The community now has two more certified first-aid instructors following an instruction program held in Rankin Inlet earlier this month.
Fire Chief Mark Wyatt said the fire department is asked a lot to conduct first-aid courses because there’s a big demand from people who want to learn first aid, and from corporations that need people trained in first aid at their worksite.
He said the town’s only first-aid instructor is Alan Everard, who is now semi-retired.
“I’ve wanted to be able to teach first aid at the fire department for a couple of years now,” said Wyatt.
“So, we took four of our best people and decided to turn them into instructors, which is why we had Andrew Debenham up here earlier this month.”
Wyatt said the program went very well.
He said during the Oct. 14 to 18 program, the participants spent three days on instruction training and then taught a first-aid class for two days, getting everyone certified in their standard first aid.
“It will be a little bit more work to get everyone certified as an instructor, but we’re able to sign-off on two people now, myself and Megan Netser, and we have two others who can get signed off if they teach another course.
“So, we’ll be offering another course during the next couple of weeks and then we’ll have four certified instructors.”
Wyatt said the instructor’s course may have been a little more challenging than everyone thought, in terms of actually having to get up in front of people and teach them for two days.
He said doing a 30-minute presentation is one thing, but being in control of 15 different modules that require explaining, demonstrating and practical application is a lot of work.
“The standard first-aid courses we teach are two full days, so, if you’re going to lead that group and instruct them all the way through, you really want to know the material well and be really confident in your abilities to deliver it,” he said.
“There seems to be more demand for first-aid training these days than there ever was.
“But, from my perspective, standard first-aid courses teach people what to do in the event someone breaks their arm, breaks their neck or, God forbid, has their heart stop beating on them.
“I’ve been to many, many ambulance calls that could have turned out different if the people at home knew what to do – so to me, standard first aid is something everyone in the community above the age of eight should know how to do.”