St John Ambulance is a charity which receives no government funding, yet has the largest fleet of ambulances in the country. It's belief is that everyone who needs it should receive effective safe and prompt first aid and that no one should suffer from lack of trained first aiders. Its because of this belief, that many volunteers such as my colleagues and I all over the country give up more than five million hours of our free time, to provide such a service. Theres a very good chance you have come into contact with a St John
Ambulance volunteer, as the organization provides first aid cover to every event imaginable, from your local church fayre, to the London marathon or even New Years Eve celebrations across the nations major cities.
Over half of St John Ambulance members are under 25, to which volunteers can get involved from as young as 5 with the "Badger" group, moving up to the Cadets from 10 years and then onto the adults from 18. I have been attending my division for just over a year and have received many hours of training in this period, receiving a government recognized " First Aid at Work" qualification all of which can come in extremely useful, not just in a St John Ambulance role but in general life, I have actually treated more people outside of my St John role than whilst on duty at events!
Joining St John Ambulance was linked to my career role as a Police Community Support Officer, as although we receive first aid training for all serious problems which might occur, will you remember it a year after? One of the benefits of such a huge volunteer organization is that within a small group there are many different skills and knowledge to call upon, within my division alone we have an Armed Response officer with over 20 years experience in the Met, a nurse who specializes in brain injuries and even a taxi driver.
Various football matches all over the country are also covered by St John, which is always a nice way to see the top premier league teams!
Like most football matches, St John Ambulance also have developed their own chant from the fans, with one of the most memorable being "Your old fat and round, we see you at every ground!" and even Little Britain has had a go!
However in all seriousness, St John Ambulances presence at events have undoubtedly saved many lives. This year at the London Marathon
quick thinking cadets helped spot the signs of early Cardiac Arrest, and as a result the appropriate medical care was given. If any of you have been to the London Marathon or have even ran it, you will know what a huge scale operation it entails and St John Ambulance is the sole provider of medical care working with the London Ambulance Service. We don't perform complex medical procedures, but the basic things are often valued the most, whether it be giving a cup of tea to a frozen spectator or even massaging a runners legs, every little helps!
Going back to the business side of things, over 500,000 people each year are trained via St John Ambulance teaching them the essential skills in life saving abilities, which caters for all audiences. From the basic life support courses to First Aid at Work, or even courses aimed at family first aid, which in reality your family could be the ones that need first aid the most. As mentioned before, we receive no funding from the Government, everything from our Crusader Ambulances, motorbikes and even nitrile gloves are all funded via charity collections and by providing first aid duties. I would strongly recommend anyone who would like to help improve their first aid skills to join an
Organization such as St John Ambulance, not only do you learn skills that might help save some ones life but you will also meet an array of interesting people and experience things other members of the public might not.
Although I received some stick occasionally much like in any public role, I am proud of what my colleagues and I do as we know that we are on hand to give the correct care to anyone who requires it.
St John Ambulance will also be the main organization providing first aid at the 2012 Olympics, so if you feel like you would like to contribute you can find your local division by making inquiries at the St
John Ambulance website at: www.sja.org.uk
Some typical incidents that we receive at St John Ambulance all depends on the sort of duty we do. At most events including larger style public events few things ocur, where most treatment just includes putting a plaster on someone. At the London Marathon for example we dealt with many runners having cramps which was simply solved by giving them massages and Vaseline, but we also had more serious cases such as cardiac arrest for a spectator and sadly a miscarriage for a runner.
Other incidents that I have come across include a man being bitten by a fox on his hand, trying to free the creature from football net, this actually occurred whilst fund raising, not on a first aid duty but we still were equipped to deal with the casualty and then sent him off to hospital as he was unsure about his immunizations. As mentioned before there are many different characters within my unit from all walks of life including those in the medical profession such as hospital technicians and nurses. If you specialize in anything in the medical profession you can apply it to an official St John role, meaning that even at large events such as the London Marathon you have visible doctors, nurses, specialist cardiac units etc to call upon if required.
First aid treatment centres provide an area for first aiders to carry out adequate first aid, typically you will see these on smaller scale duties rather than the crusader ambulance, and again anyone with the appropriate training can learn to drive it. In this photo we were stationed just outside the Royal Mint for the London Marathon, and it also provided us very good protection from all the elements!
The photo BELOW shows a demo we set up fund raising outside Morrisons, demonstration active CPR on the resus doll, these events help raise awareness to the public of the work we do and also at the same invites people to have a go themselves to test their skills.
These are our divisions main response vehicles, the Crusader Ambulance much like regular ambulances responds to all medical emergency's, such as at the London Marathon because of the route being closed off St John Ambulance formed part of the response team to any 999 calls from the local residents. Any volunteer can train to drive the ambulance on blues much like in the police with special driving courses. The motorbike is an ex police bike, London District has several of these to utilize at any event, and much like the ambulances can be driven by volunteers who go through the correct training. a bit of a step up from a push bike!
