First aid - last resort?

Oh I am proud of myself. The other day I re-qualified as a first-aider. It's surprising how dangerous a little knowledge can be. The re-qualification course is only two days long which is half the time of the original course, three years ago. Despite this, I had emerged with a renewed vigour and confidence in my ability to revive the dead, heal the bleeding and turn water into wine.

The course was so positive and supportive that I was, seriously, feeling able to deal with a person who is unconscious and has stopped breathing ... as long as they have no arms or legs or abdomen.

You see, in every first aid training class in the world, all of the practising you do for CPR (cardio pulmonary resuscitation) is carried out with a life-size but limbless dummy who, for some reason, is know as Annie. Believe me, she's no looker. However, she obediently has her chest pumped and gob blown into on a regular basis so that people like me can hone our life-saving skills. However, you sort of get used to the fact that there are no arms or legs to get in the way as you struggle to revive this inanimate mannequin. This makes the whole process much simpler than if she were fully limbed-up and this gets you used to working with an armless, legless victim.

Now that's the problem. If I'm ever faced with a real person who's heart has stopped, I'm going to find myself having to carry out CPR. How the hell am I going to cope with the stress of trying to restart some poor sod's heart whilst trying to deal with all these body parts that simply weren't there when I was training?

Furthermore, when you do CPR your have put your hands "between the boobs" as our trainer said. This is where you have to start doing the chest compressions. Between the boobs. What if it's a woman who's collapsed and you thought she had stopped breathing but had, in fact, merely fainted. So there you are, kneeling on her arms, kicking her legs and scrabbling all over her boob-area in an attempt to find the 'right spot', when suddenly she comes round to find herself being groped and assaulted by a complete stranger.

So, after some reflection, I've decided that if such a situation does arise, I shall adopt the accepted approach. The course of action favoured by the great British public. I'll ignore it.

Unless she's just a torso called Annie.