Does your child know how to phone an ambulance in an emergency situation? Any child with a basic grasp of numbers and how to use a phone could be a potential life saver in an emergency..
If a child dials 999 off a landline the call operator will automatically be able to pinpoint your address although it's never too early to teach your children to memorise this anyway incase they are ever lost or if the only option handy is a mobile phone.
Even with keypad locks on, all mobile phones should allow you to bypass this in order to make an emergency call so make sure you show your child how to do this.
Does your child know where you keep the house keys and could they unlock the door for the paramedics?
You don't need to be the parent of a chronically poorly child, or ill yourself to benefit from teaching these things to your children. ANYBODY can have a fall that renders them unconscious and children may be frightened if they cannot wake their parent. Teaching them the basics of dialling an ambulance is a very important life skill.
Dependant on age you can go into more details.. Bryce for example knows the basics of his brothers condition and how to explain it on the phone. He knows our full address, he can reach my keys off the key rack and knows where I keep them upstairs at night. He can recognise which key is which and unlock the front door. He also knows where Dylan's emergency medication is and is sensible enough now not to abuse my trust of him knowing these things.
On a slight tangent, It is also handy to have a fire escape plan in place in your household, especially for overnight. If access to downstairs is impossible, knowing which window(s) you could safely escape from with the children could save valuable moments in a high stress situation. Keep car keys and window keys upstairs at night if possible. In the winter in particular, having the car keys handy would mean you could put the children into the car to keep them warm in their pjs or drive them to a friend or family member once the fire service arrived.
Bryce knows it is a possibility in our household he may have to step up and phone an ambulance one day so he should be able to stay calm knowing how to do it and all the facts. In fact the entire reason for me writing this blog post today is because we nearly had to use our emergency plan last night..
Dylan has started to have panic attacks if he feels unwell. It is clear now that this was actually what happened on Boxing Day when we called an ambulance out to him. Last night he woke up congested and panicked because he couldn't breathe through his nose. Then he started to hyperventilate and couldn't catch his breath. He started going a bit grey and wobbly like he was going to collapse. At first I thought his lung may have collapsed again, like we also did Boxing Day, so I got Bryce to get the phone and keys ready incase I needed to give Dylan CPR. Once he calmed down with some basic breathing counting with me I could clearly see he was fine and his numbers on his monitor were perfect. We talked about it this morning and it is fairly obvious now he is suffering from anxiety attacks which is hardly surprising given everything. When he feels unwell he panics that he can't breathe or that something is seriously wrong and it causes him to have a panic attack and hyperventilate. Hopefully with plenty of reassurance this phase will pass but if it becomes a common occurrence that we cannot help him with we may have to find out about some play therapy.
I hope you never need your children to deal with the very grown up task of dialling an ambulance, but like swimming, it is a very valuable thing to learn just in case..
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