National Driver First Aid campaign supports St John WA’s Click to Save

• St John WA welcomes a national Driver First Aid campaign, launched in Canberra on November 30, which supports its Click to Save program.
• Click to Save has equipped more than 145,000 new drivers with basic first aid over 10 years.
• Up to 15 per cent of road accident deaths are preventable by administering basic first aid.

St John WA welcomed a national St John campaign designed to equip young drivers with basic first aid free of charge launched in Canberra on November 30.

The Driver First Aid e-learning course supports St John WA’s Click to Save program as part of a national mission to serve humanity by building community resilience through first aid.

Click to Save is a free 30-minute online first aid program for learner and P-plate drivers. Since its launch in 2012, it continues to address WA road fatalities of teenagers aged 17 to 19, who are three times more likely to be are in a crash resulting in death than older drivers, according to the Road Safety Commission.

Encouragingly, 2021 WA road deaths dropped 41 per cent to six fatalities compared to 14 recorded in 2020. But that is still six too many when up to 15 per cent of road accident deaths are preventable by administering basic first aid.

In some cases, saving a life can be as simple as tilting a head to open an airway, where it only takes four minutes for an unconscious road victim with no serious injury to clinically die from a blocked airway.

Senior Australian of the Year and ACT St John volunteer Val Dempsey knows only too well the impact of not knowing first aid in a road accident after her daughter’s harrowing tale of watching her friend die in her arms.

“She said ‘mum he died in my arms and when they came to help me, I remember they didn’t know what to do. They told me, ‘I want to help but I don’t know what to do’’,” Val recalled.

“We have to change that. We will change that. We can change that. This is the first process –Learner Driver First Aid.”

Ms Dempsey has pledged to get every new driver, encouraged by their families, to sign up to Driver First Aid in the next 12 months.

“The message is don’t leave your child to be the one who stands at a traffic accident not knowing what to do,” she said.

“Help them to realise they have the skills and they have the knowledge. They have the capacity to be able to take on learning first aid and they too can be part of this fabulous process to help save lives.”

Click to Save, with the endorsement of the WA Road Safety Commission, delivered first aid knowledge to more than 8000 young drivers in the past year and 145,000 in the past decade. It also won a LearnX e-Learning Award this year.

St John WA Chief Brand and Reputation Officer, Aaron Crowther, welcomed the award and the national campaign supporting Click to Save, saying the free 30-minute online course was a vital tool for inexperienced drivers.

“Click to Save has been designed for young drivers and passengers to easily learn how to respond in the event of an on-road health emergency,” he said.

“By training new drivers in basic first aid principles, which include how to unblock an airway, we can strengthen our community and improve the outcomes for people injured in crashes on our roads.”

If you or anyone you know has been affected by a road crash, contact Road Trauma Support WA on 1300 004 814.