First Aid Course - Oban Area

[Nick]

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Course: RYA First Aid at Sea (accepted by RYA/MCA for commercial endorsement)
Date: Friday September 3rd
Duration: One day
Venue: TBA – Oban area
Start time: 0930
Finish: 17.30
Cost: £75

This is a course which focuses on providing first aid in the marine environment – up to 60 miles offshore – where you can’t simply pick up a phone and expect an ambulance to arrive in a few minutes. The course tutor can call on over 20 years as a First Aider with the RNLI to bring a strong perspective on what you need to do to look after passengers or crew until help arrives.

I think this will be a lot more interesting and realistic than the average RYA 1st aid course, It is probably going to run anyway but more would be better. Anyone interested please PM me.

[Nick]

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Just bumping this up. Last time I was looking to do this back in the Spring a couple of people were interested but we couldn't find a mutually convenient date. Is everyone sorted now?

[Telo]

Shouldn't this be in the "AROUND THE SCOTTISH COAST" boring forum?

[Mark]

Shouldn't this be in the "AROUND THE SCOTTISH COAST" boring forum?

Or maybe we should have a forum for advertising Scottish nautical first aid courses?

[Nick]

Shouldn't this be in the "AROUND THE SCOTTISH COAST" boring forum?

No.

[Nick]

Shouldn't this be in the "AROUND THE SCOTTISH COAST" boring forum?

Or maybe we should have a forum for advertising Scottish nautical first aid courses?

I am not advertising a course, I am enquiring as to whether or not anyone else is needing one. I do, and a previous post on this subject a few months ago indicated that I was not the only one having difficulty finding a suitable one. Seaskills have indicated they are prepared to run a course on this date provided there are sufficient numbers.

You obviously aren't looking to do a first aid course at the moment, but I am sure you will be able to order a suitable first aid book from your local library should the need arise

[Mark]

You obviously aren't looking to do a first aid course at the moment, but I am sure you will be able to order a suitable first aid book from your local library should the need arise

That wasn't really my point but since you bring it up there's no doubt in my mind that having information in a book is far better than learning it once every (three?) years, and then relying on memory in a crisis.

Indeed when I did a yotting first aid course a few years back the instructor actually acknowledged the frailty of the human memory said that he was only handing out certificates on the condition that everyone on the course bought a specific first aid book and kept it somewhere to hand.

Actually, I didn't buy the book and (no bullsh1t) the following weekend I came across three guys in the water. Two hypothermic. Even 7 days after picking up the first aid ticket, under pressure, all I could remember from the course was not to give them a hot drink. In the end we just lent them our sleeping bags which is what I would have done before the course.

As many people say about training, if you don't use it you lose it.

So I'm a vote for having a book to hand.

Although maybe this post should be in a 'Discussing the virtues of books over the frail human memory' forum.

[Nick]

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We also carry a First Aid book on board. I bought it at one of the many First Aid courses I have attended. I am surprised that the instructor you mention didn;t have copies available and pretty much insist people bought them.

I agree with you that everyone should have a good FA book to hand, but I don't see how that contradicts the value of having attended a course. One complements the other.

The quality of courses does vary dramatically however - and I have been on a lot over the years, for the rigs as well as the RYA-approved courses. The best one I ever went on was run by a couple of coppers. They created an imaginary coach crash and made us apply basic triage procedures. This was a lot more interesting than the average RYA course designed for dinghy sailors where the treatment for everything is to put the casualty in the recovery position and wait for the ambulance to arrive.

If you are taking people to sea for money - whether it be skippered charter, training or whatever - there is a requirement that you have a current first aid certificate, current being defined as having been issued in the last three - or four - years. The repetition is to counter the 'human memory fraillty' aspect (and to cover new thinking / methods). I fail to see how anyone who is a customer or potential customer of an individual or organisation running courses or charters could have a problem with this. By all means query the relevance or memorability of the courses, but suggesting that having a book aboard is a suitable alternative on its own does not seem realistic.

It's a PITA though if you live in this neck of the woods as there aren't enough potential customers for a business to run courses to a scheduled timetable, so they are often organised on an ad-hoc basis to suit. This does of course involve letting people know of the proposed date/venue/content etc through an appropriate channel - such as this forum.

[Mark]

We also carry a First Aid book on board. I bought it at one of the many First Aid courses I have attended. I am surprised that the instructor you mention didn;t have copies available and pretty much insist people bought them.

As I say he did insist people bought a copy. Can't remember if he had any with him. As I say he made it pre-condition of handing over the certificate that we agreed to buy a copy and kept it to hand.

