Bite-sized videos teach first aid skills instantly

Dinesh Durai Kannan, nine, learning how to use a fire extinguisher at yesterday's event at Taman Jurong Community Club where the Singapore Red Cross was marking World First Aid Day with a carnival.
Dinesh Durai Kannan, nine, learning how to use a fire extinguisher at yesterday's event at Taman Jurong Community Club where the Singapore Red Cross was marking World First Aid Day with a carnival. ST PHOTO: LAU FOOK KONG

The Singapore Red Cross has introduced six bite-sized instructional videos on social media platform Instagram, to reach out to digitally-savvy Singaporeans and equip them with essential first aid skills.

Called InstaSave, the series of videos depicts what to do in the most common emergency situations here: cardiac arrest, stroke, seizure, choking, severe bleeding and burn wounds. Each video is about 20 seconds long.

Singapore Red Cross secretary- general Benjamin William said that InstaSave "has the potential to turn a photo-sharing community of 1.4 million Instagrammers into a lifesaving force".

Compassvale Secondary School student Yong Fang Qi, 14, said she found the videos useful and simple to understand. "We can access the videos easily after saving them on Instagram," she added.

Second Minister for Home Affairs and National Development Desmond Lee launched the initiative yesterday at the Taman Jurong Community Club to mark World First Aid Day.

In his speech, Mr Lee lauded the Singapore Red Cross Academy for being the first organisation to offer the Citizen First Responder training - a five-hour course, usually held over three days, on first aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation targeting busy professionals.

About 350 people have completed the course since it was launched in January last year.

The Singapore Red Cross also offers courses in psychological first aid to train people to help victims after a crisis. So far, about 200 people have been trained in this.

Its video initiative follows a government push in June to familiarise Singaporeans with CPR through the use of the CPRcard.

The card, when placed on a person's chest during CPR, tells a rescuer if he is performing chest compressions too deeply or quickly.

The Health Ministry plans to distribute 15,000 cards as part of a pilot programme.

Ng Huiwen

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Sunday Times on September 10, 2017, with the headline Bite-sized videos teach first aid skills instantly. Subscribe