Wow that was easy and painless. I can’t believe I never did it before. Next month I’ll do CPR. I figure these will come in handy as a future teacher. Anyone here have any inspiring stories to share? Ever use your training?
Hmmph. I’m still bitter about not having my first aid training! For 2 years, I asked the nurse at work to sign me up for their next training session, and every time she always responded with “Sure! It’s so great to have people who WANT to do it!” and every time she’d fail to sign me up. Every time I found out there was another session scheduled, I’d contact her again, and she’d come up with some lame excuse like “we have enough people from the lab” despite the fact that she signed up the newest, contract lab employee and over looked me, the full-time employee, AGAIN! So I’d ask for the next session, and the whole thing would start up again. One time, she INSISTED on having my supervisor be trained, but my supervisor couldn’t make it, so offered that I get to go, since she knew I wanted to, and the nurse flat out refused.
In the long run, it helped in my decision to quit working there. Lying to employees, and refusing to acknowledge even the slightest desire of an employee to LEARN something… that’s not a company I wanted to work at.
I had once been certified, in Québec, and I will probably either ask at my next job if there’s on-site training, or just shell out the money and get trained on my own time. I feel it’s important knowledge, although I hope I never have to use it!
Good for you!
I’ve gone through both First Aid and CPR training several times (including CPR for children). I like to try to keep my certs current, but it’s so easy to let the CPR stuff lapse. In fact, it’s past time for me to take both courses again.
I’ve never had to use the CPR training (thank og!), but I last used my First Aid training a few summers ago: I was volunteering at my town’s annual festival, and at the end of the second day an old lady fell in the parking lot and hit her head pretty hard. Lots of blood. I was the first “staffer” to get to her, and went through the whole drill, talking to both her and her middle-aged son: “Ma’am, I have first aid training, is it ok if I help you?”, etc. The middle-aged son wouldn’t listen to me about not removing the paper towels from her wound in order to apply fresh ones (they should just be layered; even the 911 operator said so), and that was pretty frustrating. I know he thought I was young – I was 31 or 32 at the time, but I typically look several years younger than I am and in shorts, t-shirt, and a baseball cap I know I looked like a college student – but it’s so annoying to know what you’re doing but get ignored because no one else knows that you know what you’re doing. Anyway, the ambulance finally arrived and the lady was fine.
I hope that you never have to use the training, but congrats! 