One of which was the St John Ambulance Standard First Aid Level C (First Aider 2). I had no idea what aspects of First Aid would be covered, other than it’d be more than learning CPR as I had done a few months ago. The course is slightly more expensive, at $130, and you get a thicker book with some more pictures inside.

The first day was exactly the same as you’d have in a CPR Class C class.CPR for adults, children and infants is taught along with two-rescuer CPR. Chest thrusts are also taught, only this time I had to stand behind a rather short lifeguard and my delicate ego wasn’t harmed as I practiced the correct technique (very light J thrusts to make them exhale differently).

The second day is much more fun. The course goes further into ‘first aid’ and you’ll be practicing how to bandage broken arms (in two different slings!), how to splint a leg, how to put a hand under some cold water for a burn and various other basic techniques for helping people (generally until they can go to a hospital or an EMS crew arrives).

It’s a fun little course, with lots of videos and demonstrations, and definitely the one I’d recommend taking regardless of what you actually have to take. The extra money is worth it. There’s also a nice incentive for taking it.

Licensing as a Stretcher Attendant only requires Standard First Aid Level C, plus the normally required police and child registry checks. If you’re unsure if you want to be a paramedic, or want a little taster of one aspect of life as a paramedic, then taking a job with stretcher transportation service would be a cheap (and reasonably effective) way of finding out. I know of several people who are waiting or are enlisted in PCP programs who spent a few months with such companies transporting patients.

Bronze Cross (December, 2007)

Bronze Cross Recertification (December, 2009)

Standard First Aid with CPR-C (July, 2010)

This certification is one of the mandatory requirements on working as a lifeguard and swimming instructor at a pool. But it is also a great certification for other workplaces when handling with cautious items. At this course, we were trained on making quick and good actions when handling a life threatening situation. We mainly focused on Anaphylaxis, Choking (Mild, Severe, Unconscious), Heart Attack, Angina, Stroke, etc. The main concept of this course is having the ability to treating and reassuring victims with the first aid requirements with quick and correct actions under various circumstances and being aware of the environment. This ability relates to technological design assignments, having circumstances and requirements, to make the correct and/or best choice in a design. For example, when I designed a family condominium, I had to be aware of the appropriate dimensions, what is needed, what is appropriate, etc. At a first aid situation, I have to be aware of the age of the victim, treatment, history, what happened, the right treatment, level of consciousness, the surroundings, other injuries, etc.

AED (November, 2010)

AODA (Accessible Customer Service Training) (December, 2010)

Swim and Lifeguard Instructors (December, 2010)

This course was to train on becoming a swimming and lifesaving instructor at a pool. Mainly, we made lesson and core plans for a specific swimming class and practice teaching it to the class. To make the situation realistic, some students acted immaturely and misbehaved while the “instructor” was teaching. This situation makes the “instructor” make decisions on the spot on how to discipline and treat the students right. This learning process relates to making decisions on the spot when making designs with a close due date. It relates to the ability of making quick and good decisions in situations like these. For now I only have the temporary certificate because I just passed the course last month and the actual certificate will be sent to me in a few months.

These awards are related to this portfolio because first aid treatment and knowing dangerous situations is mandatory for emergencies at the workplace

http://www.youtube.com/v/5r7haVfZXek?fs=1&hl=en_US

First Aid Kelowna | 2508786690

For over 50 years, the Red Cross has been teaching Canadians how to be safe and prevent injuries. We offer comprehensive training for the workplace, advanced and specialized training, community courses and programs for youth. Every year more than 300,000 Canadians take Red Cross first aid training and gain the knowledge, confidence and skills to deal with emergency situations and prevent injuries.

First Aid Kelowna | 2508786690

There are a couple of things that I do regularly outside of school.  Yes…I do other things that read textbooks all day long.

One of them is I’m a lifeguarding.  Well…lifeguard to be.  I’m still training up to be one and I have three more courses left: Life Saving Instructor, Water Safety Instructor and National Lifeguarding Society.  I have already done everything else like Standard First Aid, Assistant Water Safety Instructor, Bronze Medallion and Bronze Cross.  An estimate of when I will finally become one is probably around January or early February 2010.

How I got into lifeguarding is because I love swimming.  I use to swim everyday and now with all these classes, I swim whenever I can.  I don’t mean to brag but I can swim…unlimited laps, front crawl.  I never get tired for some reason.  Also from taking AWSI (Assistant Water Safety Instructor), I interact with kids from 4 years old up to 18.  We teach them how to swim and it’s a whole lot of fun.  I love working with kids.  It’s the best part about the job because they give me so much energy in return.  It just makes me feel good at the end of the day.

William Heng

I took my first CPR/AED/FA training a year ago.  The certification for CPR/AED-Adult lasted one year.  That certification for the Standard First Aid lasts three years.  I think it was an excellent course.  It was long, it was 7 or 8 hours.  But the instructor had been doing it a long time and he was very good.  He was entertaining and injected just the right amount of humor so as not to let the class be boring or to have us falling asleep.

I would recommend this long, extensive class for anyone that is getting certified for the very first time.  It was very detailed and we did a lot of practical practice.  We used dummies to do CPR, plus each group practiced with an AED.  Then we practice basic first aid on each other.

I also liked this class because it was really close to my house in San Jose.

This latest class I took was CPR/AED and the certification lasts for two years!  Yay!  I love that!  It will be perfect timing because that is when I will need a recert in First Aid.

This was the perfect re-cert class.  It moved much more quickly and there was not as much practice on the dummy.  Right now the ratio is 30 compression to 2 ventilations performed 5 times in two minutes.  Doing that three or four times is enough.  It takes a good amount of pressure to get that dummy’s chest to click.

With this class I think I got a little bit of a different idea about the whole thing.  The first class I took was with an instructor.  I don’t think he actually ever performed CPR.  Tonight the teacher was a fire chief (I think that is what he said).  He had a long list of in the field experience.  He had even worked an an EMT. He has actually done CPR and used and AED.    So a few of the questions actually made him pause.  You could tell he had an answer, but he was not going to just blurt out the truth, but he wasn’t going to lie about it either.

Both teachers were great, just in different ways.  It was just really interesting to get information from someone who had actually performed CPR and used an AED.  I honestly don’t remember my last instruction including the information that it would be “crunchy”.  The amount of pressure required to compress someone’s chest to get the heart to force it into pumping blood just might break bones.  He  said it probably would and it was ok.  I thought that was really important to hear, because I think I might have backed off from pressing as firmly as they are now saying you need to, if I had not been told that bones will break.  I thought that was invaluable information.  Need to know kind of stuff.

CPR/AED/FA training is one of those things, like insurance, that you hope you never, ever, ever need.  I hope it works out that I never need to exercise my knowledge.  It is good to have it, I just don’t ever wanna use it.  Are you certified?  Do you have any stories to tell about a certiciation class you have taken?