First Aid (shiv)
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burns, especially scalds from hot water and liquids, are some of the most common childhood accidents. Babies and young children are especially susceptible — they're curious, small, and have sensitive skin that needs extra protection.
Common Causes The first step in helping to prevent kids from being burned is to understand these common causes of burns:
•
scalds, the No. 1 culprit (from steam, hot bath water, tipped-over coffee cups,
hot foods, cooking fluids, etc.)
•
contact with flames or hot objects (from the stove, fireplace, curling iron, etc.)
•
chemical burns (from swallowing things, like drain cleaner or watch batteries,
or spilling chemicals, such as bleach, onto the skin)
•
electrical burns (from biting on electrical cords or sticking fingers or objects in
electrical outlets, etc.)
•
overexposure to the sun
First-Degree Burns First-degree burns, the mildest of the three, are limited to the top layer of skin:
•
Signs and symptoms: These burns produce redness, pain, and minor swelling.
The skin is dry without blisters.
•
Healing time: Healing time is about 3 to 6 days; the superficial skin layer over
the burn may peel off in 1 or 2 days.
Second-Degree Burns Second-degree burns are more serious and involve the skin layers beneath the top layer:
•
Signs and symptoms: These burns produce blisters, severe pain, and redness.
The blisters sometimes break open and the area is wet looking with a bright pink to cherry red color.
•
Healing time: Healing time varies depending on the severity of the burn. It can
take up to 3 weeks or more.
Third-Degree Burns Third-degree burns are the most serious type of burn and involve all the layers of the skin and underlying tissue:
•
Signs and symptoms: The surface appears dry and can look waxy white,
leathery, brown, or charred. There may be little or no pain or the area may feel numb at first because of nerve damage.
•
Healing time: Healing time depends on the severity of the burn. Deep second-
and third-degree burns (called full-thickness burns) will likely need to be treated with skin grafts, in which healthy skin is taken from another part of the body and surgically placed over the burn wound to help the area heal. For Flame Burns:
•
Extinguish the flames by having your child roll on the ground.
•
Cover him or her with a blanket or jacket.
•
Remove smoldering clothing and any jewelry around the burned area.
•
Call for medical assistance, then follow instructions for second- and third-
degree burns. For Electrical and Chemical Burns:
•
Make sure the child is not in contact with the electrical source before touching
him or her or you may also get shocked.
•
For chemical burns, flush the area with lots of running water for 5 minutes or
more. If the burned area is large, use a tub, shower, buckets of water, or a garden hose.
•
Do not remove any of your child's clothing before you've begun flushing the
burn with water. As you continue flushing the burn, you can then remove clothing from the burned area.
•
If the burned area from a chemical is small, flush for another 10-20 minutes,
apply a sterile gauze pad or bandage, and call your doctor.
•
Chemical burns to the mouth or eyes require immediate medical evaluation
after thorough flushing with water.
• When a child is
choking, it means that an object — usually food or a toy — is lodged in the
trachea (the airway) and is keeping air from flowing normally into or out of the lungs.
• A child may be choking and need help right away if he or she:
•
is unable to breathe
•
is gasping or wheezing
•
is unable to talk, cry, or make noise
•
turns blue
•
grabs at his or her throat or waves arms
•
appears panicked
Abdominal Thrusts (The Heimlich Maneuver) If you have kids, it's important to get trained in both cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and the technique of abdominal thrusts. Even if you don't have kids, knowing how to perform these first-aid procedures will let you help if you're ever in a situation where someone is choking.
The idea of the abdominal thrusts is that a sudden burst of air forced upward through the trachea from the diaphragm will dislodge a foreign object and send it flying up into (or even out of) the mouth.
Though the technique of abdominal thrusts is pretty simple, it must be performed with caution, especially on young children. It's safest when done by someone trained to perform it. If it's done the wrong way, the choking person — especially a baby or child — could be hurt. There's a special version of abdominal thrusts just for infants that is designed to lower the risk of injury to their small bodies.
Routine Irritations (sand, dirt, and other foreign bodies on the eye surface) •
Wash your hands thoroughly before touching the eyelids to examine or flush
the eye.
•
Do not touch, press, or rub the eye itself, and do whatever you can to keep
your child from touching it (a baby can be swaddled as a preventive measure).
•
Do not try to remove any foreign body except by flushing, because of the risk
of scratching the surface of the eye, especially the cornea.
