Canberra First Aid Courses. Snakes are out guys so be prepared. Book in now to learn the first aid skills to save a life. Summer fun first aid courses in Canberra.

Is this Canberra’s version of the Loch Ness Monster? The Lake Burley Griffin Serpent?

Glenn Dunbier said his 18-year-old son Dave on Thursday morning took this pic of what appears to be a large brown snake on a footpath alongside Lake Burley Griffin near the Kingston Foreshore.

This snake was snapped hauling itself out of Lake Burley Griffin near the Kingston Foreshore on Thursday morning. Photo: Supplied

Glenn reckoned the snaked appeared to have hauled itself out of the water.

“It was dragging itself up onto the path so Dave presumed it had been in the lake. It must have been – there’s only water at the other end of it,” Glenn said.

“There was only Dave and a woman walker there – she stopped and took a photo too.  He then raced off to uni so has no idea where it went after that.”

It was not the only snake to be spotted in the lake this week. A runner around Lake Burley Griffin snapped a brown snake swimming in the lake on Sunday about 1pm.

Gretchen Smith said the snake was just under the Kings Avenue Bridge on the north side of the lake.

“It then looked as though it was trying to find a way to get out, and started swimming further along to where the wall stops and the bank is a little lower. I didn’t hang around to find out if it got out or not, as I didn’t want to draw people’s attention to it.

“Unfortunately, I know people can overreact when they see snakes, and didn’t want to put the snake in harms way.”

Gretchen said she didn’t find snakes frightening.

“I actually thought it was an eel at first, and in all honesty, that would’ve scared me way more than a snake,” she said.

” I have a friend on Instagram though who swims in the lake for triathlons. She didn’t seem at all excited about the snake; her words were: ‘Don’t need any other obstacles, swim is hard enough!’.”

Luke Dunn, owner of  Canberra Snake Rescue and Relocation, said they were likely Eastern Brown snakes.

“They are the most common in the suburban areas and they are relatively good swimmers,” he said.

Mr Dunn said so far, it has been an average year for snake-catching.

A City Services Directorate spokesman said snake season had started in Canberra.

“Snakes are most active in Canberra from October to March when they sun themselves or when they move in search of food or water,” he said.

“If you encounter one the best advice is to leave it alone until it moves away.

“If people see snakes in potentially dangerous situations such as in their garage/property they can contact Access Canberra on 13 22 81.”

If your child starts choking, swallows medication or sustains a minor burn should you provide first aid, call triple 0, or rush them straight to emergency? A new poll shows that an alarming number of parents aren’t sure how to respond to these various scenarios, unintentionally placing their kids at risk.

“When young children experience urgent medical situations, parents have to make decisions about whether to administer first aid at home, call for advice or seek emergency care,” says Gary Freed, who co-directed the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital survey. “Our report suggests that some parents may be using the ER for common situations that could be handled at home.”

But while “true emergencies” do warrant hospital trips, Freed acknowledges that determining what’s an emergency and what’s not “can be a confusing and nerve-wracking experience for parents who want to make the right decision”.

As part of the poll, a group of 2,051 parents with at least one child aged between 0 and five years old, were given a number of different scenarios describing -different medical situations. Mums and dads were asked to indicate how confident they were that they would know what to do if the  scenario happened to their child – and to describe exactly what actions they’d take.

In the first situation, that of a child getting a small burn on the arm from a hot saucepan, 71 per cent of parents were confident they knew how to treat it.  For 82 per cent, treatment involved using cold water, ice or first aid cream on the burn. Five per cent of those polled, however, said they would call 000 for a small burn, while 11 per cent said they’d rush their little one straight to emergency.

If their child was choking, less than half (48 per cent) of parents said they’d know instantly how to act. Most reported that they would try to remove the object using the Heimlich maneouver (69 percent), their finger (54 per cent), by hitting their child on the back (48 per cent) or turning their child upside down (25 per cent). More than a quarter (28 per cent) said they’d call triple zero if their child was choking, while 8 per cent said they’d drive their child directly to hospital.

This is concerning, Freed notes, given a child who is choking would benefit more from immediate attention rather than delayed treatment due to a car trip.

(Watch the video below for more information.)

