Butterflies
Learn First Aid
Because we’re not going to be bystanders.
Every year millions of people are killed or seriously injured in everyday accidents, incidents, mishaps and medical scrapes. Some of them, statistically, are total bastards, but many of them are decent people who could be saved if first aiders stepped in to help. First aid is a vital skill, a solid bit of do-gooding, and incredibly dull to talk about. It’s got the whiff of St John’s Fogies about it, all bunting and marquees and crepe bandages and cups of tea. Let’s make it exciting to the youth:
Word. Me and my homie Nigel was just chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool and shooting some b-ball outside of the church where we go every Tuesday and Thursday nights for Bible study. Nigel started getting static off this nobody mofo, fronting in our hood like he’s all that. It turned nasty, yo, and Nigel got stabbed with an iPod up his You Tube. The mofo booked, by which I mean he left the scene of the crime, and I went all Wonka on my duds, by which I mean I soiled myself. I elevated Nigel’s Tube and applied pressure to the wound, Instagramming for an ambulance on my moby, keeping him warm by wrapping my duds around him, and keeping an eye on his vital signs and shizzle. The po-pos showed with those snitch-ass ambulance muthas but I said nothing cuz I don’t squeal for bacon and I’ll settle this my way, old school. I mean at school. I’ll tell a teacher. Point is, if I hadn’t learnt first aid Nigel would be deader than MySpace and his girl would be raising one of her six children without one of its two dads.
I assume the above effort worked, and first aid is now as popular among children and young people as cigarettes and alcohol. It’s good stuff, first aid. You see a car crash and you’re able to help. Or you find someone passed out on the street and can put them in the recovery position. Or a kid falls out of a tree and breaks his arm and you can put it in a sling. Or someone chokes and you know how to give an abdominal thrust. Or someone collapses and you know the difference between a faint, a stroke and a heart attack. Or someone stops breathing and you know how to give CPR. You save a life and live the rest of your life knowing there’s a life that you kept here, and grief that could have been and wasn’t.
St John’s Ambulance in England and Wales, St Andrew’s Ambulance in Scotland or the Red Cross throughout the Queen’s realm and rebellious former outposts all teach first aid. What with us being extraordinary humans we might be tempted to go for the Red Cross because of their all-round good-deeding. Visiting their website, finding our nearest branch and asking about first aid are the steps we’ll take immediately after reading the end of this sentence which is ending right now, somewhere around the full stop. There it was. On you go.
Learn first aid
You’ll be able to help when people need you
You might actually save an actual life
Photo credit: Nicole Huval-Dewey at DeviantArt
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