How to Provide Basic First Aid – A Paramedic’s View

So, you come across an accident, or person lying down, unconscious, and they don’t look so well… what can you do to help?

Well, first… 

Make the decision to help them! Many people fear legal repercussions if they provide first aid and the person gets worse. In Australia this is impossible. There is an Act (Law) in Australia called the Good Summaritan’s Act, which basically states that so long as a person is attempting, in good faith, as a person with their knowledge and experience in this situation would, to provide assitance to a person who is injured they cannot be held accountable for any damages they cause incidentally during the attempt. I don’t know about other parts of the world, but I find it hard to believe that many people have ever been sued for attempting to help someone who has been injured.

Okay, so you’ve decided to help… now what?

Follow the basic pneumonic from first aid, which is: DRABC and try to fix each thing before you move on…

So,

D – Danger – Check for danger… if someone’s been electrocuted… the last thing you want to do is get zapped yourself… so, take a few seconds, have a look around, and have a think about how this person ended up where they are, so that you don’t follow them (Remember… you can’t rescue anyone if you get injured). If you can, remove the danger from yourself; then try and remove it from other people who are around and not quite as clever as you to have noticed the danger; lastly, try to remove the danger from the poor casualty…

R -Response – Check for a response… “Hey buddy, are you okay…” You never know, you may get lucky… they may turn around and say, “Yeah, I’m just sleeping… what’s your problem?” If this happens… its best to find out before you start trying to give mouth to mouth. If the person doesn’t wake up… give then a shake (not too rough here) and see if you can rouse them… if someone is completely unconscious (you can’t wake them up no matter how many times you shake them), they are significantly sick or injured.

A-Airway- Make sure that they still have an airway (this means some open pipes from which air can pass into their lungs). To do this, try to lay them on their side… open the jaw and see if they have anything stuck inside… unless you’re in a restauraunt, and the person was eating steak, chances are, they wont have anything in their mouth… better move on.

B-Breathing – Are they breathing? Yes, oh good! This is a good start… Keep them on their side and call an Ambulance (In Australia this is done by calling 000 – but every country has a different number)… No breathing… hmm, not a good sign. You better do this mannually for them. You can do this by tilting their jaw back (gently), squeezing their nose (so the air doesn’t go out), and providing two short breaths into the mouth… while you do this… you might want to feel for a pulse. The easiest place to feel a person’s pulse is to find the Adams Apple and move your fingers slight to the left or to the right into that little grove… you should feel a pulse fromt the carotid artery. If not, well, you better move onto C for circulation…

C – Circulation – If the person doesn’t have a pulse, you need to provide one for him or her… in fact, you’ll need to provide one for the patient until the paramedics arrive and hopefully manage to make the patient’s own heart start working again. How do you do this? By doing cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) – yes, like in the movies, but you don’t get to give up after thirty seconds and say “there was nothing we could do for him…” Basically, to do CPR, you place one of your hands just about and central to the chest as possible (don’t get overly concerned by this… no matter where you place your hands on the chest, you’re going to be doing more good than damage to the patient, than if you don’t do anything at all. Don’t worry when you hear the ribs break – this is normal… most people whose hear is sick enough to stop working, have very old or frail ribs… and many of them break… this isn’t a problem – keep going, you’re doing well..

If you’ve done all this… in fact, if you’ve done any of this, you will have provided the paramedics with the best possible chance of getting this person’s heart to start working again (that’s just their job); but you will have saved the casualties life. The paramedics have no chance if you don’t make a start…

Good on you…

Australian Paramedic…