Thursday 8th May 2008

Hello to you all,

We’ve had some beautiful weather in Somerset over the last five days, so I was able to take advantage of it last Saturday and venture out to obtain some more stock for the Somerset3d website.

I decided to head to the south of the county and explore some villages between Yeovil and Taunton. I ended up visiting Stoke sub Hamdon, Seavington St Michael, Ashill, Hatch Beauchamp, Staple Fitzpaine and Creech St Michael. It was whilst I was wandering around the last village that my First Aid skills were called into action.

I had just reached a small bridge that straddled the Taunton to Bridgewater canal when a breathless youngster appeared asking if I had a mobile phone and, if so, could he borrow it as his friend had hurt his foot when running through a field just the other side of the canal. I lent him the phone and waited whilst he called his mother to report in. Once he’d finished I offered to help get his friend to the bridge. We carried him from the field and got him to the bridge. He said his foot really hurt, especially when he tried to get his shoe off. I suggested to leave the shoe on and asked him to lay on the floor. I then suggested that the injured foot ought to be raised and asked his mate to rest the injured limb on his knee. Upon inspection I could see where a piece of cane had pierced his shoe and gone on into his foot. I suggested that he should be taken to the local hospital so that they can remove it without causing further damage and to also check the wound for any contamination, as you never know what may have been sprayed in the field. They promised to stay where they were and wait for the parents to arrive. I said that I would be wandering up the canal and back taking photos and would check on them if they were still there when I returned. Well, about 10 minutes later I was heading back to the bridge and I noticed that the boys had now gone. I assumed they were with their parents. But I assumed wrong. For they were now near a road bridge that went over the canal and the injured one had since taken his shoe off and removed the obstacle that had penetrated his foot. He proudly showed me the two inch long spear, covered in blood, and then tossed it into the undergrowth. I suggested he ought to have kept it to show the hospital staff exactly what caused the injury but we couldn’t find it. I asked them to stay put to wait for their parents and offered my mobile again so that they could tell them where they had moved to.

Now, all of the above could have been so much easier if these boys had some knowledge of First Aid. The shoe would have been left on and the boys would have stayed put, with the injured limb raised. When I worked full time in the leisure industry I was constantly campaigning for the schools to have one games/sports lesson a month in the classroom, to explain more on why health related fitness is important and to cover basic first aid. It still doesn’t happen but I still feel that all children would benefit more from learning about why keeping fit is important and the basics of First Aid rather than learning something 90% of them will never use again, e.g. long division.

How about you, what do you think? Are you trained in First Aid? Do your children have any First Aid knowledge?

More next week.