Well, life has been quite hectic lately (am I just so disorganised that this is all it ever seems to be?) Have had three weeks of full time work as I have had to go on a couple of courses - an "Advanced Trainer Development" course (fascinating) and a "First Aid Trainer and Assessor" course (I teach First Aid at work and needed a refresher). Have also just qualified as a Neighbourhood First Responder - a volunteer to go out and cover calls when the ambulance is struggling to get there. Was convinced to go on call almost straight away to buddy up with someone who has been doing it for a while. This was last night.

Anyway, first call came in when I was just in the process of putting Nyle to bed. Had to dump the poor boy in the cot, grab the phone and then take details of the call whilst kissing him goodnight and turning the nightlight and music on. First job was a ruptured peptic ulcer and we were beaten by the ambulance, so stood down. Next job (about an hour later) was an 87yr old woman who had just come home from hospital that day and fallen at home. Paramedic arrived on his own and we stayed to help (I respond with someone else - we both charge out from our homes when we get a call). Anyway, the paramedic ran tests and she clearly had a chest infection, but had had her absolute fill of hospitals and refused any further help. Haven't met such a stubborn so and so for a long time. Hope she and her equally old and fragile husband are coping well.

Got home about 1015pm and settled on the bed with a cup of tea to watch some tv. Nick popped downstairs for some reason and called up to say that my mobile was ringing. Despite the fact that we had booked off ages ago, the ambulance control had phoned to say that there was a 1-month old, not breathing, about 8 miles away - could we go? The nearest ambulance was some time away, so of course I grabbed my shoes and hurtled out. My buddy had told me the road name but said he couldn't find it on the map. I had left the map book in the car, so looked it up in the index, found the page, but no road. Ran back in to grab the laptop and look up multimap. Found address (time ticking by...) and ran back out. Drove off, decided red lights might just have to apply to other people and phoned my buddy en route. He had now found out where the road was and had the address "flats 1 - 5". Flats 1-5? WHERE?

Fortunately, ambualnce (with their "blues and twos") had got there first and were whisking the little girl off to hospital. Cause? No idea. Outcome? No idea, but boy do I hope it was a good one. Hopefully we will get updated at some time. Incidentally, the map book had the index out by about two pages, so that's worrying.

Calls like that (which we shouldn't have been sent to as we are only there for adults, not kids) make me realise the massive need for the scheme. Imagine, an ambulance must have taken at least 10 minutes to get to that call. Please, whatever you do as a parent, make sure that you are confident in your resuscitation skills. Get on a course. Do something so that if you are ever, God forbid, in such a terrible situation, you have some idea about what to do. I am not purely altruistic. The scheme is teaching me more and more first aid so that I can look after my family and friends, alongside helping others. I read a statistic:

"70% of people who are carrying out resuscitation techniques are doing so on family and friends."

This isn't to scare you. This is to make you think and hopefully act. I hope you never have to use the skills you learn, but equally hope you never have to wish you had learnt those skills but decided to use your time and money on something else...