I passed two ambulances and a couple of police cars this morning on my way into work - ambulance doors wide open, stretchers on the road. It was quite a scary sight at 8.30am on a Monday and I hoped that the ambulances had arrived in time for the poor people who needed them.

So it was quite timely to have a wallet-sized guide to essential first aid drop on my desk a while later. Produced by St John Ambulance, it came with the frightening statistic that up to 150,000 lives are lost every year because not enough of us have basic first aid knowledge.

Hands-up - I'm guilty! If somebody, God forbid, starts to choke in front of me, I'm not going to be much use to them. So this little guide, which has easy-to-follow instructions explaining how to deal with the five most common first aid situations, is a very useful handbag essential. It explains what to do if somebody is choking, bleeding, unconscious, having a heart attack or has stopped breathing. It's probably a good idea to take a first-aid course as well, but this is a good starting point.

To get a free copy of this guide text SAVE to 88008. Somebody from St John Ambulance will be in touch afterwards to get your contact details and post the guide to you.