TV Equips Viewers With Life-Saving First Aid Skills

Watching TV helps people to learn and apply first aid skills in real life, according to a new survey.

A new survey has found that television-viewing helps equip people with adequate knowledge of first aid skills applicable in real life.

The survey carried out for St John Ambulance, St Andrew's Ambulance Association and British Red Cross showed that medical programmes like Casualty and ER make people confident to try and resuscitate others in real life.

One in five would try to give cardiopulmonary resuscitation to the person in need.

A St John Ambulance spokeswoman, Isobel Sternfeld, said that people should not be frightened of trying, even if they have only seen it done before on TV.

"When you're talking about things like CPR, you can't make things worse," the BBC quoted Sternfeld as saying.

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"If someone's not breathing, they're not breathing. If you don't do anything, they're still not breathing, but if you do something you will be giving them a chance," she added.

The survey also found men to be more confident about their abilities.

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Nearly 30pct of the men surveyed said that they would attempt resuscitation, compared with 20pct of women.

The survey for first aid associations found 77pct did not know how to give cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

It also showed that most of the people did not know how to treat minor everyday injuries.

Sixty per cent of the study's subjects were unaware of the correct way to deal with a nosebleed, and 57 per cent did not know how to help someone who had fainted.

One in three did not know what to do if a toddler was choking.

'We want to empower everyone to know what to do in an emergency," said Andrew New from St John Ambulance.

"First aid is easy if you know what to do. You can go on a course to learn from the experts or buy the new manual, which provides a simple step-by-step guide to how to deal with many different situations.

"No home should be without one," he added.

Source-ANI
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