November 5th marks Bonfire Night, also known as Guy Fawkes Night, in the UK. This annual celebration often involves a lot of smoke, fire, and explosive firework displays.

Naturally, there are dangers associated with open flames, fireworks, sparklers and other activities involved in the festivities. In this blog, Imperative Training talks you through some of the main dangers and how to keep yourself and your loved ones safe this Bonfire Night.

Picture this situation: a member of the public collapses in front of you, they are not breathing and have no pulse. Remembering your First Aid training, you recognise this as a cardiac arrest, begin Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) and call 999 who refer you to the nearest Automated External Defibrillator (AED) to your location.

After sending another bystander to collect the AED, you attach the electrodes to the casualty’s chest and wait for the device to analyse. The AED recommends a shock, and ultimately delivers three shocks before the casualty regains a heartbeat and is taken to hospital.

What seems like a heroic act to almost everyone may have actually been against the wishes of the person who suffered the cardiac arrest. So, can they actually take legal action against you for saving their life if they didn’t want you to?

When someone suffers cardiac arrest the only definitive treatment is CPR and a shock from a defibrillator, but a defibrillator will only shock what it deems as a “shockable rhythm”.

An Automated External Defibrillator (AED) will first analyse the rhythm of the casualty’s heart and only deliver a shock if the heart is in a certain rhythm, but what is a shockable rhythm?

In recent years, defibrillators have become increasingly available to the public in the UK. These life-saving devices can now regularly be seen in public places such as restaurants, gyms, supermarkets and train stations.

Figures from defibshop’s Cardiac Coverage report show that the number of defibrillators per 10,000 people in the UK has risen from 4.17 in 2021 to 13.71 in 2024. Despite this, many less affluent areas are still below the national average for number of defibrillators, and survival rates for Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest (OHCA) in these areas are lower as a consequence.