Lenush is introducing herself to a group of first aid students she’ll be training. She explains she has a nursing background and a man calls out, ‘Oh, you trained my wife in first aid!’
‘Oh, great,’ she says. ‘I hope she got something out of the course?’
He smiles. ‘Yes, she did. She absolutely did. In fact, may I tell you a story?’
‘Of course!’ said Lenush.
‘About two months after my wife did your course we went camping with our teenager, out in the bush.’
‘We spent the day exploring the area and my wife noticed a St John defibrillator located not far from the campsite,’ he says.
Lenush listens, wondering where this story is going.
He goes on. ‘In the evening, something happened. I collapsed… I went into sudden cardiac arrest.’
Lenush’s face opens; she feels her heart pounding.
‘Sudden cardiac arrest?’ she whispers.
‘Yes—my heart stopped. I stopped breathing. I needed CPR.’
Lenush nods, waits with the others for him to continue.
‘They called triple zero (000) and my wife started giving me CPR. She sent a bystander to get the defibrillator. Thank God she’d seen it! Thank God you’d taught her first aid!’
“LIFE-CHANGING WORK CAN SAVE A LIFE”
The man explains that his wife not only used the defibrillator in time (time is crucial in sudden cardiac arrest, something Lenush emphasises in her training), but she used it effectively, successfully restarting his heart.
The ambulance arrived at the bush location and officers took over his care.
‘I was clinically dead, they told me afterwards. If she hadn’t begun CPR and used the defibrillator when she had, I wouldn’t be here now.
’Lenush is blown away. It’s not often people survive sudden cardiac arrest. She says to the group: ‘For every one minute of delay when you need to use a defibrillator on a casualty, the chances of their survival go down by 10%.’
The man’s wife is a hero, there’s no doubt about it. But without first aid training, it simply wouldn’t have worked out like that.
Reflecting, Lenush says she’s so proud of being part of this family’s story. ‘When you hear about the impact of your training, especially the impact on a family…’ she trails off. ‘That child would have been left without a father, the wife without a husband.’
Lenush says the rewarding nature of her work keeps her going and keeps her giving.
Lenush makes a difference. And that day, the evidence stood right before her, smiling and brimming with life.
Illustration –Kelly Canby
