My Son Took a First Aid Class. Two Weeks Later, He Needed It

Friends, have you taken a first aid class yourselves? Would you know what to do in an emergency? I bet a lot of you are nodding right now. But what about your older kids? Magdalena told us that first aid classes make sense even for kids, after we shared an article on our Instagram account about teenage boys who pulled a two-year-old out of the water and saved his life. Here's the story of Magdalena's son:

First Aid: How My Son Helped My Brother in an Emergency

“When I saw your post about the kids who gave first aid, I immediately thought of my son Jonas. Jonas is 13 now. When he was 11, he signed up for a first aid class over summer break. To be honest, I didn't really get it at the time. There are so many activities for kids and teens where we live, all full of action and fun. But something about this class appealed to him, so he went for it. His dad is the designated first aider at his workplace, so maybe the topic was just on his radar.

On the day the class started, though, he had a pretty queasy feeling. He didn't know a single other kid who had signed up. But he stuck it out and finished the class. He wasn't exactly thrilled and didn't tell us much about it, so the class quickly stopped being a topic at our house.

About two weeks later, Jonas was visiting his uncle, my brother. My brother is a single dad with two daughters, ages 7 and 9. The three of them live way out in the country, with no next-door neighbors. Jonas was in the pool with his older cousin, and the little one was playing with her dad, who was on the patio trying to repair the lawn mower.

Suddenly the little one came running and yelled, totally panicked, ‘Jonas, Jonas, come quick, Daddy is bleeding really bad and he won't talk anymore!!’ I think Jonas assumed at first that it was a joke, but she was so upset that he climbed out of the pool right away. He called to his cousin to run and get clean towels.

Then he told the girls not to worry and that, just this once, they could watch a cool video on his phone. He went over to my brother with the towels, somehow managed to prop him up a little, and pressed the towels against the badly bleeding wound on his hand. He kept talking to him the whole time so he'd stay awake, gave him something to drink, and on the side called an ambulance and Grandma, who lives about 10 minutes away.

Grandma actually got there even faster than the ambulance, and she was so beside herself that Jonas ended up calming her down, too. Meanwhile, he was on the phone with the paramedics and had already answered the most important questions: who, what, where, when.

My brother hadn't secured the lawn mower properly, so it started up while he was working on it. Some fingers were broken and the tips of others were cut off. Jonas even remembered to pull the key out of the mower so his cousins couldn't get hurt.

By the time the EMTs arrived, the situation was pretty calm, and the paramedics were completely impressed with Jonas. Because of the first aid class, he simply knew exactly what to do. Even the local press heard about it and wrote an article about Jonas. That made him very proud, of course, and the newspaper clipping still hangs in his room today.

I think our story shows how fast accidents can happen, and how valuable it is when even kids know what to do in an emergency. Maybe our story will encourage some of you to take a first aid class together with your child!”