Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast, number 306, Giving First Aid.
This is English as a Second Language Podcast, episode 306.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Remember to visit our website at eslpod.com.
You can download a learning guide for this episode that contains all of the vocabulary definitions, sample sentences, additional definitions not found on the podcast, cultural notes and a complete transcript of this episode.
This episode is called Giving First Aid.
It's a conversation between two people talking about common injuries, things that you would need to give medical help for.
We call that first aid.
Let's get started.
What did you do this summer?
I worked at a summer camp as a nurse's aide.
I thought we would be giving simple first aid, but you wouldn't believe the kinds of injuries the kids came in with.
You mean like poison ivy, bee stings, bug bites, and scraped knees?
Yeah, we had those, but we also had some pretty serious cases.
For instance, the second day of the camp, one of the boys who didn't know how to swim fell into the lake.
He must have hit his head because he was unconscious when they brought him in.
We couldn't find his pulse and the nurse did CPR.
Luckily, we got him breathing again right away but that little boy had a concussion.
Wow, you're kidding.
That's serious.
That wasn't all.
It's true that most of the kids came in with superficial scrapes, but some of them had some major wounds.
We had to stop the bleeding and bandage them up.
We had one girl who needed 12 stitches after she fell out of a tree.
Geez, I never knew going to camp could be so hazardous to your health.
Our dialogue is called Giving First Aid.
First aid is medical help that someone who is usually not a doctor receives, gives to another person.
In the dialogue, Jang asks Cynthia, what did you do this summer?
Cynthia says, I worked at a summer camp as a nurse's aide.
A summer camp for would be a place where you send children, usually for a week or two weeks.
Often it is in a big park or next to a lake and they have games and other types of activities for the children.
Normally, these happen during the summertime when children are not in school.
I went to a camp when I was 12 years old.
It was for one week, and I absolutely hated it.
I think it was the worst experience of my life.
One of the worst.
It was not very comfortable.
You had to sleep in a big room with 20 other boys.
I don't really like going out into the forest or on the lake.
So it wasn't a good experience for me.
But some children really like it.
A nurse's aide, A-I-D-E, is an assistant, a person who helps a nurse.
A nurse is a medical professional who helps a doctor but isn't as highly educated as a doctor.
Nurses work with the doctors, so a nurse's aide is someone who's helping the nurse.
Cynthia says I thought we would be giving simple first aid, but you wouldn't believe the kinds of injuries the kids came in with.
You wouldn't believe means it was quite unusual, something that you wouldn't expect.
You wouldn't believe the kinds of injuries.
An injury, I-N-J-U-R-Y, is damage or harm or that is done to someone's body.
For example, you break your leg.
That's an injury.
Cynthia is talking about the injuries that the children had at the summer camp.
Zheng then lists some common problems that you may have in a camp.
He says, Poison ivy, two words, is a kind of plant. that when you touch it makes your skin itch.
A bee sting is when a bee, which is a small insect that is often yellow and black and makes what we would call a buzzing sound.
That would be a bee B-E-E.
A bee sting is when the bee attacks you, makes a small hole in your skin that often hurts.
That's a bee sting.
A bug bite is also...
When an insect what we would call often simply a bug comes and bites you, makes a hole in your skin so that your skin becomes red and it's itchy and it often hurts.
A scraped knee is when your knee, which is part of your leg, has some of the skin taken off.
If you, for example, fall on the ground and you hit your knee, you may scrape it.
Some of the skin may come off and you may begin to bleed there.
To have blood come out of your knee.
That would be a scraped knee.
The verb to scrape S-C-R-A-P-E means to remove the top layer or top part of something.
So Jang is saying did you have these common problems of poison, ivy bee stings, bug bites and scraped knees?
The kinds of problems you would expect children to have at a summer camp.
Cynthia says, yeah, we had those, but we had some pretty serious cases.
For instance.
For example, the second day of the camp, one of the boys who didn't know how to swim fell into the lake.
To fall into means to go into, but usually by accident.
You didn't want to.
So this boy doesn't know how to swim and he fell into the water.
He must have hit his head, Cynthia says, meaning it is very likely that he hit the top of his head because he was unconscious when they brought him in.
So he went into the water, he hit his head, and then he was unconscious.
