February 19th, 2021
Why First Aid Training Pays Off: Darragh stayed with the victim until paramedics arrived before she returned to teaching her first aid class
Christina Darragh was on her lunch break after a morning of teaching a first aid class when she was alerted of the accident. Darragh was outside the Commissionaires Truro office with a co-worker when a friend of the victim approached the pair. Darragh quickly went to the site of the accident and administered first aid to the victim.
“He was very lucky. Actually, it was just his toes that had gone under the wheel,” said Darragh.
A 26-year-old male was struck by a freight train in Truro, N.S., in the afternoon of December 8. The man had sustained a severe injury to his left foot after the accident. He lost three toes after being struck in one of the track’s unauthorized areas. The victim was then sent to Colchester East Hants Health Centre.
Darragh’s class had been covering many first aid topics, including amputations. Ironically, she then was able to use the very skills she was teaching to help the victim.
“One of the things that we teach is how to deal with full amputations. He had three full amputations and two partials of his toes,” said Darragh.
Darragh applied pressure to help stop the bleeding while her co-worker called the police at approximately 12:15pm. Darragh said she was there for 10 minutes until police arrived. One of the officers assisted Darragh until paramedics came.
Once the paramedics arrived, Darragh returned to her class after taking a few minutes to have a coffee.
Darragh received a CEO Commendation from Commissionaires for her “expert display of the application of First Aid.”