2023-12-10 06:00:29
“The first time I understood that first aid training would be my hobby was in November 2019, the day following my 18th birthday. Then a volunteer with the French Red Cross, I am on duty in a rescue center of the Paris Fire Brigade. After a relatively calm start to the shift, the alarm sounded: I left with a team for my first intervention for a cardiorespiratory arrest, for an 83-year-old woman. Despite our rapid arrival, and the first gestures as best she might by her granddaughter, with the help of the fire operator on the line, the person was declared dead following a long attempt at resuscitation.
What marks me that day, as every time it has happened since, is not so much the dull cry coming from the depths of the guts that loved ones utter when we tell them the news, but the silence that follows. And their face is transfigured when they finally understand… In this deafening silence, I promise myself to do everything in the future to act in cases where death can be avoided by rapid and effective first aid. When a person is in cardiac arrest, each minute that passes without treatment is equivalent to a 10% lower chance of survival. In Paris, help arrives on average in seven minutes.
This is why I am today, at 22 years old, a professional first aid trainer. My job is to teach life-saving gestures to adults, adolescents, future first aid professionals, young parents… how to do a cardiac massage in the event of a heart failure, but also how to react in the event of bad fall, burn, cut, etc. I also spend a good part of my free time, in real life and on social networks, raising awareness regarding first aid. And I continue, on the side, as volunteer guards for the Red Cross, a few times a month, where I supervise teams of rescuers.
It must be said that the subject of first aid, and life which can end in a few seconds, particularly speaks to me. As a child, I saw the impact that the death of a loved one might have on a family, with the loss of my little sister from complications of an illness. Then my youth was punctuated by various health problems and accidents, where I ended up in an ambulance several times. All this to say that I have the impression of “giving back” something to society today by embarking on this path. First aid has become a philosophy, a passion, almost an obsession. The contents of my library as those close to me can attest.
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