Thursday, September 16, 2010

Here's another 2 reflections from our cadets who participated in the First Aid Competition;

Germaine

During the training for first aid competition, I felt very confident that we can get into the finals or the semi-finals because all of us trained and were prepared for the competition. I strongly hoped that we could win something from this competition, to bring back to Greendale because we failed to do that last year. From this training, i learnt the evacuation skills from bronze to gold, how to decide which method needs to be used to evacuate the casualty and that we need to help one another to even out the ‘workload’. Learning the different evacuation skills, I have more knowledge on how to evacuate a casualty when the area is dangerous to have him/her to be treated there. Learning this helps me in deciding the methods that will be appropriate in evacuating the casualty.

It also prevents his/her injury to worsen and will help him/her to be evacuated safely out from the danger. When crossing over obstacle, we have to raise the stretcher to shoulder level and depend on our hands to support the weight of the casualty and the stretcher. If one pretends as if he is supporting the stretcher but in fact, he did not, the others will have to support more weight. We have to help one another and don’t slack. 2 problems I encountered is firstly, to have the strength to support the stretcher especially when we raised to shoulder level. Secondly, we kept forgetting the commands. To overcome these problems, it is to persevere and to familiarize ourselves with the command.

After the competition is over, I felt that the results were disappointing and also felt proud because all of us did our very best to try to win something out of this first aid competition. From this competition, I learnt to calm myself down to think properly, to help my friends when they need extra help and no matter how tough the challenge is, no matter how tired you are, determine to do it till the end, persevere! 2 problems encountered will be to transport the stretcher because the distance is farther so I will have to try to put the second runner on the other side of the obstacle despite the distance that limits me. Another problem is to decide on how to deal with the casualty after we treated him/her. Thinking properly, we, the aiders decided on what will be best for the casualty.

Syafiqah
I felt that this is really a good experience for me as this is my first time being selected for First Aid competition. At the first place, I did not know anything about first aid but the Vi’s and all the other Red Cross members helped me a lot and taught me everything. What I felt about the training session was it helped me a lot to improve on my first aid and evacuation skills but there was still room for improvement as I was not very confident of myself. When the competition day arrived, I was very scared and nervous and I kept asking everyone how the procedure of the competition will be.

On the way there, I kept reading my notes and trying to remember the steps of bandaging. While in the waiting room, I try to calm myself and told myself to do the best. When we got our scenario, I quickly recap all the 1 Aider methods of evacuating a casualty. When the competition start, we as a team, quickly and trying our best to evacuate the casualty in the correct and orderly manner. We work as a team and helped one another but we didn’t manage to go to the finals but I think that we did our best.

3 things that I learnt is firstly, teamwork. Teamwork is very important as we need to help each other so that we can evacuate the casualty fast. Example, the stretcher squad can help the 1 Aider if they had evacuated the casualty, one of them can help Aider 1 on how to manage the bandaging of the injury. Self- confidence is very important too. I didn’t have self-confidence at the first place. But after the words of encouragement of everyone, I realized that if I am the one who don’t have the confidence, I am a failure and what will my team mates think of me.

2 things I encountered are I got scolded by Mr Zhou for not bandaging the casualty properly during the training. I was very nervous as I didn’t know what to do. During the competition, I also had difficulties bandaging the casualty. I was not sure of what to do but luckily, Germaine did help and save me. (:

2 things I can improve on are asking questions if I am not sure of the first aid and evacuation skills. And also be very confident and never give up if I did a little mistake. And if I have a chance, I would want to join next year FAC as I think I can do more and improve myself better. (:

posted at 5:27 PM by GDLSS RCY