•
Tilt the child's head over a basin or sink with the affected eye down and gently
pull down the lower lid, encouraging the child to open his or her eyes as wide as possible. For an infant or small child, it's helpful to have a second person hold the child's eyes open while you flush.
•
Gently pour a steady stream of lukewarm water (do not heat the water) from
a pitcher or faucet over the eye.
•
Flush for up to 15 minutes, checking the eye every 5 minutes to see if the
foreign body has been flushed out. For a black eye:
•
Apply cold compresses intermittently: 5 to 10 minutes on, 10 to 15 minutes
off. If you use ice, make sure it's covered with a towel or sock to protect the delicate skin on the eyelid.
•
Use cold compresses for 24 to 48 hours, then switch to applying warm
compresses intermittently. This will help the body reabsorb the leakage of blood and may help reduce discoloration.
•
If the child is in pain, give acetaminophen — not aspirin or ibuprofen, which
can increase bleeding
Choking Child Conscious Child If the child can cough or talk, encourage him or her to continue coughing. If the child cannot cough or talk, ask if he or she is choking. Perform abdominal thrusts. Stand behind the victim, wrap your arms around his or her waist, and make a fist with one hand. Place the thumb side of the fist against the child's abdomen, above the bellybutton yet far below the tip of the breastbone. Put your other hand over the fist and give quick upward thrusts into the victim's abdomen. Continue giving thrusts until the airway is cleared and the child begins to breathe, or until the child becomes unconscious.
Unconscious Child If the child was a conscious choking victim who became unconscious, lower the child down onto his or her back. Or, you may have determined during the primary survey that air would not go in, even after you retilted and tried again. You must give the child 5 abdominal thrusts, do a finger sweep if you see the object, and open the airway with a head tilt and a chin lift and give 2 slow breaths. If the breaths still will not go in, continue giving abdominal thrusts, a finger sweep and 2 slow breaths until the object is expelled, the child starts to breathe or cough, or EMS takes over. If the child is not breathing but has a pulse, you must perform Rescue Breathing. If the child is not breathing and does not have a pulse, go to CPR.
Rescue Breathing-Infants and Children To open the airway of an infant or a child, you do not need to tilt the head as far back as an adult's. A very slight tilt should allow air to go
in. Give a child or an infant 1 slow breath every 3 seconds. On an infant, you must make a seal over both the infant's mouth and nose. After 1 minute of rescue breathing (about 20 breaths), check for a pulse. If the victim has a pulse but still is not breathing, continue rescue breathing and checking the pulse each minute. If breaths do not go in, retilt and try again. If breaths still do not go in, you must go immediately to abdominal thrusts -child or abdominal thrusts infant. If the victim's pulse stops, begin CPR Child or CPR - Infant.
When to Stop Rescue Breathing Only stop giving rescue breaths if: the victim begins to breathe on his or her own 2. the victim has no pulsebegin CPR immediately 3. more advanced medical personnel takes over 4. you are too exhausted to continue 1.
Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is an emergency medical procedure for a victim of cardiac arrest or, in some circumstances, respiratory arrest.[1] CPR is performed in hospitals, or in the community by laypersons or by emergency response professionals.[2] CPR involves physical interventions to create artificial circulation through rhythmic pressing on the patient's chest to manually pump blood through the heart, called chest compressions, and usually also involves the rescuer exhaling into the patient (or using a device to simulate this) to inflate the lungs and pass oxygen in to the blood, called artificial respiration.[1][3] Some protocols now downplay the importance of the artificial respirations, and focus on the chest compressions only.[4][5] CPR is unlikely to restart the heart; its main purpose is to maintain a flow of oxygenated blood to the brain and the heart, thereby delaying tissue death and extending the brief window of opportunity for a successful resuscitation without permanent brain damage. Advanced life support and defibrillation, the administration of an electric shock to the heart, is usually needed for the heart to restart, and this only works for patients in certain heart rhythms, namely ventricular fibrillation or ventricular tachycardia, rather than the 'flat line' asystolic patient although CPR can help bring a patient in to a shockable rhythm. CPR is generally continued, usually in the presence of advanced life support (such as from a medical team or paramedics), until the patient regains a heart beat (called "return of spontaneous circulation" or "ROSC") or is declared dead
The ABCs: Here's a summary of how you might perform CPR on a non-responsive adult (There is actually a different procedure used to save infants and young children).To learn all about and practice CPR in detail, you should sign up for training from an organization like the American Red Cross. A is for Airway When you pass out, your tongue relaxes, and it can roll back in your mouth and block your windpipe. Before you can start CPR on an unconscious person, you'll probably need move their tongue out of the way. Here's how to clear a blocked airway: 1. Place the palm of your hand across the victim's forehead and push down gently. 2. With the other hand, slowly lift the chin forward and slightly up.
