Stay Safe by Allison

Stay Safe by Allison - January 2023 Scholarship Essay

As I find myself a legal adult who is now expected to care for others, I feel stressed that I know less about safety than I thought I did. Safety is one of the most important aspects of life. Without feeling safe, can you really be happy? It is important for everyone to understand first-aid, safety, and self-defense which is something people would have to actively search out to learn about. Therefore, a safety course should be required for all high school/ college students.

The first unit of this safety course will be about first aid and taking care of other people. Of course, I learned about this briefly in health class in high school, but it should be going much more in detail to ensure people know what to do in case of emergency. About a year after taking this course, I was babysitting a little girl who was severely allergic to nuts. Right before the mother was about to leave, she informed me of this allergy and told me I may need to inject her child with an EpiPen if something happened, and I was distraught. I had never injected someone with an EpiPen. I had never even learned about it, nor did I have my own allergy. Now, I never had to inject her, but leaving had me concerned that I would not have known what to do if an emergency had occurred. This safety course should include an extensive portion regarding EpiPens, allergies, CPR, and the Heimlich. If someone began choking on food near me, I could not say for certain that I would be able to save them. CPR is very important because this is something that occurs frequently and the mediocre lesson in health does not give people enough information to keep a person alive. There should also be a lesson about what to do when someone is severely bleeding, or how to help a severe sunburn.

The second unit should be about self-defense. It should teach people how to physically fight off a potential attacker and protect themselves. I once went to a self-defense class where I learned a lot of physical protection. Though I walked out of that class feeling safer and more prepared, I was also appalled at how unprepared I was 2 hours prior. This made me realize that this needs to be a much more public class, especially with how frequently young people seem to get attacked. Overall, safety/first aid/self-defense should be a required class for all young adults to keep them prepared for any emergency.