When it came to seeking treatment for accidental poisoning, parents generally indicated that they knew what to do if their child had ingested something dangerous, such as medication.

• 53 per cent would remove pills from their child’s mouth
• 26 per cent would try to make their child throw up
• 61 per cent would call poison control, their child’s doctor (25 per cent) or triple 0 (26 per cent) for advice
• 32 per cent would take their child to emergency

​”Generally, calling Poison Control is an excellent first step to take if a parent suspects their child swallowed something harmful,” says Freed, adding that Poison control staff are trained to elicit information from parents around the type of medication their child might have swallowed – and exactly what to do next.  (In Australia you can call the Poisons Information Line 24 hours a day on 13 11 26.)

Freed also notes that in the “heat of the moment”, parents rushing to emergency might forget to bring the source of the poisoning, meaning treating doctors may not have the right information to determine the appropriate treatment.

Image/C.S Mott Children’s Hospital, National Poll on Children’s Health, 2017.

The poll also revealed that 43 per cent of parents have never undergone any first aid or medical training. Only 10 per cent of mums and dads had received first aid training in the past 12 months, with 24 per cent undertaking a course 1-5 years prior.

“Even with appropriate supervision, young children experience urgent medical scenarios, and many parents may be unprepared,” says Freed. “We found that parents who had recent first aid training were more confident in handling common medical situations.”

While Freed notes that in some cases, such as a small burn, parents are able to consult a first aid resource to help them respond appropriately, other situations, like choking, are clearly “more time-sensitive and require immediate action”.

“First aid training can help parents stay calm and manage the situation more effectively,” he said.

Unsure what’s an emergency and what’s not?  C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital provides the following guidelines:

Visit ED if your child has:

• Difficulty breathing
• Severe allergic reaction (shortness of breath, lip/oral swelling, persistent vomiting, altered mental status)
• High fever with headache and stiff neck
• Suddenly hard to wake up
• Sudden loss of sight, speech or movement
• Broken bone pushing through the skin
• Body part near an injured bone that is numb, tingling, weak, cold or pale
• Heavy bleeding or deep wound
• Serious burn
• Coughing or throwing up blood
• Fast heartbeat that doesn’t slow down
• Vomiting followed by dry mouth, not crying tears, no urination in more than eight hours or acting very sleepy/”out of it”

Visit urgent care or a pediatrician for:

• Nausea, vomiting or diarrhoea
• Coughs, colds and sore throats
• Upset stomach
• Bladder and urinary tract infections
• Bumps, minor cuts and scrapes
• Earaches
• Sinus pain
• Skin problems
• Sprains and strains

Call 000 in case of:

• Choking
• Severe difficulty breathing
• Head injury and the child is unconscious
• Injury to neck or spine
• Child is not breathing or has turned blue
• Severe burn
• Seizure lasting more than five minutes
• Bleeding that can’t be stopped

You can call the Poisons Information Line 24 hours a day from anywhere in Australia on 13 11 26.

Read more: http://www.essentialbaby.com.au/news/current-affairs/go-to-hospital-or-provide-first-aid-survey-reveals-parents-arent-sure-20171018-gz38wn#ixzz4wQ7VLVz7
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First Aid Training in Canberra. What a terrifying event. Book now for first aid training in severe bleeding situations. Stay up to date by following us on facebook.

A COURAGEOUS father has described how he saved his teenage daughter from a rampaging four-metre great white shark in South Australia.

A COURAGEOUS father has saved his teenage daughter from a rampaging four-metre great white shark off Normanville, declaring that if he’d taken 10 seconds longer, “I’d have one less child”.

Chris Williams, 56, said his family was kayaking and squidding in the pristine waters of Lady Bay on Sunday.

But the perfect afternoon quickly turned into a nightmare when Sarah, 15, alone in a double kayak, was suddenly flung into the air.

Chris Williams with his daughter Sarah, 15, who was knocked off her kayak by a great white shark. Picture: Matt TurnerSource:News Corp Australia

Sarah said she had been messing around with her brother and singing songs when the attack began.

“The next thing I know, a shark was hitting my kayak from below,” she said. “It flipped my kayak … as soon as I hit the water, I saw the fin and the tail and I thought: ‘This is like the Jaws movie’.”

