First Aid? That's just sick.

Yesterday I had to partake in a St John Ambulance First Aid At Work course. Now, I have every respect for members of the public who use their free time to help save lives, but why do they all have to be so serious?? The guy who taught us was ex-military and boy could you tell! He was like a mix of Keith Lard from Phoenix Nights and Serjeant Major from Carry On England. Although to be fair he did make a few jokes, not that any of them were funny, but at least he tried.

This will be the third time I've trained to be a first aider. Mind you, first aid training nowadays involves doing a quick practice on a dummy (which I'm sure most of you young blokes have tried at some point anyway - under slightly different circumstances) and watch a few videos and agree that crawling around on the floor in the kitchen near a chef carrying a pot of hot oil is a bad idea. Anyone with half a brain cell can get a first aid qualification. Except maybe the cast of Made In Chelsea - they probably wouldn't give the kiss of life to anyone without a wallet full of money.

I would like to think that if somebody dropped down on the floor in front of me in Asda (in a non-worshipping kinda way) I'd be able to stay calm and focused and see exactly what the problem is. My only problem lies with my OCD about touching strangers in a "personal" way. I'm not talking about kissing good-looking blokes in clubs of course, that's perfectly acceptable, but having to physically put my lips to somebody else's when they may not have the best hygiene in the world. I don't mean to sound cruel, but if I went to give mouth to mouth to a person who had bad breath I'm afraid it's compressions only or die. Our trainer was talking about various conditions which would make a person collapse and lose control of their bowels, or vomit profusely. One of the many reasons I don't want children is because I don't like poop and I don't like vom. I cannot give somebody, who's just been sick, mouth to mouth without me vomming on their face and I'm sorry but if somebody shits theirself they're on their own. One of the other instructions given to us once finished helping a casualty was "clean up mess". Erm, I've just saved your life and now I'm expected to clean up your faeces? I would say that's taking the piss. Or the shit in this case.

So a word of advice to anybody with some kind of underlying condition which might make them collapse at any time; if you shit yourself or puke whilst I'm around, consider yourself toast!