First Aid

On the 28th of September my class and I took part in a three day course learning first aid. This course taught us how to perform C.P.R, how to help someone if they are choking, how to deal with cuts, brakes and sprains.
Our instructor's name was Gary. He runs a company called Life Save. He travels around Ireland giving courses to people who want to learn how to do first aid.
The following is a brief summary of some of the things we learned from First Aid with Gary;
We learned that to perform C.P.R you have to push on the person’s body extremely hard and that it doesn’t matter if you break a rib as long as you are doing it right. You do 30 compressions and 2 breaths, an AED doesn’t start the heart like you see on T.V, in fact, it stops the heart.
If someone’s heart stops beating they have approximately 4 minutes until their brain starts to die . This is why it is important to get to someone as quick as you can.  When your heart stops beating for up to 4 minutes, then, you are called clinically dead you can be resuscitated in that time period hopefully without brain damage but after that you are called biologically dead. This is where there is no coming back -  you are dead. If someone does get to you before the 4 minutes and starts performing C.P.R on you, it can give you up to 10 minutes before your brain starts to die.
Someone does not die of a heart attack they die from a cardiac arrest, a cardiac arrest can come on due to the heart attack but the heart attack doesn’t kill you.
I’m happy that I got the chance to do this course because it has given me information that I didn’t know and how to react in a situation if someone ever has a cardiac arrest, heart attack, stroke, any breaks and sprains .