Thursday, October 21, 2010

SLSA

Many years ago I volunteered as a surf lifesaver and did patrol at Tamaramma, North Bondi and Freshwater beaches for a few years. Any way - I saw this add recently - made me a little nostalgic. If you don't know CPR please make an effort to go learn.

The only inaccuracy in this vid is the lack of vomit.
They always vomit.

8 comments:

fingers said...

Couldn't agree more !!!
Did my Nippership at North Bondi and patrolled there for a few years as a lifesaver too.
It's utterly incredible that CPR is not taught at schools as a subject...

Bambam said...

Nice post there Steve.

I assume between you and Fingers that out of 53 cases of a girl possibly requiring CPR, you saved 743 of them?

LẌ said...

A couple of months ago one of my co-workers tangled with some 208 VAC in the computer room. I was so relieved NOT to have to use CPR.

LẌ said...

PS: Spectacular arc flash! Lots of black soot on his hand and arm.

fingers said...

What, you mean because the guy was dead ??
Wow, lucky break for you, man...

unique_stephen said...

Fingers > We had surfing as a school sport, but to surf you had to do your bronze and regular patrols.

Bambanm > unfortunately it's usually blokes you need to do CPR on and usually kneeling in the gravel at McKenzies. We had on one chick get smashed in the washing machine at the end of the Bronte Express and need CPR on the rescue board till the boat from Bronte could get there.

XL > Glad that ended well. I've been involved in quite a few serious incidents. Seen three work related deaths and been involved in the failed resuscitation for two of them. One, a driller's assistant on a mine site got too close to a big drill and got wrapped up in the machine. Not much we could have done there. The other was about 20 yeas ago. I worked as a cleaner in a hospital and one of my colleges was standing less than 10m from me when he got blown apart, he died pretty much instantly. He'd vacuumed up spilled photocopier toner with one of those backpack vacuum units - the dust went through the bag and arced in the motor. Flash, bang, metal smacking around and smashing glass in the corridor, blood everywhere, a wave of it. It was all a bit yuck. Doctors were there in moments but it was pretty clear with the amount of blood flowing down the hall he didn't have a chance.
The guy that got run over on a remote mine site lived but only after 50 minutes of CPR.
The list goes on: As a kid we lived on a dangerous road in Sydney - the Comenarra Parkway, cars would go off the road into the trees down an embankment damaging the occupants to various degrees. I was part of the State Emergency Services for a while too - we had some fairly exciting rescues with them and tricky first responder moments - the kid who jumped off a small cliff on his bike and impaled himself on his own leg bone comes to mind.
Swimmer hit by a boat and cut by the prop.
Jogging with my dad and finding a young kid (6 or 7) that had just been hit by a car. He was in a really bad way - fitting with blood coming out of his ears as his head swelled from the injury.
Any way, learn first aid it seems to come in handy, especially around me.

Memphis said...

Wow, from all the accidents you've described I'm thinking you could do a blog post on each of them! I've been first on the scene of a few serious car accidents and seen a man die in the park from a heart attack, but nothing like what you've seen. The only CPR lessons I ever had was at my gym, and it was way too short of a class. We needed a lot more training. I need to find another class and take more of it.

Friday said...

Agreed! Everyone should know CPR... am actually considering a career change to teach First Aid level 2.

: )

xx