Filip, 11, was recognized today for providing first aid to victims of an accident near his home in Knurów. On Dec. 20, during a remote lesson, he heard a bang. He ran downstairs, borrowed a first aid kit and dressed wounds of the injured. He also directed traffic.
“One gentleman had a nosebleed and another had a cut eyebrow. In the parking lot next door, some people were packing things into a car, I borrowed a first aid kit from them and helped those injured,” Filip Łukaszczyk said during a Wednesday meeting with Vice Voivode of Silesia Jan Chrząszcz in Katowice.
“I am proud and happy to have just congratulated him for this great attitude and for sharing his heart to save another human being. It seems so obvious, but – as we observe these days – it’s not so obvious for everyone,” said Vice Voivode Jan Chrząszcz, noting that a common reaction of accident witnesses is only taking pictures or recording video at the scene of the accident.
It is worth mentioning that the boy is a scout and he learned the principles of first aid during meetings.
“I was the first person he made a scouting report to about the incident. I got a message: dear priest, I gave first aid,” the boy’s tutor, scoutmaster Piotr Larysz, who also trained him in first aid, said.
“We learn it in simulation, but using a first aid kit and a phantom, and it’s very effective when kids can learn from concrete examples. Philip, you got an A on that assignment,” Rev. Piotr Larysz said.
Tomasz Michalczyk, the Chair of the Voivodship Emergency Notification Centre, stressed that stopping bleeding is beyond the capabilities of many adults. He also noted the great importance to accident victims of the psychological support that is the mere presence and actions of the person assisting.
Despite his young age, Filip already has a concrete plan for the future:
“Uniformed Services or Cardiac Surgery,” he confessed.
The boy’s mother, Monika, did not learn about her son’s feat until late in the evening. Although her son called her directly after the incident, when she was at work, he said only that he ran out of the house to the accident and asked her to excuse his absence from the last lesson of the day – math.
“I’ll admit I even yelled at him for not being in class. Now I regret it very much. Colleagues at work made me promise to always ask him first in such a situation exactly what happened,” she recounted.
“I’m very, very proud of him,” she emphasized.