FIRST AID REALLY DOES SAVE LIVES!

All Acorns staff are trained in Paediatric First Aid and we realise how quickly first aid skills can save lives. Last year Acorns introduced free First Aid Taster Sessions for parents in conjunction with St John Wales.  These proved hugely popular and we even ran a course for Grandparents which was a great success. One of our parents who attended the course, had a real life emergency recently and had to call upon her first aid skills to alleviate a choking incident at home.

This is her story in her own words:

Several months ago I was handed a flyer by Acorns offering paediatric first aid courses, by St John’s Ambulance. Having 2 small children and always keen to learn something new I thought I would give it a go. It was free and only took 1 morning. The course involved learning basic first aid for children including CPR and how to deal with various situations such as choking. Little did I know that this was the most valuable training course I would ever attend.

A couple of weeks ago, I was sat at the dinner table with my family and my youngest son gave a little cough, I looked up to see that he was fine. A couple of seconds later he made the same sound and my husband quickly realised he was choking. Always calm in a crisis he rushed to pick him up and began tapping him on the back. It became obvious very quickly that the situation was more serious and we needed to take action; my son was unable to breath and the colour had drained from his face and mouth. Thanks to the training course I had attended I knew what to do. I was able to position him correctly and take appropriate steps to dislodge the grape that was stuck in his throat; my husband was then able to remove it from his mouth. Thankfully he recovered quickly and within a minute or two all he wanted was to finish his bowl of grapes.

Because of the first aid course I attended I was more confident in my actions and was not panicked (at least not until afterwards). I am sure that it was instrumental in the positive outcome we had. I truly cannot imagine what could have happened, I am sure we have all seen recent press coverage of similar situations where the outcome was heartbreaking. I would encourage all parents to attend a St John’s Ambulance first aid course; you really never know when it might make the difference between life and death. If Acorns are kind enough to offer another course mine will be the first name on the list!

Thank you to Acorns Nurseries and St John’s Ambulance