Save a Life for Scotland

The Primary School welcomed volunteers from the Scottish Ambulance Service and St Andrew’s First Aid yesterday, to share training on CPR and what to do in an emergency.

Pupils from Primary 1 through to Primary 7, along with staff and parents, gathered in the Assembly Hall across the day to take their turn to learn vital lifesaving skills.

This fantastic opportunity to equip our Hutchie Community with this training was made possible through collaboration with Save a Life for Scotland, and was led by Martyn McLauchlan, Community Engagement Trainer from St Andrews First Aid, and Andy McKinlay from Scottish Ambulance Service.

Working in small groups, pupils gathered to work with their volunteer to learn about the AVPU (Alert, Voice, Pain, Unresponsive) scale, which is a system that first aiders use to measure and record the patient’s level of consciousness. After determining that their patient (or teddy!) wasn’t breathing, pupils then learned how to perform CPR. Correctly positioning themselves they started chest compressions along to the beat of “Baby Shark”. Although the song kept the mood light, this gave a real insight into how physically challenging it can be to conduct chest compressions by kneeling over someone in need.

Our volunteers also gave a demonstration on how to use a defibrillator, giving reassurance not to be afraid of the equipment. The defibrillator gave clear and concise instructions which pupils could understand and then determine if they had to carry on chest compressions.

Mrs Alexander, Primary School Matron, commented;

“It was a pleasure to welcome volunteers from the Scottish Ambulance Service and St Andrews First Aid to Kingarth Street to coordinate and run an amazing day for our pupils, staff, and parents. I am so grateful to all the volunteers who gave up their time to equip our school community with these vital lifesaving skills. For those of you with children who attended, make sure to ask them about AVPU!”

Save a Life for Scotland said;

“Teaching all children what to do in an emergency, how to perform CPR and instruct an adult what to do, has been shown to dramatically increase survival rates from out of hospital cardiac arrest in other countries. We believe it is a life skill every young person should have and paramedics from the Scottish Ambulance Service were delighted to support Hutchesons’ Grammar School to ensure the children are taught this lifesaving skill.”

Our Save A Life training day involved 325 pupils from across the school, 30 staff members, 30 parents…and 45 teddies, with our Hutchie community commenting;

“The team of paramedics and St Andrew’s ambulance were great. It was engaging for the pupils and empowered them (and us) to be able to do something in an emergency.”

 “Thank you for organising the event for the whole school- it was such a good idea, and the pupils also thought it was so valuable.”

 “Thank you for organising… I thought the volunteers worked really well with the children.”

It was a fantastic opportunity and great fun for all who participated – thank you to Mrs Alexander for organising this essential training and special thanks to our 13 volunteers from Scottish Ambulance Service and St Andrews First Aid for their time at Kingarth Street.

About Save A Life For Scotland
We are a campaign committed to saving lives by changing the way we think about Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest. We are a partnership between the emergency services, third sector organisations, Scottish Government, and academic researchers. Working together since 2015 we have made significant progress. We achieved our original aim of equipping an additional 500,000 people living in Scotland with CPR skills, and survival after Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest (OHCA) has increased significantly. Before the launch of the first Strategy in 2015, only around 1 in 20 people survived to leave hospital after OHCA. By 2020 this number had doubled to 1 in 10.

Visit Save A Life to find out more.