First-aid with our doctor fish 

Date: 20.12.2023
Geographical Position: 13°11.2’N 054° 49.9’W
Etmal: 170 nm
Total: 4636 nm
Ship: Regina Maris 

Yesterday on the 19th of December we had a first-aid class. For a few of us it wasn’t the first one, but for many, including me, it was the first one ever. Our teacher was the infamous “surgeon fish”: Joshua. 

He taught us the most important things to know aboard a ship, should there ever be an emergency. Most of the things were explained with an example in our day-to-day life. I am going to walk you through a day where everything goes wrong…

Breakfast with complications 

The first thing you do after being woken up (if you don’t have watch) is eat breakfast. Imagine biting into the freshly baked bread and you are just happy. But suddenly you feel a crumble of that delicious bread get stuck in your throat. It blocks your airways and you can’t breathe anymore. You start choking but Luckily there’s people around that can help. 

Somebody notices and tries to help by clapping you on your back five times. It doesn’t help. The breadcrumb is still stuck.
The next thing to do is the “Heimlich-Manöver”. Somebody “hugs” you from behind, forms one hand into a fist, lays the other on top of, it at the height of your waist, and pulls upwards.

The movement and momentum loosens the crumb and you can choke it out. That was … close.

Walking is difficult 

Especially on a ship which is always moving. Let’s say you were trying to get to watch after your adventurous breakfast. On the way up the stairs you loose your balance because of a big wave and hurt your foot. It is painful and feels like it is going to swell up. To your luck you know the “PECH-Schema”.

The letters stand for Pause/pause, Eis/ ice (to cool), Compresses (to stabilize) and Hochlagern, meaning to put your foot somewhere high and lay down so the blood doesn’t make the foot swell more. That one wasn’t as bad as the beginning of the day but the little shock still stays.

Heat and it’s dangerous 

Standing in the hot sun for four hours can be exhausting, especially when you have no sunscreen or hat on. You are standing in the lookout, it is almost 1 pm and the sun is high. It feels burning on your skin, your head and neck have been hurting for a bit now and you feel sick as well as dizzy.

Because of your missing shelter you got a sunstroke! 

You tell someone that you’re feeling unwell and another person takes over your position. You go and sit in the shade as you get wet rags for your neck and head.

The cooling helps a lot and you drink a glass of cold water, not too cold though, that’s not good either. Soon you feel better again, but you still have to rest. So, you go downstairs to take a nap.

Slip and fall

You are woken up by a sudden shout right beside you. Afterwards there’s only silence. As you slowly wake up you notice one of your cabin mates laying on the floor, not moving. What happened, is the first question you ask yourself but that is not the important thing right now. First you have to help your roommate.

You remember the three A’s: Angucken, Ansprechen, Anfassen. Meaning: first look, then try to speak to them, then touch them to try and help. Well, you looked at them already, so the next thing you do is speak to them. When you get no reaction you slip out of your bed to try and shake them awake. Still, no reacting.

You’re really starting to worry then. But instead of panicking you stay calm. You tell someone on the hallway to get the doctor. After checking if they are still breathing, which is the case, you try get the person into the “stabile Seitenlage”. Please google a picture of it so you see how it looks, we’re sadly not able to send pictures from here 🙁

A minute later our doctor Patrick is there to help. After a few minutes your roommate is awake again and can explain what happened. They tried to get down from their bed, which is the top one of the bunk beds. A wave caused the ship to move abruptly making them slip and fall.

Their head hit the edge of the basin and they passed out for a short time. 
They were not badly hurt, nothing is bleeding but a concussion couldn’t not be considered. They had to rest for the next days but afterwards everything went back to normal. 

This day is, of course, not realistic but there are some scenarios in there that could possibly happen. Better be prepared than not. Joshua did the lesson almost completely on his own and it was a good mix between theory and praxis, helping us understand the things faster and better. 

All in all I, and many more, think it was a funny and educational experience. Especially the examples out of our daily life were a good thing.

A big thank you to Joshua (and Patrick) for preparing this lesson and I hope the readers could also learn something from this. 

To our health! Cheers!

P.S.: Aurelia: Table, ich denk an dich, Lena ich behalt dich auch von hier im Auge!

Elisabeth: An Friedrich, meinen Bruder, es gibt mehr gossip! Paulina 1.0 I love and miss you!