18th February, 2021, Elina Maharjan (For Rescue Network Nepal)

Rescue Network Nepal has been providing first aid training throughout Nepal along with other activities like providing relief packages, health camps, awareness programs, etc., for the community benefits and for strengthening our network of local coordinators by mobilizing them. From the establishment till date, RNN has been able to provide 190 training in different training centers, train 4217 trainees. According to our principle ‘through the church to the community’ these trainees involved from 940 different community social organizations, churches, schools and colleges. RNN distributes first aid boxes/kits and stretchers to different training centers. With those skills and equipment, the RNN Volunteers have provided help to different people in the community.

 The trained volunteers of Rescue Network Nepal are capable to assist many injured people. Many lives can be saved if we have adequate skills to provide first aid though it is the condition that is as simple as to control bleeding. Hypovolmic shock is a life-threatening condition which is the result of a rapid loss of blood or body fluids. Only if we can control excessive bleeding, a person’s life can be saved. Tasbir B.K., one of our trainees from Surkhet, informed us that his friend who he used to work together in a wood factory was injured when the machine they were working with fell on his thigh. Tasbir stopped the bleeding and called for help and then bandaged the wound and took him to the hospital in an ambulance immediately. This saved his life because Tasbir was a trained and skilled volunteer.

Similarly, handling an injured person is another important skill. Such as, if someone has a spinal injury, only lifting their head can be life-threatening i.e. if mishandled; it can even kill that person. Skills such as handling broken limbs, choke release, properly carrying the injured in stretchers, CPR techniques, first aid for burn can be obtained by First Aid Training, which is quite essential in our day to day life.

There are cases when our volunteers did CPR and saved lives. The people can die in no time in conditions such as heart attack, drowning and shock if they don’t get immediate help. Nisha Gajamer, from Jhapa informed RNN immediately after she did CPR to her neighbor named Pinky Tiruwa. She checked for the circulation and breathing and when none were found, she did CPR by giving 30 chest compressions and 2 rescue breathes. The patient started showing signs of life after a cycle of chest compression and then she sent her to the hospital. This incident was just 2 days after Salomi did her training. Similarly, Chandra Yongey from Itahari did CPR to the casualty who had bike accident and saved her. The casualty was a wife of a policeman who fell from the bike and at once had heart attack. When no pulse and no breathing were found, Chandra started CPR. Immediately the patient started breathing. He referred the patient to hospital for further treatment.

Not only this, there are our volunteers who are treated as local doctors after they did our training and started assisting their local community people. One of our volunteers, Aarati Tamang from Jhapa has already done assisted more than 100 injured people, yet couldn’t send us the reports. We have got more than 1000 Incident reports provided by the trainees who have aided the injured people with the tools and techniques taught by RNN; among them, many were referred to hospital for further treatment according to requirement. Those incident reports do not represent all the incidents of the help given as many of the volunteers who are assisting with first aid do not always remember to send the report to RNN but they are only the reports which were sent in to RNN.

We also conduct refresh trainings within 3 to 6 months of each training and through those refresh trainings we get good feedback from our earlier trainees. They tell us that after they got first aid training they were able to provide first aid treatment in the community by dressing the wounds, bandaging sprains, splinting the fractured limbs and even released choking by the method that we had taught them and even helped the victims of road accidents to safely transport them to the nearby health centers or hospitals. Many have assisted the injured in the hospitals as well. They even thanked us for stretcher and first aid box which we had given in the training places. They told us that if they did not have first aid box or stretcher then it would not have been possible for them to provide first aid treatment and safely transport the victims to the near health centers or hospitals.

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