St John First Aid Course

By Shona Mckenzie | Posted: Friday June 25, 2021

Over the last two weeks, each class has been taught vital first aid skills by Rebecca from St John.

The course from St John was really beneficial, teaching us how to look after an injured person using 'DRS ABCD' and 'CPR'.

Firstly, we learnt about ‘DRS ABCD,’ this is a medical process of the following:

D: Check for dangers and make sure there is nothing that can hurt you, your peers or your patient.
R: Check for a response by using a booming voice and if there is no response from that tap their collarbone.
S: Send for help by either calling out or calling an ambulance.

A: Check their airways, tilt their chin back to make sure nothing is causing your patient to choke.
B: Breathing, lay one hand on their chest and one ear over their mouth. This allows you to feel the rise and fall of your patient's chest and breath.
C: Circulation and CPR, if they are breathing check for a pulse on their neck to see if they have a normal rate. If they aren’t breathing you start CPR.
D: Defibrillation, this is an emergency treatment for heartbeats out of the norm. This treatment restores a normal heartbeat by shocking your heart with electricity.

Secondly, we were taught CPR. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation, more commonly known as ‘CPR’ is used with chest compressions. It requires you to place your hands linked together and push the chest hard 30 times. You then tilt their chin back, hold their forehead and chin and blow into their mouth two times after each set of 30. It is important to continue CPR until the ambulance arrives unless they become conscious. 

Rebecca taught us some great reminders to help us complete CPR compressions in time with the heart. These songs included; you can Staying Alive, Baby Shark, Dancing Queen, the Alphabet, and Can't Stop the Feeling.

Overall, we found that learning ‘DRS ABCD,’ and ‘CPR,’ was really helpful because we might be placed in a situation where we are required to save someone's life. 

By Caitlin McLachlan, Ariaan Prescott, Kanon Taki, and Jazmin Gebler

Room 5