Recently, Early First Aid hosted a course for a school - the school in question has been a customer of ours for a few years now. Its a big school in the heart of beautiful Surrey. Back in 2017, concerned about the distance between the school and its nearest defib, we decided that we would do some fundraising for the school to help towards procuring its very own defib. Now, if you didn't already know, defibrilators (also known as Automated External Defibrilators, or AED's) save thousands and thousands of lives every year. In fact, when performaing CPR on someone, you are in fact buying yourself time for when the defib arrives. Its THAT that saves someones life (in the majority of cases). 

 

So, back to fundraising - we needed to raise £1000! How did we do this? We put on numerous first aid workshops for parents of the school to attend. We spoke about (and practiced) CPR, choking, burns, bleeds, head injuries, Meningitis and Sepsis. We also spoke about defibs. In return, we asked the parents to donate some money to the schools defib fund.  

 

Hop forward 3 months, and the shiny new defib was installed. 

 

Hop forward again to October 2020 (and here's where the goosebumps come in) when a parent who was picking up his child from school suddenly collpses and goes into cardiac arrest. The amazing staff sprung into action, recognising early that he wasn't breathing, and began CPR. They also shouted for someone to call 999 and get the defib, which was located at the schools reception. They applied the defib, followed the instructions and shocked the man once. He began to show signs of life immedietly - breathing, making noises and he had a PULSE. The staff monitored him until the ambulance arrived. 

 

So what happened? The man was young, fit and healthy. He also had an undiagnosed heart condition which he has now undergone treatment for. He would have undoubtably died if it wasn't for the wonderful staff and thier training, and also for that Defib. 

 

We're passionate about having as many public use defibs as possible, and also ensuring that people wouldn't think twice about using one. If anyone would like some more information about fundraising, please do get in touch with us. 

 

sian@earlyfirstaid.com 

Sian 07984810847 

 

 

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