23 October 2006
Qualified!
Posted by Aled under: First responder; Mountain Rescue .
It’s been abusy weekend. Friday night Steve, an old friend from London came up to stay for a few days which was nice - we hadn’t seen each other in a while, and although I had a full weekend planned, he was happy to get out of London for a while. So Saturday was mostly spent with Steve looking at various computer-related things until early evening when I got changed and headed down to Cardiff to go to the reception of Tim’s wedding. A fantastic night, forgeoing the usual disco Tim and Emma had decided to have a céilidh instead. We had a fantastic time, taking me back to teh days of Dawnsio Gwerin in the Eisteddfod when I was a boy.
Sunday dawned dull and too damned early in Mal’s house. We got up and decided that since we’d been drinking sloe gin until 0200, perhaps a spot of greasy breakfast was in order. A quick trip to the Tuck In in Canton later and we were set. We headed up to Caerphilly for our last session of training with the First Responders, or more accurately, or assesment. Almost a dozen of us sat in the pub nervously awaiting our invites upstairs to show how much we knew about CPR, AEDs and airway adjuncts. Mal and I, typically, were asked to wait until last. I think we were most nervous as we’d both been through the Mountain Rescue casualty care exam which is a real tough one - a written exam followed by two scenarios, for which the pass mark is very difficult to achieve - I think the failure rate on that course is about 30%. So I finally headed upstairs. I did my bit, answered the few questions that Gerrard had and got the excellent news that I passed the assesment. After a brief chat, we packed Gerrard’s kit back in his car and headed off.
That evening I showed a few of the group around base, which was a bit of fun. Unfortunately quite a few people couldn’t make it so we’re going to have to run that one again, but Mal and I had some good practice for doing this for the main group.
In other news, I’ve put my name down to on a party leader’s course with the Mountain Rescue team. This will kind of set a new direction for me if I get the opportunity to go - being a party leader is quite a lot of responsibility as you are the person in charge of that party and their tasks. Watch this space…
Congratulations!
We’ve been doing a first responder trial in the Coastguard. I reckon you get more nervous when you do the exams in stuff you already know in case you fluff it. We have to do a basic first aid course every three years (appointed person) and it is so low level, that you always have the worry of going blank and the fact that you’d never live it down if you failed!
Congratualtions on passing the assessment! I’m also a first repsonder but in Oxfordshire.
Congratulations! Nice to know that should we ever get lost on your patch we’d be in good hands. Not that we’d try getting lost!
He went to a Ceilidh! *Cries* It’s yeeeeeeaars since we’ve done any folk dancing. *Cries some more*