3. Move the chin up until the teeth are almost together, but the mouth is still slightly open. Tilting the head back and lifting the chin move the tongue out of the airway. At this point, you should check again for breathing. If the victim is choking on something, you may see their chest heave as they try to breathe, but you won't be able to feel or hear air being exhaled. You'll have to take additional measures to clear out what's blocking their windpipe, including: 1. Compressing the abdomen with forceful thrusts. This creates pressure that forces the object up and out of the windpipe. 2. Trying to manually dislodge the object with your fingers. Once this is done, you have to check for signs of breathing again. Just clearing out the windpipe may sometimes be enough to allow the victim to start breathing on their own! If the victim starts breathing and moving around on their own, you can stop CPR. If this doesn't happen, you'll have to help them breath, by providing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. B is for Breathing Your lungs have one main function: remove carbon dioxide and take up oxygen. Normally, the muscles in your chest contract and expand your chest cavity, allowing your lungs to fill up with air. Oxygen and carbon dioxide diffuse across the immense surface area of your lungs. Finally, your chest muscles relax, and you exhale. Rescue breathing uses your lungs to force air into the victim's lungs at regular intervals. The timing of each breath (about 1.5 to 2 seconds per breath) mimics normal breathing. However, the process is much more like blowing up a balloon than real breathing. You inhale deeply, form a tight seal with your mouth over their mouth, and exhale strongly to push air out of your mouth into theirs. Because you also pinch the victim's nostrils closed, the air has nowhere to go except down into the lungs, which expand as they fill with air. Mouth-to-mouth breathing is hard work. Normally, when you inhale, the chest muscles drive the process. In artificial respiration, you're working against the victim's relaxed chest muscles. When the chest muscles are relaxed, the chest cavity is small, keeping the lungs in a deflated state. As a rescuer, you have to exhale forcefully into the victim's mouth for 1 to 2 seconds to overcome this resistance. As the lungs fill with air, the victim's chest is pushed up at the same time; you can actually see it rise. When you remove your mouth from the victim's and break the air seal, their chest falls and once again deflates the lungs. As in normal breathing, this results in air being exhaled from the victim's mouth.
If the victim you should ... Does air exhaled from someone else's mouth really provide enough oxygen to save an unconscious person? Normally, the air you inhale contains about 20 percent oxygen by volume, and your lungs remove about 5 percent of the oxygen in each breath. The air you blow into a victim's mouth thus contains about 15 to 16 percent oxygen, which is more than enough to supply their needs. After you've given the victim two breaths, you then check to see whether or not they have a pulse and whether they are able to breathe on their own. This will determine If the victim . . . you should what you do Is breathing and has a stop CPR, and stay with them until help next. pulse arrives Is not breathing and continue rescue breathing has a pulse begin chest compressions, alternating Has no pulse with rescue breathing
C is for Circulation If the victim's heart is not beating, all your breathing efforts are for naught; the oxygen that you're getting into their circulation isn't going anywhere! Once again, you have to take over for a failing organ. This time you essentially become a surrogate heart to pump oxygenated blood out to the rest of your body. How can you have any effect on blood flow from outside of the body? All it takes is your hands and some strength. The steps are simple:
1. Kneeling by the victim, place the heel of your hands one atop the other about .4 to .8 inches (1 to 2 cm) from tip of the breastbone. 2. Using the weight of your body, push the victim's chest down. You should compress their chest 1 to 2 inches (2.54 to 5.08 cm). 3. Hold in this position for half a second, then relax for half a second 4. Repeat steps two and three 14 more times. 5. Give the victim two rescue breaths as you did before to deliver more oxygen to the blood. 6. Repeat steps 1 through 5 three more times, then check for a pulse. In reality, all you are doing is squeezing the heart between the breastbone and the backbone to force blood out. Compressing the chest creates positive pressure inside the chest that pushes oxygenated blood out of the heart through the aorta. From here, it travels to the brain and then on to other parts of the body, delivering oxygen for cellular respiration. When you relax, the pressure inside the victim's chest subsides. Deoxygenated blood moves back into the heart from the veins. First Aid Kit Essentials • • • • • • •
Two pairs of Latex, or other sterile gloves (if you are allergic to Latex). Sterile dressings to stop bleeding. Cleansing agent/soap and antibiotic towelettes to disinfect. Antibiotic ointment to prevent infection. Burn ointment to prevent infection. Adhesive bandages in a variety of sizes. Nonstick Sterile Pads: these are soft, superabsorbent pads that provide a good environment for wound healing. These are recommended for bleeding and draining wounds, burns, infections. • Eye wash solution to flush the eyes or as general decontaminant. • Thermometer • Ice pack • Prescription medications you take every day such as insulin, heart medicine and asthma inhalers. You should periodically rotate medicines to account for expiration dates. • Prescribed medical supplies such as glucose and blood pressure monitoring equipment and supplies or a nebulizer machine.
