This September, you could learn how to save a life, as St John Ambulance’s annual awareness month, Save a Life September, returns. The nation’s leading first aid charity will be putting on free demonstrations across the country and urging people to download the free St John Ambulance first aid app, so you can carry life saving advice around in your pocket.

Research* carried out earlier this year by St John Ambulance has revealed the following statistics:

• 97% of people believe that learning first aid is important and yet just 10% of people have taken steps to learn it in the last 3 years.

• Less than 10% of respondents has had any form of first aid training.
• Almost one in four people is too scared of harming the victim to learn first aid.
• Only 38% of households have a first aid kit at home. Of those, only 8% check the kit.

St John Ambulance believes that with a few first aid skills, anyone can be the difference between life and death. The charity’s Save a Life September campaign sees volunteers from the charity demonstrating five easy to follow techniques that could potentially save a life, and giving out pocket-size first aid guides so that people can carry the advice wherever they go. The free, chart-topping St John Ambulance first aid app is available on smartphones, and the website (www.sja.org.uk) offers demo videos, an interactive game, and plenty of first aid advice.

The charity’s CEO, Sue Killen, said: ‘Learning first aid is one of the single most important things you can do in your life. You may need it anywhere – at work, at home, in school, playing sport – you just don’t know. With basic first aid skills, anyone can be the difference between a life lost and a life saved.

‘By holding free first aid demonstrations across the country, we want to reach as many people as possible, so that more people are equipped with the skills to save a life. Anyone who needs first aid should get it – and the more of us that can help in an emergency, the better. No one should die for a lack of first aid.’

To find out how you can learn to save a life this September, visit www.sja.org.uk/sals.

Key facts about Save a Life September

 

• Save a Life September is St John Ambulance’s annual awareness month, designed to encourage more people to learn vital first aid
• Now in its fourth year we will be giving demonstrations in around 200 locations, such as shopping centres, schools, markets and other community spaces, and giving out free first aid guides to over 100,000 people
• Demonstrations will take place all over the country – visit our website to find one near you.
• We’ll be demonstrating five easy-to-follow techniques (choking, severe bleeding, recovery position, heart attack and CPR) at selected locations and distributing pocket-sized first aid guides, providing people with first aid knowledge at their fingertips
• We are offering free demonstrations to community groups as well – contact us to find out more
• Since Save a Life September launched in 2010, we’ve given 400,000 people pocket first aid guides – that’s the equivalent of the entire population of a city the size of Stoke-on-Trent

 

References:

* Research conducted by ICM, February 2014, using a weighted sample of 2000 adults aged 18+ in England. ICM is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules. Further information at www.icmresearch.co.uk