Sarah said her feet touched the shark’s body as she scrambled back into her kayak. “I basically used the body weight of the shark to get back up,” she said.

The ferocious attack left teeth marks on the underside of the kayak. Watching it unfold only metres away in a small aluminium tinny were Mr Williams, his son Mitchell, 22, and daughter Misty, 33.

“I started the motor quickly, did a U-turn to get back and I told Mitchell to get on his knees in the boat and lean over and grab Sarah and drag her in,” he said.

“I’ve hit the shark and the kayak … and (Mitchell) dragged her over the kayak to get her into the boat.”

Mr Williams, who is an alpaca farmer, said the white water of the shark thrashing around combined with Sarah’s screaming created an indescribable sound.

Chris Williams with the kayak. The shark’s teeth marks are visible. Picture: First on Scene MediaSource:Supplied

Sarah said that during the seconds it took for her dad to get to her, she could feel the shark biting on the back end of her kayak. But even with Sarah in the tinny, their ordeal was far from over, as tangled fishing lines on the tinny began dragging the battered kayak behind, with the shark following.

“The haunting thing was when the shark was following us afterwards … this enormous shark saying: ‘I’m not finished with your guys yet’,” Mr Williams said. “This wild beast was about to eat my daughter … it was unprovoked; we weren’t using berley or bait, but it attacked her … is someone (else) going to die?”

Sarah, the youngest of six children, said she alternated between “cool and collected” and finally crying once the ordeal was over.

She was taken by ambulance to the South Coast District Hospital at Victor Harbor where she was treated for shock and minor cuts to her leg and foot. One cut was believed to be from climbing into the kayak but the other was unexplained and a scrape from a shark’s tooth had not been ruled out. She left hospital a short time after being admitted and is home and resting on the family’s farm.

Chris, Adrienne and Mitch Williams and daughter Sarah, 15, at their Mount Compass Home. Picture: Matt TurnerSource:News Corp Australia

Fighting back tears, Mr Williams said the family was only just coming to terms with its ordeal. “It wasn’t like the shark circled her; this shark was going to eat my daughter,” he said.

“If we’d been 50m away and not 30m away, or had I taken an extra 10 seconds to get to her, or had the outboard motor not started on the first pull, I would have one less child.”

Sarah, a sports fan who has played soccer in an Australian under-16 team in England and France, is the daughter of Adrienne Clarke, the first female firefighter in the Metropolitan Fire Service. Ms Clarke was awarded the Australian Fire Service Medal in the 2016 Australia Day Honours.

First Aid Courses in Canberra at a great rate. Book now. Mental Health First Aid training courses are also a great idea to attend. See our website for details at www.canberrafirstaid.com

Updated 26 Sep 2017, 9:57am

PHOTO: Maxine Griffiths says knowing mental health first aid helps break down stigmas. (ABC Radio Hobart: Carol Rääbus)

RELATED STORY: Canberra-born Mental Health First Aid program trains 1 million worldwide

MAP: Hobart 7000

If someone close to you breaks a leg or suffers a burn, you probably know enough basic first aid to help them until medical help arrives.

But what if someone close to you is having a mental health crisis — do you know how to help them?

Mental health first aid courses are designed to give people the knowledge about how to help someone close to them in need.

The first courses of this kind were developed by Betty Kitchener and Tony Jorm in 2000 in Canberra.

Mental Health First Aid Australia (MHFA) now trains instructors to run the first aid courses around the country, often in conjunction with organisations such as TAFE or the Red Cross.

Maxine Griffiths from Mental Health Carers Tasmania (MHCTas) said the more people who had mental health first aid training, the more it would help break down stigmas.

“It’s a difficult topic [but] it’s not as hard as it sounds to provide support to a person,” she said.

“If we just had that little bit of knowledge about how to go about talking to someone and refer them on, I’m sure it’s going to help people feel a whole lot better than if they didn’t have that information.”

Many workplaces and community organisations require someone on the team to have a current physical first-aid certificate, and Ms Griffiths said this should be the case for mental health first aid as well.

“Mental health is everybody’s responsibility, and the more informed we are, the more we’re able to carry that responsibility,” she said.

