Guest blog by Mark Cox from the British Red Cross. This blog was originally posted on the British Red Cross blog. 
We all know Prince Harry is pretty top-notch at polo, but up till now he’s kept his first aid skills firmly under his belt.
However, when a fellow player went crashing heavily to the ground during a charity polo match in Brazil, the prince immediately leapt off his horse and ran over to provide some textbook first aid help.
Businessman Bash Kazi, who was knocked out cold by the incident, landed on his front and was left lying face down in the damp turf. But the young prince, who has been trained in first aid by the British Red Cross, raced over to gently roll the stricken rider onto his side.
As any first aider knows, carefully putting a casualty on their side (known as the recovery position) enables them to breathe independently. Bash later recalled: “Prince Harry was the first one off his horse, doing the right thing.”
Given the prince is a veteran of Afghanistan and an active duty officer in the English Army, he’s presumably had good training in basic trauma care – so it’s not surprising he knew what to do.
But his actions do underline a very serious point: when accidents happen, particularly on a sports field, someone needs to have the confidence and skills to step in immediately and help.
Powerful polo horses charge up and down the playing field at 35 to 40 miles an hour, so crashing into another player and being thrown off is pretty serious stuff. Luckily, the businessman only suffered minor concussion and a subsequent CT scan showed he was fine.
Following the match, Bash caught some replays of the accident on Brazilian TV – and so had the surreal experience of watching the third-in-line to the British throne giving first aid to his own prone form.
Unsurprisingly, he later announced that the prince was ‘a fabulous person’ and ‘such a gentleman’.