Teaching First Aid Stories

[RememberSchiff]

Came across  this tale embedded in a business story:

...At the time I was the Scoutmaster of Troop 3, at First Presbyterian Church.

On this night I had arranged for a Registered Nurse to come in and teach the first aid merit badge. After we completed the required material, the nurse asked the group if they had any questions. Keep in mind we are talking about a group of 13- and 14-year old boys. These meetings can take on a life of their own at times, so I was prepared.

Naturally the scouts’ questions tended to be about anything but first aid. There were questions about everything from car wrecks to riding in the hospital helicopter. As we were winding down, one of the scouts asked about emergency medical procedures that could be done in the field.

The nurse thought for a minute and then responded, “I believe a doctor could talk you through a tracheotomy with the crudest of implements … with one very important exception! Unless it is my tracheotomy!”   

https://www.djournal.com/news/business/david-henson-nurses-boy-scouts-and-the-entrepreneurial-perspective/article_6cf41ad5-00d8-5f5a-a037-5f19778e2189.html

Please add your stories.

Edited November 15, 2019 by RememberSchiff

[le Voyageur]

On a Rim to Rim trek and preparing for the hard slog up to the South Rim, one of our scouts asked..."if I get snakebit will I get a ride up?".  The SM replied, "Yep".

At which time  said Scout stepped off trail and into the brush shouting "Here snake, snake, snake..."

 

 

[mrkstvns]

4 hours ago, RememberSchiff said:

...The nurse thought for a minute and then responded, “I believe a doctor could talk you through a tracheotomy with the crudest of implements … with one very important exception! Unless it is my tracheotomy!”     

Yep. Sometimes the cure can be worse than the cough.

That kind of reminds me of a story called "First Aid" by the famous Russian author, Anton Chekhov.

In the story, everyone in town is hanging out, drinking to excess, and having a grand old time. One man decides to cut the evening short and takes a short-cut back to his house. Unfortunately, he's not on a trail and gets lost in the woods, where he falls into a river. He cries out for help and is rescued by another man. He emerges from the water, shivering and utterly incoherent, but breathing and ambulatory. One of the villagers suggests that since he's so incoherent, the soul must have left his body, and they should all perform "First Aid" on the near-drowned man. They get a big tarp and use it to launch the victim into the air, catching him on the downward trip like he was on a big trampoline. Eventually, the man's neck breaks and the villagers stop their "First Aid" when it's obvious the man is dead.

 

[Jackdaws]

I sliced my thumb open last year at our district camporee.  I broke knife code and was cutting towards myself and oops.   I panicked as I could see white and it was bleeding pretty good so I went to our table and sat down trying to get it to stop bleeding.  My son runs over and says "Ooh ooh I can help! I have earned the First Aid merit badge!".   I am trying to rifle around the first aid kit to see what we have and I told him to please go away so I could collect myself.   I was debating if I needed to ride down the road to get a couple stitches.  Started to get a little woozy (like I said I panicked, nervous about needing stitches.  I am a wimp! )  but got my self under control and found some butterfly bandages and managed to get the blood slowed down. Put some ointment on it and bandaged my hand and went back to work.   Got a nice little scar from it.   

Funny part is, that date is apparently not very kind to me and my hands and sharp objects.  It came up in my Facebook memories that several years before that I sliced my thumb open on a can lid and then last month when it was the anniversary of camporee it came up about my mishap.  So for dinner that night I said lets go out to eat as I don't want to cook and chance cutting my hand again. 

[le Voyageur]

For a great story around the evening campfire, ask the lads which of them have ever kissed the dead lips of the young lassy known as the "L'Inconnue de la Seine"?

Google is your friend.....

Edited November 16, 2019 by le Voyageur

[RememberSchiff]

28 minutes ago, le Voyageur said:

...Google is your friend.....

