St John Ambulance is on a mission to educate more members of the public on how they can step into action and start saving lives.
A representative of St John Ambulance spent the afternoon educating staff at the East Anglian Daily Times on five ways they could save a life.
The five things consist of the recovery position, resuscitation, choking, severe bleeds and primary survey which looks at communication.
Jacquie Phillips-Clarke, who is the area manager for St John Ambulance, said: “These five ways saves lives, it really genuinely saves and I have first hand experience of that.
“In particular, the recovery position is the most important thing that you will ever learn in your life, as it is likely you will have to do it at some point.”
The hour-long session went through the motions of what to do when a casualty is conscious versus what to do when they are unconscious.
It taught us how to deal with a number of medical emergencies and how you would treat them depending on their age.
Jacquie also provided us with a small convenient guide which you can keep with you at all times that has crucial life saving tips in.
She added: “I train people all year round, I go out into the community and I go into schools.
“To learn these skills it doesn’t cost very much but it gives people the confidence so that if they do see someone who has collapsed in the street that they don’t just walk by.
“That is the biggest problem we have at the moment, people will see someone who is hurt or ill and think ‘If I get it wrong I might get sued’, so they walk by and think that someone else can look after them, but, of course, someone else could say the same thing so it is really to educate people.
“You don’t need to be scared and the course hopefully gives them the confidence to say yeah, actually I can stop and I can help.”
If you want to learn more about what courses are available you can visit the St John website here.
Jacquie added: “If you go to the website and type in your area it will tell you where in Ipswich and in Suffolk you can go to pick up a course to learn these skills.
“Of course, they can sign up and volunteer for St John Ambulance and really learn those skills and they can do that from the age of seven to whatever ages as there is no age limit.”
You can also download the free St John Ambulance app which has an A-Z of possible things that could be wrong with a casualty and how you can help.
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