I remember the last time I had to apply some first aid, it was during my job as a personal trainer at a local YMCA when a regular there came stumbling out of one of them trendy jump rope classes with the blaring music with a bad knee. Hard to believe it now, what with my own bum knee, but I wondered at the time, some four years ago now, how anyone could get injured simply jumping rope! Well, sure enough, I myself would wind up pulling a calf muscle just crossing the street — but that’s another story.
So anyway, I tried to administer some first aid as I’d been taught, only to find out that we had no ice packs and other such necessities! Later on, it turned out that these items had been entirely misplaced somehow, but at the moment it was quite embarrassing for me to return to the fellow, in obvious pain, that I really couldn’t do anything for him. I did manage to get some ice cubes from the staff refrigerator at least, but it would have been nice to also give him other help (and an ice pack is definitely less messy than ice cubes in a plastic bag!).
That’s a true story, and I relate it to note how even something as basic as first aid is a precious commodity at even as storied an institution as the YMCA. And that’s just one of those things you learn as you go through life, that almost nothing important is as it seems — certainly nowhere near what it should be, oftentimes. After all, health clubs are required by law to have such things on hand, but obviously it doesn’t always work out that way. Then there are the schools, the courts, the hospitals, the prisons — basically, anything and everything on any given day of the week. Did you know that a victim of racial violence in the wake of 9/11 lost his left eye because the healthcare system in Texas refused to treat him without payment? It’s absolutely true. While his life was saved, his left eye was lost. All because the gas station attendant could not afford the tens of thousands of dollars necessary. Is this still America? Is it, even, the 21st Century yet?
But of course — which is why I say that it’s surprising how much does not happen as it should, as we’d been taught to expect. Keep that in mind the next time you see someone fumble for the bandages!