Animal bites An animal bite can result in a break in the skin, a bruise, or a puncture wound.
First Aid 1. Calm and reassure the person. Wear latex gloves or wash your hands thoroughly before attending to the wound. Wash hands afterwards, too.
2. If the bite is not bleeding severely, wash the wound thoroughly with mild soap and running water for 3 to 5 minutes. Then, cover the bite with antibiotic ointment and a clean dressing. 3. If the bite is actively bleeding, apply direct pressure with a clean, dry cloth until the bleeding stops. Raise the area of the bite. 4. If the bite is on the hand or fingers, call the doctor right away. 5. Over the next 24 to 48 hours, watch the area of the bite for signs of infection (increasing skin redness, swelling, and pain). 6. If the bite becomes infected, call the doctor or take the person to an emergency medical center.
DO NOT DO NOT go near an animal that may have rabies. DO NOT try to catch it yourself. If an animal's behavior is strange, it may be rabid. Notify the proper authorities. The police can always direct you to the proper animal control authorities. Tell them what the animal looks like and where it is so they can capture it.
Common Causes The first step in helping to prevent kids from being burned is to understand these common causes of burns:
•
scalds, the No. 1 culprit (from steam, hot bath water, tipped-over coffee cups,
hot foods, cooking fluids, etc.)
•
contact with flames or hot objects (from the stove, fireplace, curling iron, etc.)
•
chemical burns (from swallowing things, like drain cleaner or watch batteries,
or spilling chemicals, such as bleach, onto the skin)
•
electrical burns (from biting on electrical cords or sticking fingers or objects in
electrical outlets, etc.)
•
overexposure to the sun
First-Degree Burns First-degree burns, the mildest of the three, are limited to the top layer of skin:
•
Signs and symptoms: These burns produce redness, pain, and minor swelling.
The skin is dry without blisters.
•
Healing time: Healing time is about 3 to 6 days; the superficial skin layer over
the burn may peel off in 1 or 2 days.
Second-Degree Burns Second-degree burns are more serious and involve the skin layers beneath the top layer:
•
Signs and symptoms: These burns produce blisters, severe pain, and redness.
The blisters sometimes break open and the area is wet looking with a bright pink to cherry red color.
•
Healing time: Healing time varies depending on the severity of the burn. It can
take up to 3 weeks or more.
Third-Degree Burns Third-degree burns are the most serious type of burn and involve all the layers of the skin and underlying tissue:
•
Signs and symptoms: The surface appears dry and can look waxy white,
leathery, brown, or charred. There may be little or no pain or the area may feel numb at first because of nerve damage.
•
Healing time: Healing time depends on the severity of the burn. Deep second-
and third-degree burns (called full-thickness burns) will likely need to be treated with skin grafts, in which healthy skin is taken from another part of the body and surgically placed over the burn wound to help the area heal. For Flame Burns:
•
Extinguish the flames by having your child roll on the ground.
•
Cover him or her with a blanket or jacket.
•
Remove smoldering clothing and any jewelry around the burned area.
•
Call for medical assistance, then follow instructions for second- and third-
degree burns. For Electrical and Chemical Burns:
•
Make sure the child is not in contact with the electrical source before touching
him or her or you may also get shocked.
•
For chemical burns, flush the area with lots of running water for 5 minutes or
more. If the burned area is large, use a tub, shower, buckets of water, or a garden hose.
•
Do not remove any of your child's clothing before you've begun flushing the
burn with water. As you continue flushing the burn, you can then remove clothing from the burned area.
•
If the burned area from a chemical is small, flush for another 10-20 minutes,
apply a sterile gauze pad or bandage, and call your doctor.
