The SAMU in Charente has produced a booklet to help new comers to France cope in an accident or medical emergency .
Lives have been lost as in a panic we tend to forget our french and just speak louder in English vital minutes have been lost and unsuitable help sent .
To remedy this problem they have produced a leaflet in both english and french covering basis problems an explanation of the emergency services here will be explained at a meeting.
The leaflet can be downloaded "SAMU 16 EN CAS D'URGENCE MEDICALE " COULD SAVE ALIFE.
MEETING TUES 29 MARCH 2PM CONFOLENS 16500 AMPHITHEATRE (near tresor public )
With all the defibrillators around nowadays I decided to ask my Mairie if they could organise (no pun intended!) a little course on its use. their reply was that cerain members of the conseil municipale have been trained already.
This is not the intension of placing defibs everywhere is it?. Has anyone else tried to get any training,
I have lived in Charente for 24 yrs and it still seems that the french cant understand that we dont know how France works not many of them do anyway . They have never had our problems eg changing car plates so it is up to us to educate ourselves in the french way of life. A good ex pat assoc can do just that I was one of the founder members of Charente Limousine Exchange started so we could help ourselves not one in your area start one not difficult and a good source of info for newcomers.
Re first aid dems no problem to organise usually the Pompiers have a special trainer or the Croix Rouge good to combine with an ex pat from the same walk of life to help with the lingo we need to do this as the expat community is getting older and so many dont know how the emergency system works.
Thanks for taking the time to read hope it may help.
Just writing to applaud this initiative. For many years I have had a background anxiety about what to do in the case of an emergency during the several months of the year we spend in France. Am printing out the PDFs, placing in plastic sleeves, and leaving this prominently placed in the house. Celia - huge thanks for this.
I think it probably looks confusing. Sorry about that. Following Celia's post, I thought it may be easier if I attached the copy of it I had so that it would be available on the page itself if anyone else wanted a copy.
Hi Patrick, I attached the document to my first reply at the top of the page. Let me know if there's any problem with the download - it's in PDF format.
The book is fine, putting it into practice might be different for some, are there no FA courses available for Brits? I've asked to run CPR and use of Defib in Gourec this summer for English speakers, maybe some French too. I work with the local Security Civil, I'm speaking to my Mayor and the Chef du Pompiers about using my background and qualifications for the Brits around my area. Lots of defibs about but I'm sure how people are trained to use them. Just a few thoughts.....I'd like to introduce "trained person" scheme as we had in Staffordshire, however I think that might be difficult, early days yet, anyway feel free to contact me. As an example, I would use a defib/cpr about 10/15 a year in the UK, don't what the c/at rates are over here, Staffordshire had the highest success rates because of early intervention, good kit and well trained/motivated people, it would be interesting to find out what the survival rates are here. Don't be fooled, there is a big difference between a "return of circulation" and surviving a c/a.....sorry for being boring....there a just so many remote areas over here...8 mins is a long time.
A very good initiative, Celia. My son lost consciousness and had convulsions, we thought we were going to lose him at one point, I had a bad bike accident and broke ribs and shoulder-blade amongst other things, dealing with that with fluent French is stressful enough but if you can't speak French or have very little French it must make the whole situation so much worse. Best get up to speed with the basics and understand how the french system works - pompiers, samu, urgence etc.
Thank you for that, Celia. I'm hoping this will copy over properly for anyone who wants a quick download. It's quite long in PDF but covers a multitude of situations and could be invaluable.
