©InfoA group of young army cadets found their recent first aid training put to the test in dramatic circumstances when one of them was run over by a car.
Kirsty Alcock and her friends had just left a cadet meeting on 28 January when a car suddenly reversed into her. Kirsty told the Leek Post and Times: “The car hit me in the back and I fell to the ground hurting my knees – then it ran over my foot.”
But luckily, her five friends had all taken a Red Cross basic first aid course just weeks earlier and knew exactly what to do. Kirsty recalled: “All the cadets came to my aid. Kat undid the straps on my shoe to check my foot, and Jenny stayed with me and kept talking to me to keep me calm as I was in pain.”
Cool response
She added: “Tim directed traffic, Oliver called for an ambulance and Adam wrote notes at the scene about the incident. Some of them also ran back to the cadet hut to get blankets and tell our sergeant about the situation.”
An ambulance soon arrived and took Kirsty to hospital, where they found soft tissue damage to her right foot, and bruises and grazing over her knees and back. She was on crutches for a week.
First aid at school
Looking back at the incident, one of the first aid heroes, Oliver (14), said: “It was shocking, but our instinct was to just help her.” His colleague Tim (15) added: “It was great teamwork. We just all seemed to know what to do.”
No-one was more proud of the team’s actions than Sue Alcock, Kirsty’s mum and herself a Red Cross member. The emergency also highlighted a serious issue that Sue feels strongly about – the inclusion of first aid on the school curriculum.
She said: “First aid should be a core module in schools. You just don’t know when you may need the skills, perhaps even to save someone’s life.”
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