Edited text by Tebogo Dhlamini, photos by Ronnie Henderson
For this weekend, from 22-24 July 2022, we were doing our First Aid training at Pilanesberg, where we camped in the official section of the Manyane camp site. The Manyane camp site is not the one we normally use in the Park, but it is also a great outdoor venue with excellent ablution facilities.
The weather around Rustenburg wasn’t too bad when we arrived on Friday even though it was quite chilly as we are still in winter but luckily approaching the end of it. We started the training at 18:30 instead of the usual time at 19:00 as everyone had their tents set up early. Our lecturer for the weekend was Mr Dave Nel from Turtle Life Support, quite an energetic and interesting person with a great passion for First Aid, ably assisted by Mrs Monica Grové, an Honorary Officer (HO) who is a professional nursing sister.
The training started off with an introduction, the laws governing First Aid and Infectious Diseases and Occupational Safety which we ought to abide by when practicing First Aid. The training manual was also handed to us at our arrival at the Pilanesberg Education Centre. Mr Nel assured everyone that Turtle Life Support is a registered service provider with the Department of Labour, as well as the Health and Wellness SETA, and that he is qualified to give us the required training for the weekend. After we were done for the night, we headed back to the camp site for the usual braai and chill around the fire.
On Saturday morning, we headed back to the Education Centre for training to commence at 08:00. We had to go with our food for the day because there was limited time for us to go back to the camp site. For today it was both practical and theory sessions. We started off with theory on primary assessment with the HHHH process. HHHH meaning check for Hazards, say Hello, get the History and call for Help. We were also taught basic CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) based on compressions on the chest, clearing the airway and giving rescue breaths if not breathing.
Some of the highlights of the day:
We also got training on medical emergencies, doing secondary assessments, how to cover different wounds using different types and shapes of bandages. We wrapped up the training at 16:00 and went back to the camp site to relax and chat around a braai by the fire. Unfortunately, we couldn’t sit for too long as the weather changed to strong winds, and we had to call it a night due to the weather conditions.
On Sunday morning the weather wasn’t too bad, and we had to go to the Education Center again for the final day of training which started at 08:00 and finished at 12:00. The last day was mostly theory on environmental emergencies, snake bites, poisoning, and other injury emergencies, after which we closed off the training with the test, back to camp for packing and heading back home. Now we are just waiting for the results and hopefully our Level 2 Wilderness First Aid Certificates!