OPINION: Equip yourself to help

Columnist Andrew Gale talks about being prepared if you're ever called upon to help out in an emergency

LEARN TO SAVE A LIFE: Help our paramedics by learning first aid skills. Picture: Jonno Colfs

IMAGINE this. You are on your own taking a stroll on the path along the Condamine River.

There is a person walking ahead of you. Like you, they are on their own.

Suddenly you see that person fall over and stay down. You rush over to help.

They are lying flat on their back, motionless.

You squat down next to them, grab their hand and ask them if they are okay.

They don't respond. They don't even look like they are breathing.

You look around - there's no one else in sight.

What do you do? Do you even know what to do?

This is not an unrealistic situation. I have been around when people have collapsed or begun to suffer some type of episode.

It is at these times I am fortunate I have certain skills I can use to help the person in distress.

These are simple skills to obtain and put into practice if you do a first aid course.

Last week I found myself back in the classroom. I was doing my umpteenth first aid course, a requirement I have needed for various employment over at least 30years.

Some things are different every time but certain things and themes always remain the same.

It's about providing necessary care to a person until such time the victim can be handed over to a qualified person, such as the ambos or a doctor.

I have been called on to use these skills quite a few times - be it to a crying child needing a Band-Aid, right up to people inneed of life-saving help.

Every time I have found myself "Johnny on the spot” I have been forever thankful that I have the skills and tools to assist those people until help has arrived.

I'm the sort of person who likes to fix things and that means having the right tools to do it.

How frustrating is being stuck with a flat tyre and having no jack.

That's how I think about first aid. If I have the skills, I can at least do something.

Sadly, I know what it is like to see people suffer and die. It's horrendous to even see a stranger struggling for life. These patients haven't always pulled through, some never had a chance.

But I take comfort knowing that I did all I could and should have done at the time.

I have also been to accidents where someone has died because none of the bystanders knew or thought to maintain an unconscious person's airway.

That's such a frustrating waste of another human being's life.

Some people tell me they avoid having first aid qualifications because they fear that makes them legally responsible and open to being sued if something goes wrong.

I know where those people are coming from but can assure them that so long as they are acting in good faith and don't do anything they are not qualified to do (like attempt to remove someone's appendix with a pocket knife), anyone performing first aid is covered by the common law principle known as the "Good Samaritan Law”.

Would you rather have the skills to help? Or standby watching someone die?

Even if you have called an ambulance, our paramedics are great but given distances they need to travel to respond, a person can die before they get there.

Wouldn't you like to help save a life? Do a first aid course.