First aid is quite important.  I’m a first aider myself and do a fair bit of first aiding in my personal life, mainly due to other unfortunate souls injuring themselves.

Most of the incidents I come accross are related to cars, though I’ve had to attend several casulties who’ve had mild forms of epileptic fits, several broken limbs (one of which was enough to make your stomach turn and required a HEMs Doctor (that’s a helicopter to you and me) because of the serious nature of the injury.

I did do a stint on the ambulances in London with St John Ambulance and did have to deal with a couple of cardiac arrests, one of which died on scene due to a heroin overdose and the other had a CVA (Stroke) and whilst he regained a heart beat and breathing from our prompt actions, he later died in hospital.  Both events were attended by the LAS (London Ambulance Service) but we were first on scene on both occasions.

I’m not going to detail any sort of advice on first aid, other than it’s a really good thing.  Most of the time you’ll just be standing by calming the casulty, but a little knowledge can stop other well wishers from doing something really stupid.

NB. Many scout districts/counties have a dedicated first aid team.  So give them a shout.  I’m having a first aid camp next year!

Resources:

http://www.sja.org.uk/sja/first-aid-advice.aspx

http://www.redcross.org.uk/What-we-do/First-aid/First-aid-campaigns/Life-Live-it

http://www.scoutbase.org.uk/library/hqdocs/facts/pdfs/fs315077.pdf