The Junior Vessel ops class recently got done being certified in First Aid and CPR and I have to say it was kind of difficult to get the certification. Although a lot of the steps were simple there was a lot and if they weren't done perfectly and in a specific order then it's problematic because this practice is concerning people's health. So the standards need to be high. To practice CPR we have 2 types of dummies the adult sized one is shown in the picture. We also have an infant-sized one where we would practice the difference between giving and infant CPR versus an adult. Personally, I’d say that giving an adult CPR is more difficult because it requires more physical strength, but a small child in need of CPR is more intimidating. Although I haven't had to use the skill of performing CPR on anyone, I had the chance to use another skill I learned which was part of the first aid aspect. Which included getting permission from the person to assist, and assessing the situation and determining whether the situation was more severe than it seemed. In my case, it wasn’t an injury that needed the help of emergency responders. To determine this I asked a series of questions, for example, how did it happen, do you feel tingling at your fingertips, and I also asked if I could feel her finger to see if it was cold or changing in color and getting pale. After realizing that nothing was to sever I attended to my friend. I helped re-wrap my friend’s finger which she had jammed playing volleyball. I sat her down so that she could remain calm and be comfortable, and although this may not seem like a big deal it was to me because unlike most of the things that I have learned in school I learned something that could be actively applied into my real life. Rather than something like identifying parabola in structures.
-Eliza Fuentes
