This week in Security Guard Training Class, we took a break from our normal studies and spent this week focusing on first aid and CPR training. I’ve been wanting to tape a CPR class for a long time, ever since Mason was born. It’s one of those things that I think is really important, and yet I’ve never set the time aside to actually do it. I was glad to see CPR training was included as part of the Private Investigator course; in fact, it was probably my final deciding factor in taking the class.

The first night of CPR training consisted primarily of diagnosing different injuries and learning how to treat them. The second night involved hands on training, thanks to our training dummies. I named my dummy Betty, which is kind of weird seeing as the dummy is obviously male. Whatever. After breathing into our dummies and performing chest compressions, the last thing we trained on was the automated external defibrillator (AED) machine — CLEAR!

The primary lesson I learned from class was that CPR is designed to keep someone alive long enough for paramedics to arrive. I did not think that after only eight hours of class I would feel confident enough to perform these techniques on someone should the occasion arise, but surprisingly now, I think I probably could. If we ever go out to dinner and you start choking, we can find out.