St John Ambulance puts first aid first for Victorians

ST JOHN Ambulance (Vic) has been trusted to provide first aid services to the community for more than 135 years.

It is thanks to the Victorian community’s ongoing support of first aid courses and products that the non-profit continues to make a monumental impact strengthening community resilience through its impactful community programs, including first aid volunteers, the First Aid in Schools Program and CPR Lab.

These volunteers provide premium first aid services to events across the entire state servicing all your favourite events, both big and small.

The service is founded on the goodwill of more than 2,200 St John Ambulance (Vic) volunteer medics, doctors, nurses and paramedics.

The presence of the “vollies in green” provides reassurance to the community that they are in safe and capable hands if a health emergency did arise, allowing them to relax and truly enjoy their time while out and about in the community.

First Aid in Schools has trained 870,000 Victorian Primary School children since its foundation in 2012.

The program was introduced to raise first aid awareness and readiness among those in Prep to Grade 6 and has been repeatedly proven to save lives.

Founded upon the DRSABC acronym, the program teaches students to check for danger, response, (send for) help, airways, breathing and how to provide CPR.

In 2018, St John Ambulance (Vic) aims to train 200,000 children across the state in lifesaving first aid, at no cost to the parent or the school.

CPR Lab is a mobile service offering free non-accredited CPR lessons to the public, bolstering the community’s ability to respond to cardiac arrest.

With 25,000 people losing their lives to sudden cardiac arrest each year, St John introduced the program in a bid to prevent this loss of life.

For every minute that passes without CPR, the chances of survival decrease by 10 per cent, making it imperative that bystanders are ready to provide first aid in the first initial moments of cardiac arrest.

CPR Lab is designed to both refresh and introduce participants to the life-saving technique, ensuring more members of the public are confident and ready to respond.

St John Ambulance (Vic) is committed to saving lives through first aid. The organisation has given away 1,525 Defibrillators since 2012, trained 20,978 Victorians in free CPR since 2016 and treated 27,466 people at events in 2017. Every contribution the non-profit organisation makes in servicing the community is made possible thanks to the continuous support of its paid service offerings from Victorians across the state.