St. John Ambulance was at the Heritage Seniors Centre on Wednesday hosting a basic first aid course for everyone called ‘Will You Know What to Do When…”
An instructor with Saint John Ambulance Service, John Glasscock said that the purpose of the course was first aid skills awareness.
He explained that making it available to each individual and seniors can make a difference in an emergency to support the casualty until medical providers arrive.
“Something like this is quite simply to make an awareness of the ability of each individual to make a difference in an emergency just by using common sense and apply just common sense skills and addressing the issues as I said of the airway, the breathing and the circulation to support the casualty until medical providers arrive,”
He explained that having these common sense skills make it easier for the medical professionals when they arrive.
“All of those medical professionals can’t do their job unless they get a viable patient. He adds “If the person is not breathing, doesn’t have the airway or they have bled out before the medical people get there, then there is nothing they can do,” Glasscock said.
Glasscock said something like this is quite similar to making awareness of the available each individual to make a difference in an emergency to support the casualty just by using common sense skills in addressing the issues.
“Friends or family have medical emergency and they stop to realize how they could possibly help or things that they can do to save their lives,” Glasscock said.
St. John Ambulance empowers all Canadians to save lives by providing first aid training for seniors and young individuals.
Glasscock said that the message of these types of presentations resonate with the crowd.
“A lot of people do more so nowadays especially as they have seen friends or family have medical emergencies and they stop and they realize how they can possibly have helped or things that they can do to help,” Glasscock said.
There was a large crowd of seniors at the presentation and Glasscock said they were a great audience,
“They are very attentive and they are here because they want to learn and they want to be prepared,” Glascock said.
-with files from Michael Oleksyn/Daily Herald
