My version of first aid
My initial introduction to first aid came in the home. A small bottle our red orange liquid that my mother would smear on cuts at any opportunity. I remember that it was painful but my mother being a nurse assured me that that was part of the healing process. Later on, my father and my mother join the local military reserves. A chance to get away for afternoons of intense military training that seemed to involve one piece of apparatus. The triangular bandage. An odd yellow colour that I later learned had to do with age. These were leftover from the war. There was a training manual they explained the different ways you could fold a triangular bandage into useful pieces of something. I am still unsure what. You could make slings for a broken arm or things for a broken knee or slings for a broken ankle. The list went on and on period. Training sessions involved learning how to make the shapes necessary to cover various body parts. Like the ankle. And when the training session would be finished you would learn to reroll that bandage and put it away for the next session. No lives were saved but the intentions were genuine. When you are a small boy you imagine yourself on the battlefield wearing a collection of yellowed bandages while you wait for the enemy to advance period. The military also provided what they referred to as a first aid kit. Large bundles of wound stuffing. Small capsules that you could sniff if you fainted. More of that odd red orange liquid. And other training manuals. The military had a lot of books around our house. Did I mention that the first aid kit was made of metal? No cardboard boxes for these people. Getting a used first aid kit meant that you had a place to store all your personal treasures. Marbles an odd coloured rocks and other things found around the yard. In retrospect my military first aid training never advanced beyond that point. A good thing for the human race. We never had a chance to play with adhesive tape. Too expensive and obviously single use. Instead we could make any wound dressing stay in place with that all-purpose triangular bandage. I want to think that science and medicine have advanced beyond that point but I do not know. My life took a different path and I avoided going to war. Instead I went into the classroom which has its own war stories.
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