Restart A Heart Day.

Restart A Heart Day.  Keeping yourself safe outside.

Would you know what to do in a first aid emergency?  Would you be able to help someone unwell whilst  enjoying activities outside?  One of the ways we encourage children and families to access the countryside on bikes is by delivering appropriate first aid courses.  We have done this in a number of ways over the last couple of years

Our latest event was Restart a Heart Day.

Restart a Heart Day is a global event promoted by the Resuscitation Council www.resus.org.uk takes place on 16th October every year.  It aims to teach the vital life-saving CPR (Cardiopulmonary resuscitation) skills to as many people as possible.

70-80% of cardiac arrests occur either at home or at a public place, therefore the person nearest at hand to the casualty is often a bystander with no medical expertise. If those present at the scene of an incident are able to provide CPR to the victim promptly the chances of survival are significantly increased.  This is because time is of the essence when treating a cardiac arrest victim.  Once the heat stops beating and blood flow stops a person will loose consciousness within 15 second. After 30-60 seconds they will stop breathing and irreversible damage to the brain cells will follow after several minutes of oxygen deprivation. If CPR is given within the first 2 minutes of cardiac arrest the chances of survival rapidly increase.

Working daily outside often several kilometres from help and sometimes without mobile signal we have always invested in ensuring our instructors have the appropriate training to manage emergency first aid situations.  After running a first aid course in the summer to support parents develop confidence through first aid training to take their children outside we decided the next step was to train the kids. Restart the Heart Day was a excellent opportunity to pass on the emergency skills to as many kids as possible.

To this end we invited 3 local primary schools to participate in CPR, AED (automated external defibrillator) and calling for help training with the delivery led by Local Swaledale Mountain Rescue Medic and ‘Rescue Emergency Care (REC)’ Trainer Tim Cain  www.timcainleadership.co.uk.

We were delighted to achieved over 45 newly trained Life Savers in a morning. The kids engaged so well and went away confident in their new skills. They were rewarded with Heart Shaped biscuits!