From Stayin’ Alive to Slicin’ a Face – The Worst First Aid Class Ever
It started with high hopes and an unexpected dose of disco. The instructor pressed play on a Bluetooth speaker and nodded with enthusiasm as the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive” blasted through the room. “This is the perfect rhythm for CPR compressions,” she beamed. The class chuckled, tapping their feet. Spirits were high. We were ready to become heroes.
Unfortunately, that was the high point.
The first signs of trouble came when the instructor’s phone kept ringing. She answered each time, leaving us alone with a deflated CPR dummy slumped awkwardly in the corner. One of the mannequins had a missing faceplate, which made it look more like the victim of a zombie apocalypse than someone we had a chance of saving.
Eventually, we were divided into groups. That’s when things spiraled out of control.
- One group was instructed to simulate a choking scenario—with real grapes. We didn’t notice until Joey tried to be convincing and actually choked. The Heimlich was performed… incorrectly.
- Another section was handed a plastic “scalpel” for a roleplay on emergency laceration treatments. Instead, a student used it to demonstrate “how to slice open a cheek to insert a straw in case of seizing.” No instructor had taught this. Nobody asked why.
- A misunderstanding about the recovery position led someone to roll the mannequin out the door and into a stairwell. It was never recovered.
Even the instructor seemed to lose control. When asked what to do if someone was unconscious and unresponsive, she simply said, “Look it up.”
But perhaps the lowest moment came just before we ended. In lieu of a final exam, the instructor pulled out a homemade quiz written in crayon—with a doodle of a bandaged banana on the cover. Question one read: “Where does the blood live?”
Needless to say, very few of us walked away confident. We did, however, walk away with a free keychain and a profound fear of strawberry jam (which had been used for a bleeding simulation gone terribly, terribly wrong).
In retrospect, we learned more about what not to do than how to help. First aid is serious business. Our class just needed a little less flair… and far fewer sharp objects.
