Ready to Respond: KBC and Kep West Team Complete First Aid & BLS Training

This week, members of the Knai Bang Chatt and Kep West team travelled to Sonja Kill Memorial Hospital in Sihanoukville for a hands-on First Aid and Basic Life Support (BLS) training, building the skills to respond confidently in a real emergency.

A hospital instructor briefed the group on compression technique before staff broke into pairs to practice on the manikins

Guest and staff safety is never just a policy on paper — it's a set of skills someone has to be ready to use. That's the thinking behind this week's training, hosted at Sonja Kill Memorial Hospital, where a dozen staff from across KBC and Kep West spent the day working through the fundamentals of first aid: CPR, response to electric shock, and how to help someone who's choking.

Practice that goes beyond the theory

Rather than sitting through slides alone, the session was built around repetition and muscle memory. Staff practiced chest compressions on adult training manikins, working in pairs to check technique under close supervision.

Chest compressions practiced one-on-one, with a colleague on hand to check timing and depth

The training also covered infant CPR, with a dedicated infant manikin used to walk through the different approach needed for the smallest guests and their families.

A dedicated infant manikin was used to demonstrate proper hand placement and technique for infant CPR

A separate module covered bandaging technique, with participants practicing on each other — wrapping a lower leg and ankle under supervision, the kind of skill that matters most in the minutes before proper medical help arrives.

Bandaging practice on the lower leg and ankle, with a colleague helping hold the wrap steady

The format kept things practical throughout: small groups rotating through stations, real equipment, and enough repetition that the movements start to become instinct rather than something to think through under pressure.

A shared standard across the team

The group that took part spanned departments and properties, all training side by side, a reflection of how safety in a small resort community is a shared responsibility rather than any one role's job. At the end of the day, participants received individual certificates of accomplishment, recognizing the completion of the Basic Life Support and First Aid programme.

Certificates of accomplishment were awarded individually at the close of the programme, recognizing each participant's completion of the BLS and First Aid training

It's a training that pairs naturally with the standards KBC and Kep West have already built into daily operations — from sustainability practices in housekeeping to conservation work along the coast. Knowing how to protect people is as fundamental to hospitality as knowing how to take care of a room or a reef, and this week's session leaves the team better equipped to do exactly that, whether the moment calls for a fire extinguisher, a bandage, or someone who knows what to do in the first sixty seconds of an emergency.

The full group outside Sonja Kill Memorial Hospital, certificates in hand at the end of a full day of training