“I first realized that first aid training would be my hobby in November 2019, the day after my 18th birthday. As a volunteer with the French Red Cross, I work in a rescue center run by the Paris Fire Department. After a relatively quiet start to the shift, the alarm sounded: I was setting off with a team for my first procedure for cardiac arrest in an 83-year-old woman. Despite our quick arrival and the first gestures of her granddaughter with the help of the fireman on the phone, the person was declared dead after a long attempt at resuscitation.

What stands out for me that day, as it has every time since, is not so much the muffled scream that comes from deep within that our loved ones let out when we tell them the news, but the silence that follows. And their faces are transfigured when they finally understand… In this deafening silence, I promise myself that in the future I will do everything I can to act where death can be avoided through quick and effective first aid. If a person goes into cardiac arrest, every minute that passes without treatment means a 10% lower chance of survival. In Paris, help arrives within seven minutes on average.

That’s why today, at the age of 22, I’m a professional first aid trainer. My job is to teach adults, teenagers, future first aid professionals and young parents life-saving gestures… how to perform cardiac massage in heart failure, but also how to react in the event of a serious fall, burn, cut, etc. I also spend a lot of my free time in real life and on social media to raise awareness about first aid. And on the side, I continue to work as a volunteer guard for the Red Cross a few times a month, where I supervise rescue teams.

It must be said that the topic of first aid and life, which can end in a few seconds, particularly appeal to me. As a child, I saw the impact the death of a loved one could have on a family when my little sister was lost to complications of illness. Then my youth was marked by various health problems and accidents in which I ended up in the ambulance several times. All this to say that I feel like I am “giving something back” to society today by embarking on this path. First aid has become a philosophy, a passion, almost an obsession. The contents of my library, as those close to me can attest.

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