Couldn't agree more that First Aid should be part of the school curriculum.
I'm not a parent but find it hard to understand how anyone would want to take a newborn baby home from hospital without having completed a basic first aid course. This was a constant source of argument between me and an old mate who was a teacher (and therefore acting in loco parentis albeit in a classroom rather than outdoors environment) who after many years of trying and several rounds of IVF managed to become the proud father of twins. His atitude was that there is always an ambulance available on the end of the phone and better leave it to the professionals.
His conversion came, not on the road to Damascus but half way up Kidsty Pike in the Lakes an area (at the time) devoid of mobile coverage when we came across an oldish guy face down on the ground who appeared to be having an epileptic fit. Two of our party headed off to raise the alarm and overtook his wife who returned to the casualty where we were trying to make him comfortable and treat as if he was having an epileptic fit. It turned out he had a history of strokes and had gone walking that day without taking his medication and was now unconscious and fitting about 50% of the time.
I had completed a wilderness first aid refresher the previous week but clearly a stroke victim needs urgent evacuation to a specialist hospital but that is not always a straightforward process. I can't remember the precise time scales but it probably took at least 30 mins for the lads to reach a phone. Sometime later a policeman arrived and took down some names but did nothing else. Quite a while later an ambulance arrived but the amply proportioned female paramedics were disinclined to cross the small stream near the car park without being carried by my other two mates and were not at all happy at the prospect of climbing a steep hill. Before they got to the casualty, they were overtaken by the MRT and when they arrived we decided that we were serving no further useful purpose and left. The drama was not over because the RAF helicopter covering the Lakes was grounded for maintenance/refuelling having just completed another rescue and they had to wait for a helicopter from the North East.
Apart from raising the alarm, managing the scene and reassuring the wife, there is not much we could do (or indeed anyone could have done) but surprisingly since it must have been well over two hours before the casualty got to hospital, we heard from his wife that he had made a good recovery.
Needless to say, having seen how easy it is to find yourself in a situation where the ability to administer basic first aid before the professionals arrive could mean the difference between life or death for yourself, a loved one or a complete stranger, my mate immediately signed up for a course.
This thread has been a timely "bump" that I need a refresher course - that's the first New Year's resolution sorted.
As an aside, I provide health and safety advice to a local charity which among other things involves making sure that their first aid kits are complete and in date. I get really cross to find that some manufacturers are putting use by (and by implication discard by) dates on sealed packs of triangular bandages!