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Police Cadets join Army and Combined Cadet Forces at First Aid Challenge
On Sunday 26th June, a team of five Kingston on Thames Volunteer Police Cadets went to the Royal Russell School in Croydon to take part in the London District Regional First Aid Competition. Three of our cadets helped out with the smooth-running of the day, ensuring that everyone knew where they had to be and when, taking cadets to their scenarios, taking photos, playing casualty and just generally helping out.
Another Instructor and I competed in the senior part of the competition, where we had one team scenario. It consisted of two casualties, who had sustained serious injuries upon landing in a remote area, after a parachute hadn’t opened properly during a sky dive. There was also an individual scenario each. For my individual scenario, I had to tend to a 13-year-old Army Cadet who was suffering from an asthma attack.
All competing cadets were assessed on various things, such as reassuring the casualties, treating them promptly and effectively, ensuring they were warm and as comfortable as possible and handing over to paramedics. It was a great experience and fantastic to represent the Volunteer Police Cadets. We struggled a bit with the team task, due to the fact that it was our first time at the competition, so we didn’t know too much about it or how it ran, but we boosted our final scores in the individual tasks and ended up placing runners up in the senior teams category. Overall, we all had a brilliant day and loved interacting with the other Cadet forces. I’m looking forward to next year (hopefully we’ll be invited back!), and I hope that there will be more VPC units competing next year too!’
The day was blessed with good weather enabling the whole event to be held outdoors, including the wonderful lunchtime barbeque kindly provided by Royal Russell School as well as the final parade and prize-giving. Representative Deputy Lieutenant in the Borough of Croydon Col. Ian McRobbie OBE TD DL kindly attended to present the winners’ trophies and the gold and silver medals which were award as follows:
CCF: Winners: Royal Russell Team B, Runners up: City of London Academy Islington Team A
ACF: Winners: SE London, Runners up: SW London Team A
Senior Teams: Winners: SE London, Runners up: Kingston Volunteer Police Cadets
Highest Placed Cadet: Sgt Emmanuel (SE London ACF) Runner Up: Sgt Lightfoot (NW London ACF)
Emma Cheetham – Volunteer Police Cadet Instructor Kingston on Thames