“The course helps people work out what to say, what to do, how to refer the person on to more specialised support if that’s what the person wants.

“You’re not trained to diagnose, you’re not trained to be the expert, you’re just trained to know how to broach the subject with someone and how to refer them on.

“It also teaches you to stay calm, what to say and when to say it, and it also helps you get support for you.”

MHCTas offers free courses to people who are in caring roles supporting people with mental health issues to help get them up to speed with the best ways to help someone.

“The reality for many carers and families is that they don’t often get the right information,” Ms Griffiths said.

“There’s an assumption that they might know, but … if there’s a person with a mental illness in our care it doesn’t mean we know all the ins and outs about that particular illness, what to look for, how to provide good support.”

Find a course near you on the Mental Health First Aid Australia website.

First Aid Courses in Canberra. Book in for the best first aid training course in Canberra. We run every week and supply free first aid manual and cpr masks.

AN ASTONISHING medical bill arrived at a young family’s home after their daughter went to see a doctor for her cut pinky.

First time parents in Connecticut said they received a $629 bill after taking their one-year-old daughter to see a doctor with a cut finger.Source:News Corp Australia

HORRIFIED parents were gobsmacked to be billed $629 for a Band-Aid after their daughter’s finger was accidentally cut.

Malcolm Bird took his one-year-old daughter Colette to see a doctor at the emergency department near their home in Connecticut in the US when his wife accidentally cut the youngster’s pinky while clipping her fingernails, Vox reports.

“She snipped too far on the pinky right at the end and cut the finger and there was an enormously large amount of blood,” Mr Bird told Vox.

“We were brand new parents, we were freaked out. This was the first time that anything bad had happened.”

Fingers can bleed more than other parts of the body when cut.Source:istock

The doctor explained that Colette was fine and the ends of our fingers were filled with capillaries — which caused us to bleed more than when we cut ourselves anywhere else.

Colette’s finger was placed under a running tap before the doctor stuck a Band-Aid on her pinky, and sent the family home.

However, one week later, a $629 hospital bill for the Band-Aid and its placement on the youngster’s finger landed in the family home.

“My first thought was, how could this possibly cost $629?” Bird told Vox at the time. “So I wrote the hospital a letter, expecting them to say: ‘Yeah, that’s a bit excessive,’ and lower the price.”

Americans have been left with medical bills running into tens of thousands of dollars.Source:Supplied

Mr Bird’s insurance brought the price of the visit down marginally to $440, but the young father was still unhappy at the cost.

John Murphy, the chief executive of the relevant health network at the time, said the Band-Aid didn’t cost $629; it was actually $7. The other $622 was the cost of seeing the doctor and using the emergency department itself.

“The remainder of the charge was associated with the use of the facility and staff,” he wrote. “We staff the emergency department 24-hours a day, every day of the year, and stand ready to treat whoever walks through our door, be it a gunshot victim or a patient with a stroke.”

The US reporter, Sarah Kliff, who covered the incident at the time said she has been “obsessed” with US hospitals’ ‘facility fees’ ever since — she even found a patient who was billed $25,000 for an MRI scan.

View image on Twitter

Other US citizens responded to the journalist’s story on Twitter with their own bill nightmares.

Some say they have billed tens of thousands of dollars for treatment. One man said he was charged more than $30,000 for a three-hour visit to hospital — which included three doses of morphine and a CAT scan.

Another American said he had been billed $1500 after sitting in a waiting room for six hours and claimed he was not even seen by a medic.

First Aid Courses in Canberra. Be prepared for summer. Book now so you don’t miss out. Great training session.

A LANDMARK study has revealed that one particular demographic are at the highest risk of non-melanoma skin cancer.

Maja Jelisic and Dunja Causevic show how it’s done to prevent skin cancer. Picture: AAPSource:News Corp Australia

A QUEENSLAND man in his middle years or older is the most likely person in Australia to be diagnosed with skin cancer, research has found.

A landmark study from QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, released today, has shown men aged 55 or over from the Sunshine State are at the highest risk of non-melanoma skin cancer.

The study of more than 1.7 million Australians also found a whopping 7 per cent of Australians over the age of 20 had a skin cancer cut out between 2011 and 2014, of which nearly 3 per cent had more than one cancer removed.

