Brian's story
Having attended a first aid at work course, Brian Cracknell soon found himself responding to two emergencies in a week – and felt so motivated he’s now signed up to be a first aid volunteer.
Brian was at work in his bus company office in Weston-super-Mare on 18 May when a colleague called to say there had been an accident at a nearby bus stop.
He raced to the scene with his first aid kit and found an elderly lady sitting at the bus stop, who had mis-stepped and painfully scraped her shins when boarding the bus. Brian recalled: “Both her legs were quite badly injured, with the skin scraped away and bleeding.”
First responder
He added: “I introduced myself, made sure somebody called for an ambulance and asked some basic first aid questions to get a general picture of her health. Then I put my jacket on the floor, using the lady’s coat as a pillow, and gently laid her down so I could raise her legs and apply some bandages.”
Bryan said: "I made sure she was as comfortable as possible and kept reassuring her that everything would be fine. I was initially a bit worried about remembering to do all the right things, but once I started it was like a switch had flicked on and I went into auto pilot.
“When I’d nearly finished, I told the lady ‘You’re my first one’ and she said ‘Well don’t worry, you’re doing a great job’. Afterwards, the casualty and her husband couldn’t thank me enough – and when the paramedic arrived he also told me I’d done a great job so I was floating on air.”
New volunteer
Just a week later, Brian got a second call-out to help another lady in distress at a bus stop – this time someone who had passed out. Having used his new skills twice in quick succession, the bus company officer has now decided to sign up as a Red Cross first aid volunteer.
As he put it: “I just thought: what’s the point in having this knowledge if I’m not going to use it? It felt really good to be helping those people – I was so proud of myself afterwards – so I’m going to join the Red Cross.”
Safe Hands members can read more first aid stories and access step by step instructions on how to treat a severe bleed.