Bristol Owners' Club - Oxford Branch

Paul managed to deliver quite a serious message in a very relaxed, amusing and entertaining way. The points he made are sufficiently important that we have summarised them below!

Back in the 60s RAF First Aid was very simple: Stop the bleeding; Cover the wound; Treat for shock. However, now we have a Health and Safety Executive it's a lot more complicated! These were Paul's main points.

1   Stay Safe - don't become a casualty yourself!

2   Don't make the casualty warm and comfortable in your car. When the fire brigade arrive they will remove him in a straight line - this means they will probably cut the top off your car!!

3   Don't move the casualty unless you have to.

4   Whiplash injury is common. Don't let them nod their head. (i.e. don't keep saying "Are you OK?"!)

5   If they are not obviously conscious, check whether their airway is open.

6   Control Bleeding. (Ah, we finally got to that one!)

7   The likelihood is that the above points will be all that is needed until the emergency services arrive and take over. It is very unlikely that you will have to deal with an unconscious person, put them into the recovery position, or any of those more advanced things.

8   If you're doing anything with their (damaged) car, turn the engine off, check that the handbrake is on, remove the keys, and put them in the driver's footwell. If the emergency services need them to move the vehicle, it won't help if you're wandering around with the keys in your pocket!

1   If there's an emergency vehicle with everything flashing, the basic principle is to facilitate their progress - i.e. get out of the way, whether they're behind you or oncoming.

2   On a single carriageway pull over to the left. On a dual carriageway they may be pushing down the middle, so you may need to move right.

3   However, if you pull over but across a red light to let them by, you don't have any defence against the traffic offence - so beware!

4   They are taught: "Surprise, Speed, and Space". They realise that they will surprise many motorists, that they will appear with some speed, and they need adequate space to make progress.

5   If you've let one vehicle by, look out for others - there may be a second or third one!

Paul Montgomery has been a First Aider since he was 16. His ten years as a police motorcyclist were cut short by an oncoming car on the wrong side of the road. For some years he has been the Training and Development Manager for Oxfordshire St John Ambulance. So it's fair to say that he knows a bit about dealing with roadside injuries from pretty much every perspective!

As a former police examiner he now examines for the local group of the Institute of Advanced Motorists, so he knows a bit about driving too! He's also a very humorous speaker! So whether you want to know about saving someone's life, or getting your car out of the way of a speeding ambulance, Paul is your man.

St John Ambulance believes that no one should suffer simply because of a lack of first aid: anyone in need should receive first aid from those around them. To this end they provide a wide range of training and products for first aid in emergencies. You never know when that knowledge will be important to you or someone close to you.

St John provides fist aid cover at public events, responds to major emergencies, trains half a million first aiders every year, transports patients and has a very active programme for young people!

St John has local training centres in Kidlington, Banbury and Wantage providing a dozen different courses. The young people's programme covers all ages from 5 to 18.

St John has members in 40 countries, but it began 900 years ago by setting up a hospital to care for pilgrims who had made the long and arduous journey to Jerusalem. The hospital grew to 2000 beds and had a big influence on other medieval hospitals. Through the middle ages people gave money to the order, so it became very wealthy and had 25 regional priories across Europe to manage the care of the sick. The English Priory was at Clerkenwell but in 1540 was seized by Henry VIII at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries.

In the 19th century the British Order of St John was revived by a group of people concerned about the suffering of workers in the dangerous workplaces of the industrial revolution. Accidents were common, but patients often couldn't be seen by a doctor in time to be saved. Thus the modern St John Ambulance was set up in 1877 to organise the provision of emergency medical care. St John was the only provider of these services in many parts of Britain until the NHS was set up after World War II.

The International Red Cross grew out of public outrage at the carnage of the Crimean war in the 1850s. In all the major conflicts since then the Red Cross and St John have worked together to assist the sick and provide humanitarian assistance.