QIMR Berghofer cancer control group leader David Whiteman said the study should act as a reminder to policy makers and the general public of the importance of sun protection.

Professor David Whiteman is a specialist in sun safety. Picture: Russell ShakespeareSource:News Corp Australia

“It is a reminder that skin cancer is really common and it is going to become more common,” he said.

“And it is a reminder also that it is non-trivial.

“Many people tend to think, ‘Oh, it is just a small little skin cancer, it can be excised’. But when you add that up for the entire population, it accounts for hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of expenditure.”

The research, published in the Medical Journal of Australia, found the rate of skin cancer treatment in Queensland was nearly twice the national average and nearly three times that of Victoria and Tasmania.

Meet Bert Collins, the medical miracle!

University of the Sunshine Coast professor of cancer prevention Michael Kimlin said the study shows the cancer burden in sunnier states was much higher than in other areas.

Bruce Armstrong, a professor with the University of Western Australia and the University of Sydney, said the research was the first “credible indication of how large the burden of multiple (non-melanoma) cancers of the skin (is)”.

“While just over half of people who had any (non-melanoma) cancers removed in 2011 to 2014 had only one removed, about 20 per cent had two removed, 10 per cent had three removed, 5 per cent had four removed, 3 per cent had five removed and so on,” he said.

“Some people had more than 20 removed. And the older you are, the worse it gets.”

Originally published as The Aussies most at risk from skin cancer

First Aid Kits and Training in Canberra. Book in to a first aid course with us at Canberra First Aid and receive a free manual and cpr facemask.

• While you never want to need a first aid kit, should that need arise, you’ll be glad you planned ahead and kept some high-quality medical supplies on hand. The First Aid Only All-Purpose First Aid Kit is our top choice because it’s compact, carefully curated, and affordable, too.

First, permit me to share a few words on my relationship with the first aid kit. I keep a stocked first aid kit in both of our cars, in the home, at the ready for travel, and packed and ready to go with my hiking gear. I also have a few bandages tucked into my wallet. Now, I’m not a disaster prepper or anything like that. In fact, I’m pretty confident that society will be just fine in the long run, and I’d generally recommend people spend more time managing their retirement portfolio than stocking their fallout shelters.

I do very much like being prepared, though. It’s just that my preparation is for cuts, scrapes, and burns around the home, a twisted (or broken) ankle or painful insect bite sustained out in the field, or even a car accident that requires more serious and expedient medical attention. As a frequent camper and hiker, I know that having a first aid kit is at times not simply a good idea, but an absolute necessity. When you’re a three-day hike from the nearest hospital, you’d better be able to count on your own supplies in the event of injury or illness.

When I first started heading out into the woodlands and mountains, I carried a homemade first aid kit tucked into an old Altoids tin. It had all the basics, like bandages, antiseptic wipes, medical tape, anti-itch and burn relief gels, and so forth. In fact, I think I assembled a pretty solid little kit, and it served me well over the years. But there were a few problems: The ointments and gels would almost invariably dry out over time, the tape and bandages would grow brittle and lose their adhesion, and every time I used this or that component, I had to be sure to later re-stock it, and it was often hard to keep track of what I needed on an ad hoc basis. When I switched to a professionally assembled kit, I spent a few more dollars but got a lot more peace of mind.

How to choose the right first aid kit for you

A good first aid kit isn’t a mobile trauma center, but it will provide the basic supplies you need to mitigate the ill effects of an accident, injury, or sudden illness. Remember, it’s first aid, not final, comprehensive aid. When choosing a first aid kit, you need to think about who might depend on it (in terms of the sheer number of people and the age and disposition of the user), where it will be stored and/or carried, and in what situations the likely users might endure an injury or illness.

Any first aid kit worth considering will have the supplies needed to treat minor cuts, punctures, burns, and other such common injuries. Beyond that, the suitability of a given kit depends on a careful consideration of factors ranging from weight to packaging to redundancy of the supplies included. You know where you’ll be when you might need first aid and/or who might be depending on your help.

Choose the kit that best suits the people and the situations in which they’ll be, and then hope you never have to use it. With those tips in mind, read on to see which of our top picks is best for your needs.