whatever reason cannot turn on their heating, and cannot get up to spend hours in the kitchen cooking their Christmas meal.
Many of them fought in wars, or helped make our Country into what it is today, (No political debate over the state of the UK please) a place where we enjoy rights and freedoms unparalleled pretty much anywhere, free healthcare, benefits etc. We owe them. It doesn’t take much to check on them, or to simply wish them a Merry Christmas.
More New Course Dates
Here are our courses dates for end of 2013 and start of 2014. These will be held at our new Training Centre in Ashby de la Zouch.
First Aid at Work – £150 per person
20th – 22nd January 2014
11th – 13th February 2014
19th – 21st March 2014
Emergency First Aid at Work – £65.00 per person
12th December 2013 – few places left
23rd January 2014
18th February 2014
10th March 2014
First Aid at Work Annual Refresher – £45.00 per person
29th January 2014
10th February 2014
14th March 2014
First Aid at Work Re-qualification – £95.00 per person
27th – 28th January 2014
20th – 21st February 2014
12th – 13th March 2014
All prices subject to VAT, 50% deposit required on booking balance to be paid 1 week prior to course date
New Testimonials posted
Thanks very much to our class of Ambulance Care Assistants for their testimonials on the successful completion of the course. A great bunch of students that were a pleasure to teach!
This completes a five week run of Ambulance Care Assistant courses with a course that was compiled by HDP to replace the programme offered by their previous provider which sadly did not meet their requirements, and meets their tendering needs. We look forward to working with the company again.
HDP will build high quality bespoke courses for your business needs. Phone today.
New Families First Aid
Proactive parenting by Sheila and Roy Poulton led to their son, David, undertaking the Royal Life Saving Society Bronze and Pool Bronze Medallions and the Award of Merit qualifications in his final years of schooling. Service for ten years in the Royal Navy, and subsequent careers required qualification in First Aid and CPR. David has always felt able to deal with a crisis, going on to become first a Paramedic, then a Senior Clinical Tutor in an NHS Ambulance Service.
Dave is now a Director of HDP Education Solutions Ltd, delivering bespoke education programmes to his clients, whether on a professional or personal basis, and is passionate about ensuring that people know what to do on what may be the worst day of their lives for good reason. His dad, Roy, passed away in 2004, the week before Dave joined the Ambulance Service, and was at work away from home. His mother and uncle carried out CPR as instructed by the operator, but to no avail. Neither of them had prior knowledge of the skills to be able to carry out CPR.
Imagine then, the terror felt by a parent whose own child is in a life threatening condition, waiting for an ambulance to arrive. We all know that children are unpredictable!
Recently St John Ambulance and the media have highlighted the lack of skills in parents and family groups. Articles abound telling us of parents that couldn’t find a first aider when their child was choking, and when a bystander saved the life of a toddler submerged in a car which had crashed into a river… the list goes on. It is a matter of common knowledge that many parents, understandably, panic when their child is ill, and HDP acknowledge this. Would the parent know what to do in those crucial minutes until an ambulance arrives? It is also acknowledged that parents are often leading busy lives, and juggling work with school runs and the daily tasks of living in a family environment, so may not have the time to undertake two day courses in Paediatric First Aid.
HDP’s approach to this is their New Families First Aid Course. A three hour course in a more relaxed social setting can help to prepare new families for their new responsibility, or simply to brush up their skills. Covering the basics of First Aid, plus information on CPR on both adults and children, the sessions may help to spark the interest of many parents, grandparents and older siblings in First Aid. The company will attend and deliver sessions for up to twelve attendees, with 10% of the proceeds from each course going to the Clic Sargent Fund for Children with Cancer.
The sessions could also be run in a nursery environment when parents have dropped off their children. Careful marketing of potential customers could bring new parents into the nursery, allowing them to see the quality that your establishment offers, and could serve to bring in new business via word of mouth referrals.