The quality of courses does vary dramatically however - and I have been on a lot over the years, for the rigs as well as the RYA-approved courses. The best one I ever went on was run by a couple of coppers. They created an imaginary coach crash and made us apply basic triage procedures. This was a lot more interesting than the average RYA course designed for dinghy sailors where the treatment for everything is to put the casualty in the recovery position and wait for the ambulance to arrive.

Funnily enough I did a First aid course run by motorcycle coppers. By nature of their speed they did more first aid than anyone else on the planet consistently arriving at incidents before the ambulance crews. Mind you, real world experience had taught them that there's pretty much blimey all you could do without equipment and medical training/experience. Indeed one of them had actually contributed to someone's death.

Interestingly, the yottie first aid course was done by a published expert on hypothermia and he was also firmly of the view that there's very little you can do to help people outside a hospital and the biggest lesson to learn on a first aid course is FFS don't get hurt. (Mind you in contrast to the rozzers he had saved a life - imagine the luck of a young fit woman 'drowning' under ice when a qualified doctor who happened to be an expert on hypothermia happened to walk past.)

So maybe that's a case for only doing First Aid courses with people who have no real world experience and have a rose tinted view of the benefits... Or maybe not I don't know.

By all means query the relevance or memorability of the courses, but suggesting that having a book aboard is a suitable alternative on its own does not seem realistic.

I'm not arguing that - you mocked the idea of first aid books in a post above and I'm explaining why I think you were wrong to do so. I'm not saying courses are bad. I'm saying books are good.

Having said that I've done a fair few courses in my time. Even a few months later, unless I've regularly used what I've learned the percentage I remember from them must be near zero. Maybe one or two facts stick in my mind at best.

Maybe other people are different but given open book exams are deemed far easier than closed book exams I doubt it.

It's a PITA though if you live in this neck of the woods as there aren't enough potential customers for a business to run courses to a scheduled timetable, so they are often organised on an ad-hoc basis to suit.

Scotland: Good if you like sailing, bad if you like courses. Sadly down here it's the other way round.

Which way to the Lounge?

[Nick]

- you mocked the idea of first aid books in a post above

No I didn't - or at least that wasn't the intention - I was in fact mocking a reply of yours to a completely different thread

(Jessica Watson's book)

[Mark]

- you mocked the idea of first aid books in a post above

No I didn't - or at least that wasn;t the intention - I was in fact mocking a reply of yours to a completely different thread

(Jessica Watson's book)

We may have been talking at cross purposes then. Probably the heat from the melting ice caps Gordon Brown faked so he could raise taxes.

[SeaSkills]

Hello everyone,

If I may add my comments to this interesting debate ...

Quite simply, I agree with all of the above! The course does have much less value without the book, but I would also say that the course adds a lot of value to the book. First Aid is a practical skill and benefits from practice but if all you want is a book (and you're going to read it) that's a long way better than nothing

To those who claim that people forget things I say - yes, of course they do. The new HSE guidance is to refresh First Aid skills every year, even though the certificate is valid for three. Even with the best training you'll still not get it right, or remember everything, but you'll be better prepared to do your best.

To those who say that course quality varies - you're damn right it does. The last First Aid refresher I did (I have to keep my own tickets up to date, even though I teach the course) was, frankly, rather boring. All I can say is that we do our best to make our own training interesting and relevant, and the feedback we get from our customers is generally pretty good. Virtually all of our business is either repeat bookings or recommendations, so I guess we're doing something right somewhere

And I certainly agree with the post about the recovery position. On most boats, getting a casualty into a "classic" recovery position is a near impossibility - so we talk about what can be done and how to adapt the general principles to our environment. That also means that we can't work to the "First Aid at Work" idea that you can pick up a phone and have an ambulance arrive in a few minutes ... if you're sailing with two and one becomes incapacitated, you've got lots of tough decisions to make - starting with can you afford to stop sailing the boat to deal with the injury/illness. The likelihood is that you would have to manage a causualty for much longer than a First Aider ashore and that creates it's own challenges too.

Anyway, enough of this. I'm not trying to sell a course here - you come if you want to, and not if you don't. I just wanted to share some thoughts on the comments that have been raised.

If any of you do join the course I'll be delighted to meet you. If you don't want to be trained but you've got any questions - please ask them direct (I'm new to this forum but I assume there is a Private Message option - or my contact details can be found on our website)

Ian

[So_Sage_of_Lorne]

Welcome to the forum Ian, your course certainly sounds more interesting and relevant than the RYA one I completed recently with Rick!

Regards

Bob

[Silkie]

bump

[claymore]

Whilst Claymores have plenty of room to be able to stick someone in the recovery position, personally I feel it a case of damn bad captaincy if one allows one's self or one's crew to be in need of such a position.
Harrumph!