Man holds vigil for girlfriend-turned-nun

Heartbroken Daniel Briatore, 21, has vowed to remain camped outside the convent in a bid to win back the love of his life Patrizia Masoero, also 21, after she dumped him a month ago to take religious vows.

He travelled the 300 miles from their hometown of Alassio on the Italian Riviera to the Franciscan convent at Montecassino Abbey, south of Rome.

When Patrizia refused to see him he put up a banner on the convent walls reading:"I didn't want to take you away, just talk to you, because I love you".

The nuns immediately took the banner down but Daniel has said he will do "whatever it takes" to get her back, boosted by local villagers who are all said to be backing him.

Last night Italian media reports said the two had known each other since they were teenagers and had been together for several years until Patrizia told her family she was leaving Daniel to become a nun.

A nun who answered the telephone at the convent said:"Our sister has chosen the path she wants, there is no point in him staying here.

"At the moment she isn't even here, she is in Rome on a pilgrimage with her fellow sisters and is due back here at the convent this weekend - we just want all this attention to go away.

"We took the banner down but now the whole place is swarming with TV crews and photographers when I tried to leave the convent it was impossible because i had microphones and cameras pushed into me."

In his entry on the Italian social network site Netlog Daniel calls himself "Braveheart 86" and describes himself as a "heterosexual lifeguard who enjoys football."

Five simple ways to save a life

Quick: What would you do if you impaled yourself with a large, sharp, piece of wood? If your tooth fell out? If you fell from a high ladder? If your friend had a severe allergic reaction?

Even if you don't have first aid training, there are simple things everyone can learn to do in emergency situations. "You really could save somebody's life," says Dr. Assaad Sayah, chief of emergency medicine at the Cambridge Health Alliance in Massachusetts.

Think of it as "first aid for idiots" -- five things to remember if you otherwise know nothing about first aid.

1. Don't remove a foreign object.

It happens more often than you might think: a child impaled by a pencil or someone stepping on a nail or even someone being stabbed. Particularly after storms, debris is also an impalement hazard. Among injuries that cause ER visits, punctures rank fourth behind falls, car accidents and being struck by an object, according to the CDC.

The doctor's advice: Leave it in and call 911 (unless it's something small, like a splinter).

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"It may be plugging a hole in an artery or vein, and as soon as you take it out, you could bleed to death," says Dr. David Beiser, an emergency medicine physician at the University of Chicago Medical Center.

2. Don't apply a tourniquet to stop bleeding.

Apply pressure and don't put on a tourniquet unless you've been trained to do so.

"If you don't know what you're doing, you could destroy that limb," Sayah says.

3. Do ask around for an epi pen in case of allergic reaction.

If someone has an allergic reaction, ask if he or she has an epinephrine pen. They may have one but forgotten. "People get very panicked when they can't breathe," Sayah says. "If they don't have one, ask other people who might be nearby."

Sayah says epi pens are easy to use even without training. "It's like a ballpoint pen that clicks," he says. And of course, call 911.

4. Don't clean a tooth that's fallen out.

"You're cleaning off important structures like nerves and ligaments," Beiser says.

Put the tooth in milk and head to the emergency room, says Dr. Richard Bradley, a member of the American Red Cross advisory council on first aid, aquatics, safety and preparedness.

As an alternative, you can try to hold it in the socket where it fell out, he says, adding that if a child loses a baby tooth, doctors will not try to put it back in -- it's gone for good.

5. Don't move someone who's fallen from a high place.

Anyone who's fallen from an elevation is at risk of sprains, fractures and worse, internal injuries.

"If they're in back or neck pain, leave them in the position they're in," Bradley says. "If you need to move them, do a log roll so you're moving their head, body, and legs all as one unit."

For more first aid basics, go to the guides from the Mayo Clinic and the Harvard Medical School Family Health Guide. To get trained in first aid, visit your local chapter of the American Red Cross.