Praise London Ambulance Service Heartstart training

Help & Advice Praise or Shame
1

Last night I attended the excellent ‘Heartstart’ training run by London Ambulance Service. It’s a free two-hour introduction to first aid and CPR.

Previously I had no CPR experience, and after just a few hours I hope I’m now in the position to increase someone’s chance of surviving cardiac arrest. I can’t stress how easy it is to learn, and how vital these basic skills could be.

They said that every minute a casualty is in cardiac arrest/not breathing, their chance of survival drops by 10%. LAS take on average 7 minutes to get to you but you all need to do this training to stop that ticking clock until the experts arrive.

It covers CPR, defibrilator usage, other basic first aid, recovery position etc.

In short-I cannot believe how unprepared I was previously. These are really simple skills that have a HUGE benefit. Being bikers and in London we could easily be the first at the scene. Just to stress- there is no liability on you as the rescuer, we all need this skill to at least try to save a life.

London is the third best city in the world for survival rates, but they’re still below 30%. Get out there and learn what to do!!!

:slight_smile:

2

Good on ya. Where did you do it and where did you apply for this training?

Still need to update my stuff a bit too, last time I did it was when I was in the fire brigade in Germany, about 12 years ago :blink:

3

Have a look here http://www.londonambulance.nhs.uk/about_us/involving_our_community/public_education/resuscitation_training_courses.aspx

12 years ago, showing your age!

4

Wow looks like a great thing to do… will need to look into it but a few times I’ve looked at other similar courses was just never able to fit them in.

I do have only praise for LAS though… They arrived at my uncle’s home and had resuscitated him within 7 mins. Sadly he did not make due to other complications in his health but they were at the house so quick and did everything humanly possible to save his life… trully outstanding work and ethic especially when they would have had to deal with my hysteric aunt.

5

Since they say on the page they offer free training to groups, would an LB thingy be of interest?

There was a user here (whose name I’ve forgotten) offering similar courses, right?

6

Yes they would be interested, but the training is given in ambulance stations covering certain geographic areas-I did mine at Chase Farm in Enfield. I assume you would have to divide up with people local to you. Go for it :slight_smile:

7

hm, we’re all mobile, so we can ride around. But I’ll ask and see what comes out of it :slight_smile:

8

Ok Great, the trainer up there in Enfield (John) is also a biker so also gave me information about the CRASH card that you carry in your helmet lining with your personal and medical details on it.

I’m sure with a big group it could be made bike-specific.

9

on a side note, you can get those crash cards also at Ace cafe too.
Which reminds me I need to get one at some point too, thanks for the reminder :slight_smile:

10

Yes.