Maybe the old Google,  but a Scout is a friend to all.    

https://www.sciencealert.com/how-dead-girl-paris-ended-up-most-kissed-lips-in-history-l-inconnue-de-la-seine-resusci-anne-cpr-annie-death-mask

[le Voyageur]

Day 4 of a bike trek we were headed into Angel Camp, one of the groups more daring riders lost control, careened into and flipped over  a barb wire fence landing on a fair size Timber Rattler.  Luck was on his side - it was a dry strike so no venom.  However, we took him into Angel Camp, found something called a Medical center, not much more than a first aid station that deals with minor stuff such as colds and tummy aches. Watching the nurse go deer in the headlights when told I had a kid that was snake bit was priceless, all she could say was, "we've got no protocols for snakebite!".   Assuring her it was a dry strike, and all that she had to deal was to clean the area,  pop him with a tetanus shot and hand him an Rx for a course of antibiotics and that he would be fine.   While that was happening, we got ahold of the mom back at base, an ER trauma nurse and told her of the event, after getting control of herself from a fit of roaring giggles, simply said to bring him back at the end of the week....

Edited November 17, 2019 by le Voyageur

[SSScout]

Again, the three words no Scoutmaster wants to hear:   ""HEY ! WATCH THIS ! ""

[Liz]

At cub scout camp this year they had the First Aid station right next to the fire making station. I happened to know that they had an open packet of burn gel sitting on the table because someone earlier had needed it. They showed it to the kids as they were talking about burn first aid. 

After my daughter finished up her first aid session, we went over to try our hand at making a fire on a sand table. We were only allowed one match, and mine broke, and since it's been a long time since I've used a regular match I have forgotten how easy it is to burn one's self on it and without thinking I tried to strike the broken match (honestly thinking I wouldn't get it to strike anyway) when it flared up and burned my finger which was too close to the match head. 

I asked my daughter to go over and ask one of the Boy Scouts at the first aid table for some burn gel. Which she did, but was completely ignored. She came back empty handed. So I called over to the Scout and said "Hey, I burned my finger, can I get some burn gel?" And he looked at me and proceeded to completely ignore me. 

I then walked over to him, held out my finger, and said "I KNOW you have burn gel over here. I saw it like 5 minutes ago. And it's already open. Please give me some, and while you're at it, may I please have a band-aid?" He stared at me blankly but eventually pulled out the open pouch, put some on my finger, and reluctantly handed me a band-aid. 

Seriously. The burn was small but it HURT and it shouldn't be that hard to get a Scout with a first aid kit to help you out. Yes, I was being stupid, but still. 

SSScout - You'd better hope my littlest one is never in your unit. LOL. She's going to turn any Scout leader's hair grey overnight. Yesterday after she landed flat on her face on the living room floor I had to tell her, "You cannot fly. Please stop trying." She answered. "Oh yeah. I forgotted. I was just trying to fly like SuperGirl." This is not the first time I've had to remind her that she cannot fly. She is almost 5. 🤦‍♀️

[SSScout]

Flying?  When I was maybe 6(?) dad and I went on a 'guy" day out to the Frederick County Fair.   I saw a helicopter land in the big field, and being crazy about airplanes, we went over to see it.  I found out later it was a Bell H47G, with the big plexi glass cover for the pilot.  For a price, you could go for a ride !  Dad and I strapped in, and man, I still remember that ride !  Unfortunately, my poor eyesight kept me away from a pilot's license, but aviation still became important to me...… 

Help that young aviatrix learn to fly the REAL way....   Lift, Thrust, Drag,,,,  Gravity she already knows. 

[Cambridgeskip]

I like to tell my scouts the story of the only time I've put someone in the recovery position for real, the moral of the story being don't make any assumptions.

It was about 15 years ago now. It was late  in the evening and myself and Mrs Cambridge Skip wrere walking home when we came a cross a man slumped on his hands and knees in the gutter. It was a busy road so we helped him onto the pavement. He was very unsteady on his feet and sluring his speach to the point that he was incomprehensible. We were also right outside a pub. Our assumption (and we all know what that is the mother of!) was that he was drunk. We sat him down and were debating whether to call him a taxi or the police when he slumped forward unconscious on the ground. We put him in the recovery position and called an ambulance.

The emergency operator also called the police (I believe that's standard if the patient is believed to be drunk) and they arrived first. One of the police took a look in the man's pockets and what did he find? Insulin! It looks like he was in some kind of diabetic shock. They bundled him in the back of the car and took him straight to hospital.

The moral of course being don't make any assumptions, especially if you didn't witness what actually happened to the patient!