Royal Life Saving

Posted November 14th, 2011 in Perth WA, Ume and Baby, Ume's Interests No Comments »

Last week I could finally manage myself to undertake this one-day royal life saving training course.  This course was conducted by The Royal Life Saving Society – a non-profit, community service organisation that conducts training programs in First Aid, Resuscitation (CPR), AUSTSWIM, Bronze Medallion, Lifesaving and Water Safety. They run several kinds of courses, and I attended Heart Beat Club which teaches you the lifesaving skills of CPR, first aid for common child injuries including burns and scolds, choking, drowning and provides information on how to perform child resuscitation or CPR.

The re are child’s first aid courses run by other organisations in WA such as Australian Red Cross and St John of God, but I chose Heart Beat Club because the location was close to my house, they gave us Participation Certificate after the course, and it was just $20.00 per person for a 3-hour-course.

I actually should have taken child’s first air course before Hiro arrived so that I would have known what to do in case of emergency.  After the baby was born I didn’t really have time to do it (although it may be hard to practice CPR etc with a big tummy).  Last week, I left Hiro to D and his parents.

There’re 10 people at the class, and some of them were couples.  One couple brought their new born to the class, I think they didn’t have anyone to ask for looking after their baby for 3 hours.  Being apart from new born baby for 3 hours is quite scary.

The class was conducted by a retired nurse, and she was wonderful.  I must say I am very very happy that I attended this course.  There’re so many useful information about what to do when a child is burnt, choke, and injured.  As well as hearing her experiences and stories, I loved the practical part.  Each one of us got a manekin of baby to practice CPR.  Doing is so different from just reading about CPR on books.  And I learned so many new things, such as DRS ABCD (Danger, Response, Send help, Air way, Breathing, Cpr), and not tilting the head when doing CPR for babies under 12 months old.

Few days before I attended this course I had a terrifying moment while feeding Hiro.  He was coughing, and suddenly stopped coughing and seemed to be choking.  I was in panic, and I took him out from high chair, placed him on my lap facing down, and hit his back few times (as this was how to help choking baby in a book I read).  Then he vomited everything out. I don’t know if he was really choking but it was scary.   I told the nurse (course conductor) about it, and she said that coughing is a natural reflex and nothing to worry about.  If he was choking, his face should have turned blue or looked really tense.  So when he cough, it means he is coping with the lumpy food and is a good thing.

There was 15minutes break, and I just saw this vending machine which makes fresh squeezed orange juice.  I thought it’s cool 🙂

At the end of the course we all received Participation Certificate as promised.  I thought 3 hours was gonna be very long, but after the course was done I felt that it wasn’t enough.  I wanted to know more.  $20.00 for this was a really great deal, I think.  If someone is interested in taking the course:

website … location varies. You can check on their website.

Western Australia Only

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