St John's Ambulance Visit

Kohara loved our session with Paula from St John's ambulance service. Key things we learnt about were what the three emergency services are and the different ways they help us, what to do in an emergency and how to call 111.

The children got to role play ringing and talking to the call centre operator and also what to do if they find someone who needs help and is not awake. We even practised rolling a person on their side so they can breathe better and not choke if they are sick, and how to check if someone is breathing (put one hand on their stomach, and your face near theirs).

We found out that we need to:
D Check for danger
R Check for a response (try and wake the person)
S Send for help (call 111 for an ambulance)

We also found out it is important to know our address and phone number and that we also need to say our address is in Christchurch so the ambulance goes to the right town! If we don't know our phone number it is ok to tell the operator we don't know (but even better if they can learn it).

Interestingly, not many of our class have a landline at home now. Does your child know how to call for help on your cell phone? Paula showed the children how to use a cell phone to call 111 even if it's locked with a passcode - they can press the emergency button, then ring 111 (then pressing the phone icon to connect the call). You might like to look at the phones at home with your child and show them how yours works in case they ever need to ring for help. It's also a good idea to have phone numbers on the fridge for reference - the children will be bringing home a magnet they can put on the fridge with space for adding information.

We finished off with a fun ambulance song!

Thank you to those who sent along gold coin donations - this was much appreciated.