To be unconscious means you are not aware of what is happening around you, usually because you are hurt.
So if you hit your head, you may become unconscious.
It's like you're sleeping almost.
Cynthia says that they could not find the boy's pulse.
Your pulse, P-U-L-S-E, is the same as your heartbeat.
It's the speed and strength of the blood moving through your body.
And at certain points of your body, you can feel the that movement, and we call that the pulse.
So they couldn't find the boy's pulse.
The nurse then did CPR.
CPR are initials that stand for cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
Cardio relates to your heart.
Pulmonary relates to your lungs, your ability to breathe in and out.
Resuscitation means to revive someone, someone who is not breathing.
Make them breathe again.
So cardiopulmonary resuscitation means Many people, especially nurses and teachers and others who work with children, have CPR training.
They go to a day or two days where a nurse explains to them how to help someone who has stopped breathing.
CPR usually involves blowing air into the person's mouth and pushing on his or her chest, over the heart, with your hands, to get the heart moving again, to get the heart working again.
So in the story, the nurse performs or does CPR on the boy.
You do CPR on someone.
Luckily, she says, we got him breathing again right away, immediately.
But that little boy had a concussion.
To breathe means to move air in and out of your lungs.
That's breathing.
A concussion is when you lose consciousness because you are hit on your head.
This can be very dangerous to have a concussion when you get hit very hard on your head.
Jang says to Cynthia, wow, you're kidding.
That's serious.
Note when he says you're kidding, he doesn't really mean you are joking, which is what we would normally mean when we say you're kidding.
You're kidding here is when you are surprised at something, when you can't believe something because it is so unusual.
So, Jang says, you're kidding, meaning, wow, that's unusual.
Cynthia says, that wasn't all, meaning, there was more that happened.
It's true.
She says that most of the kids came in with superficial scrapes, but some of them had major wounds.
Superficial means on the surface, not very serious usually.
A scrape, we know comes from the verb to scrape, when part of the skin is removed and the person starts to bleed.
To bleed means to have blood coming out of your body.
A wound, W-O-U-N-D, is another word for an injury.
Often, when blood is coming out of your body, on your arm or on your leg or on your head, We would call that a wound.
Cynthia says the kids came in with superficial scrapes but some of them had major or serious wounds.
She says we had to stop the bleeding and bandage them up.
To bandage someone up is a phrase that means to put cloth on someone's injury, someone's wound, so that it stops bleeding.
To put something on the skin so that it doesn't bleed, so that no more blood comes out.
Cynthia said we had one girl who needed 12 stitches after she fell out of a tree.
A stitch is a small line of thread that a doctor uses to put two pieces of skin together, to sew two pieces of skin together.
So if you cut your arm, for example, the doctor may put some of this string, this thread in your skin to keep the skin together so that the wound can heal.
H-E-A-L.
To heal means to get better.
We would say, you had to get stitches.
I had to get stitches on my arm because I had a wound and I wanted it to heal.
Finally, Jang says, geez or wow.
I never knew going to camp could be so hazardous to your health.
Something that is hazardous to your health is something that is dangerous, something that is not safe.
Driving and trying to talk on your cell phone can be very hazardous.
Now let's listen to the dialogue again, this time at a normal speed.
I worked at a summer camp as a nurse's aide.
I thought we would be giving simple first aid, but you wouldn't believe the kinds of injuries the kids came in with.
You mean like poison ivy, bee stings, bug bites, and scraped knees?
Yeah, we had those, but we also had some pretty serious cases.
For instance, the second day of the camp, one of the boys who didn't know how to swim fell into the lake.
He must have hit his head because he was unconscious when they brought him in.
We couldn't find his pulse, and the nurse didn't CPR.
Luckily, we got him breathing again right away, but that little boy had a concussion.
Wow, you're kidding.
That's serious.
That wasn't all.
It's true that most of the kids came in with superficial scrapes, but some of them had some major wounds.
We had to stop the bleeding and bandage them up.
We had one girl who needed 12 stitches after she fell out of a tree.
Geez, I never knew going to camp could be so hazardous to your health.
The script for this episode was written by Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thanks for listening.
We'll see you next time on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
This podcast is copyright 2007.