Dave tells us, “Having a new baby is a time of absolute love, family fun and laughter, wonderment and awe, sleep deprivation…..and moments of complete and abject terror!”
“I know that this quote is true. I said it! Long before I became a Paramedic, I knew that babies and infants are unpredictable, and that they don’t respond to external stimuli like adults do.
We want your experience on our course to be great fun, and to be even better when you look back in a few years on the development of your child.
Make sure you, and your family, know what to do when your child is ill, and what to do before the ambulance arrives.”
CPR Education in Schools?
Proactive parenting by Sheila and Roy Poulton led to their son, David, undertaking the Royal Life Saving Society Bronze and Pool Bronze Medallions and the Award of Merit qualifications in his final years of schooling. Service for ten years in the Royal Navy, and subsequent careers required qualification in First Aid and CPR. David has always felt able to deal with a crisis, going on to become first a Paramedic, then a Senior Clinical Tutor in an NHS Ambulance Service.
“What frustrates any Paramedic, or frontline Ambulance Staff member, is arriving at a cardiac arrest to find that no-one has started resuscitation, despite the emergency operator prompting and giving instructions.”
Britain is a multicultural society with varying comprehension of the English language, and it may be only the children of the family that have knowledge of the language, so in some cases it is the child who is communicating with the emergency services and carrying out life saving interventions or translating for another family member in an extremely stressful situation.
Knowledge of the basics of First Aid in a child of school age can only help in these situations, and when learned in a key skills environment, developed through to adulthood, the chances of retention of this vital information are multiplied, not only in these groups, but for any child.
This drive toward early teaching of CPR on a national basis is supported by a recent study in Denmark, where, since 2005 the government have been educating their population, including children in elementary schools, in CPR skills.
The results spoke for themselves. Quoting from a USA Today article in October of this year:
“In Denmark, the number of cardiac arrest victims who received “bystander” CPR — from someone other than a health professional — more than doubled, from 22% in 2001 to 45% in 2010.
In the same time period, the percentage of cardiac arrest victims who arrived at a hospital alive increased from 8% to 22%.
The percentage of patients alive after 30 days tripled, growing from 3.5% to 11%. The percentage of patients alive after one year also more than tripled, from 3% in 2001 to 10% in 2010.”
Whilst it appears that the new curriculum did not reflect these skills when published, we can only keep up the drive to support their adoption into our education system, despite clearly fitting into the key skills stages of education. Some schools, when approached to discuss AED placement and CPR education, simply replied that children do not have heart attacks! We know that this isn’t strictly true… and what about the staff?! Others cited costs of equipment and training as reasons that they would not consider adoption into their curriculum
Dave is now a Director of HDP Education Solutions Ltd, delivering bespoke education programmes to his clients, whether on a professional or personal basis, and is passionate about ensuring that people know what to do on what may be the worst day of their lives for good reason. His dad, Roy, passed away in 2004, the week before Dave joined the Ambulance Service, and was at work away from home. His mother and uncle carried out CPR as instructed by the operator, but to no avail. Neither of them had prior knowledge of the skills to be able to carry out CPR.
He tells us, “Everyone should have the knowledge to give the most precious gift of all, the gift of life. By ensuring early education and further development, maybe following the Danish example, requiring new drivers to pass a First Aid qualification prior to being awarded a driving licence, we can cut down the number of unnecessary deaths that occur every day.”
Another Near Miss….
A toddler has a near miss whilst out shopping with mum.
Some companies, not referring to any in particular, as with restaurants mentioned in an earlier news article, are only required to have first aiders for their own staff.
Most employ security guards, and many of these should be first aid trained, but of course, this means that they wouldn’t be on top of that side of the business.
500 people in Leeds to learn First Aid
It appears there is a drive on in Yorkshire to teach 500 people in Leeds First Aid. Admirable!
We should all call on our local Councils to follow suit! Let us say goodbye to ignorance of basic life saving facts!
