Jakarta, October 2009

 My name is Joel Marlowe. I am a teacher at Binus School Simprug. This is my testimony on my experience with Medic One.

I was in the pool when I heard it. What I at first thought was children joyfully playing and screaming turned out to be so different. My wife then alerted to the fact that something was in fact wrong. I got out of the pool and I saw a man running off with what I thought at the time as possibly a child with an epileptic seizure as his limbs were flailing in an unnatural way.

I asked some people what had happened and they told me they had found the boy in the pool face down. His face, they said, was blue.

I immediately ran to find the boy and fortunately found him with a Spanish gentleman giving him CPR. As in the video we watched yesterday in our Medic One first aid training class, I asked to help and took over administering CPR.

First, I checked to see if he was breathing and did about a seven count. I am grateful that we watched the video of the surfer on how to detect if a person is breathing as in my opinion at that time he looked very similar to the kid in the video. It was very hard to detect breath, especially given the strong breeze at the time. His stomach was moving but his chest was still. I could not detect a definite breath.

What scared me the most was that his mouth seemed to be gasping for breath as opposed to breathing. His lips were jerking outwards in an unnatural way. His eyes were also wide open and I rarely saw him blinking. He looked like a fish out of water (this is no joke!!!!) gasping for breath. I continued with the CPR and at one point he made a sort of coughing gurgling sound. Although not certain, we decided that he was breathing and so I put him the recovery position.

It got quite chaotic at this point as the mother who was in hysterics the whole time tried to grab her son thus pulling him out of the recovery position. The life guard grabbed the boy before I could do anything, but at least I was able to tell him to keep the boys mouth downward in case he vomited.

Within seconds the boy was whisked off somewhere and both my self and the Spanish man were left dazed and worried. Thirty minutes later he was back at the pool with his family doing alright. I am amazed that the family did not take him to the hospital.

Medic One’s point about yesterday’s basic first aid training class just being the tip of the tip of the iceberg in learning emergency first aid is very true. I am still a bit shocked by all of the variables that can not be covered in a one day course so will definitely be continuing with more Medic One training.

Once again, let me also thank Medic One for doing a fantastic job with their training. I am still amazed by the calmness I had walking into the situation having done the course. I am now scared however by how much I do not know.

Sincerely yours,

Joel Marlowe