Recently I’ve been teaching my six year old about what to do in an emergency. You hear these stories about the wonderful and brave children that have saved a parents, siblings or a friends life and although I hope she’s never in a situation where she has to do that – I want her to have an understanding of what to do if she is.
Firstly, I started off with 999 and told her if there was a fire, a burglar, someone was choking or hurt to call that number. She asked ‘How will I know who I need out of an ambulance, fire engine or a police officer?’ I said that someone would answer the phone and if you were unsure who you needed to just tell the operator what’s happened and they will send out whoever they think is most appropriate to deal with the situation you describe to them.
As many of us do, I have a password lock on my mobile phone and if I was unable or incapable of making the call she would have to do it. She knows my password but in a stressful situation she might forget it so I showed her how you can still make an emergency call on a locked I-phone.
Incase you were unaware, when you swipe to unlock your phone two options come up at the bottom corners, cancel or emergency. I told her to press on emergency and then (in an emergency) call 999. You can also set up your ‘Medical ID’ so if something had happened to you, a doctor or nurse etc would be able to contact whoever you had put as your emergency contact numbers and tell them where you were and if you were okay. You can also put down if you take any medications or are allergic to anything so they don’t give you any medication that could potentially do more harm than good.
I don’t know if six is too young to teach her this, I think you can gage for yourself whether you think your child is mature enough to know what you’re telling them and only use it in a life or death situation or whether they’ll start calling 999 every time you refuse to buy them a kinder egg while out shopping! But, in all seriousness I was trying to equip her with some potentially life saving knowledge as I know she can handle it.
I read recently that St John Ambulance are trying to get first aid taught to school children and I definitely think that should happen. You never know what’s around the corner and I think we should all be a bit more clued up on how to help people in any medical or emergency situation…You never know – it could just be your life they help save! x
