Our Wednesday group session looked a little different last week - We were very fortunate to be offered Basic Life Support training by the lovely Nikki and Elaine at Manor Hospital in Headington. It was a really valuable hour and a half which gave us knowledge and confidence to help in life-or-death situations.

A brief recap of what we covered is below:
The Chain of survival - Early recognition, Early compression, Early defibrillation (ideally in first 5 minutes), early hospitalisation.

Recognising heart attack vs Cardiac arrest.
When someone is having a heart attack they will still be able to talk to you and describe their symptoms. They may complain of pain in their left arm, chest tightness, shortness of breath, and women will often describe a feeling like terrible indigestion.

What to do for a patient with a suspected heart attack:
* Call for help.
* put them into the 'W' sitting position.
* If you know for certain that they are not on any kind of blood thinners give them Asprin 300 mg (crush it if necessary).
* Monitor them closely. If they collapse go to DRS ABC (below).

Someone experiencing a cardiac arrest is effectively dead at that moment. Their heart has stopped. Implement the DRS ABC (detail below). 12% of cardiac arrest patients are saved in the community. It is worth trying CPR and defibrillation - if you do nothing, nothing changes and they definitely die.

DRSABC
D - danger - is it safe?
R - response - do they respond to voice or stimulus?
S - Shout for help - Emphasise the word HELP.
A - Airway - Ensure airway is clear by tilting head back and lifiting the chin.
B - Breathing - assess for breathing for 10 seconds (look, listen, feel), but don't be fooled by 'agonal gasping'. You are looking for regular normal breaths.
C - CPR - start chest compressions.

Top Tips for CPR:
* Get the patient onto a hard surface.
* Aim for compressions in the centre of the chest just below the armpits.
* Aim for compressions about 5cm deep at a rate of about 100-120 per minute. Nellie the Elephant or Stayin' Alive both work well as songs to keep you about the right pace.
* Adults have 3-4 minutes worth of oxygen in the blood, so compressions are the priority. If you aren't happy to give rescue breaths focus on the chest compressions.
* If the patient is in cardiac arrest due to drowning rescue breathes ARE important.

Top Tips for Using a Defibrillator
* One person should continue CPR while the other gets the defibrillator.
* The 999 operator will give you the code to unlock the nearest defibrillator. They will also tell you where your nearest one is. Always go to the one they send you to (they might know your nearest one is out of service, for example).
* Defibrillators on private land should have the code to unlock them on the bottom left.
* SWITCH IT ON! The machine will then tell you exactly what to do step-by-step.
* Continue CPR while the defibrillator is prepared.
* You may need to dry the person off or shave a patch of chest hair to get the pads to stick properly.
* The machine will tell you not to touch the patient (pause CPR too) while it assesses whether the heart is shockable or non-shockable and will advise a shock if appropriate.
* If the heart rhythm is not shockable continue CPR until further help arrives.
* If it is shockable loudly warn everyone around you are about to shock & not to touch patient. “3-2-1 shocking”

What to do if you or someone else is choking
If you are alone and start to choke don't waste time - go and get help from a neighbour or passerby.

Choking protocol:
* 5 effective back slaps
* If that doesn’t work J shape x5
* Then shout for help
* Repeat
* If the patient collapses go to DRS ABC as above
* If they start breathing put in recovery position until help arrives.

Anaphalaxys
In anaphalaxys a massive amount of histamine plummets the blood pressure. Most patients with known allergies will have 2 epi-pens which they should carry at all times.
1. Call for help
2. Get the patient on the floor with their feet up
3. If patient is still responsive get them to administer their own pen
4. If have to administer take off cap push against outer upper thigh. Hold for 10 seconds.
5. Monitor for 5 minutes
6. If there's no improvement after 5 minutes give the 2nd pen in their other leg
7. If the patient doesn't have a pen you should do steps 1 and 2 and closely monitor them until help arrives.

MANY thanks to Elaine and Nikki for giving us this valuable training.

Find your nearest defibrillator here.

DRSABC here.

While riots rocked the UK we kept well out of the way of any trouble by heading out along the river to clean up a litter-ally enormous amount of trash in Rose Hill.

Rivermead Nature Park and the river path to Sandford have long been litter hot spots, and we usually do a big clean up there each year. This time our main focus was a lot of dumped clothing and rubbish under the ring road bridge, and Trev also brought tools to remove plastic embedded in the ground further along the footpath.

In a return to GG Oxford litterpick tradition we found plenty of underwear - mostly bras rather than pants this time - as well as a plethora of litter pick favs. We would definitely have done well on our litter bingo cards tonight!

We finished our evening with some blackberry foraging, birthday cake, a paddle in the river, and with best wishes to our long-time GoodGymer Sarah who is moving to Costa Rica on Friday. Best of luck Sarah!!

Makespace is a gorgeous community building on the banks of the river, a stones throw from Port Meadow. It houses artists, a very thriving book and plant swap cupboard, and the famed Library of Things.

We pop there annually to give their outside space a spruce and tidy and tonight was no different.

Fourteen Goodgymers made light work of weeding the paving slabs, cutting back brambles to reveal roses, honeysuckle and budlia, and de-mossing the entrance. Ben even got to use a strimmer to attack the ling grass but declared it "a young mans game"..........

A little trio of us then had a delightful jog across Port Meadow - spotting The Medley and reminiscing about the evening we spent there eating pizza in torrential rain!!

Thank you everyone and special well done to Megan on her 50th good deed!!

A huge pat on the back everyone: we made it through the winter! The clocks change this weekend and it'll be return of light evenings from next week.

Ovada are a non-profit gallery space with limited funding and a small staff team. Car park hire is a key source of income that enables them to run events, exhibitions of socially engaged work, and an education programme where they offer a number of subsidised and bursary places.

With only a small staff team it is hard to keep on top of maintenance, so they called in our GoodGym flash mob to get their car park area ship shape.

Bundled up against the spring showers we litter-picked, shifted rubbish out for collection, weeded, and pulled up nettles (achieving the first nettle stings of the year).

In the hour before the light faded we got the area looking a lot better and less nettley. Now we just need some dry weather for the mud situation to improve!

Last night we went WEST out of our normal East Oxford/Marston stamping ground. We know there are some litter hot spots on and around the Botley Road, and the challenge is to time our litter picks there when the undergrowth is not too dense but the river isn't in flood.

Our clean up crew divided into 2 teams with one heading towards the grot spots along the river, and the other heading to Oatlands Recreation Ground. Some exceptional litter finds were uncovered, from items of clothing to car registration plates, a fire extinguisher, cuddly emoji star, an Unidentified Netty Object (is it a hammock? Is it a fishing net?), but no papier maché spear this time.

Snacks were had to celebrate Bethan's 21st-and-a-bit birthday, and then we scattered into the night feeling just a little bit smug and virtuous for our clean up efforts.

Lovely to have a GG tourist join us from Southampton tonight. Good to meet you Ellie!