•
Chemical burns to the mouth or eyes require immediate medical evaluation
after thorough flushing with water.
• When a child is
choking, it means that an object — usually food or a toy — is lodged in the
trachea (the airway) and is keeping air from flowing normally into or out of the lungs.
• A child may be choking and need help right away if he or she:
•
is unable to breathe
•
is gasping or wheezing
•
is unable to talk, cry, or make noise
•
turns blue
•
grabs at his or her throat or waves arms
•
appears panicked
Abdominal Thrusts (The Heimlich Maneuver) If you have kids, it's important to get trained in both cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and the technique of abdominal thrusts. Even if you don't have kids, knowing how to perform these first-aid procedures will let you help if you're ever in a situation where someone is choking.
The idea of the abdominal thrusts is that a sudden burst of air forced upward through the trachea from the diaphragm will dislodge a foreign object and send it flying up into (or even out of) the mouth.
Though the technique of abdominal thrusts is pretty simple, it must be performed with caution, especially on young children. It's safest when done by someone trained to perform it. If it's done the wrong way, the choking person — especially a baby or child — could be hurt. There's a special version of abdominal thrusts just for infants that is designed to lower the risk of injury to their small bodies.
Routine Irritations (sand, dirt, and other foreign bodies on the eye surface) •
Wash your hands thoroughly before touching the eyelids to examine or flush
the eye.
•
Do not touch, press, or rub the eye itself, and do whatever you can to keep
your child from touching it (a baby can be swaddled as a preventive measure).
•
Do not try to remove any foreign body except by flushing, because of the risk
of scratching the surface of the eye, especially the cornea.
•
Tilt the child's head over a basin or sink with the affected eye down and gently
pull down the lower lid, encouraging the child to open his or her eyes as wide as possible. For an infant or small child, it's helpful to have a second person hold the child's eyes open while you flush.
•
Gently pour a steady stream of lukewarm water (do not heat the water) from
a pitcher or faucet over the eye.
•
Flush for up to 15 minutes, checking the eye every 5 minutes to see if the
foreign body has been flushed out. For a black eye:
•
Apply cold compresses intermittently: 5 to 10 minutes on, 10 to 15 minutes
off. If you use ice, make sure it's covered with a towel or sock to protect the delicate skin on the eyelid.
•
Use cold compresses for 24 to 48 hours, then switch to applying warm
compresses intermittently. This will help the body reabsorb the leakage of blood and may help reduce discoloration.
•
If the child is in pain, give acetaminophen — not aspirin or ibuprofen, which
can increase bleeding
Choking Child Conscious Child If the child can cough or talk, encourage him or her to continue coughing. If the child cannot cough or talk, ask if he or she is choking. Perform abdominal thrusts. Stand behind the victim, wrap your arms around his or her waist, and make a fist with one hand. Place the thumb side of the fist against the child's abdomen, above the bellybutton yet far below the tip of the breastbone. Put your other hand over the fist and give quick upward thrusts into the victim's abdomen. Continue giving thrusts until the airway is cleared and the child begins to breathe, or until the child becomes unconscious.
Unconscious Child If the child was a conscious choking victim who became unconscious, lower the child down onto his or her back. Or, you may have determined during the primary survey that air would not go in, even after you retilted and tried again. You must give the child 5 abdominal thrusts, do a finger sweep if you see the object, and open the airway with a head tilt and a chin lift and give 2 slow breaths. If the breaths still will not go in, continue giving abdominal thrusts, a finger sweep and 2 slow breaths until the object is expelled, the child starts to breathe or cough, or EMS takes over. If the child is not breathing but has a pulse, you must perform Rescue Breathing. If the child is not breathing and does not have a pulse, go to CPR.
Rescue Breathing-Infants and Children To open the airway of an infant or a child, you do not need to tilt the head as far back as an adult's. A very slight tilt should allow air to go
in. Give a child or an infant 1 slow breath every 3 seconds. On an infant, you must make a seal over both the infant's mouth and nose. After 1 minute of rescue breathing (about 20 breaths), check for a pulse. If the victim has a pulse but still is not breathing, continue rescue breathing and checking the pulse each minute. If breaths do not go in, retilt and try again. If breaths still do not go in, you must go immediately to abdominal thrusts -child or abdominal thrusts infant. If the victim's pulse stops, begin CPR Child or CPR - Infant.
When to Stop Rescue Breathing Only stop giving rescue breaths if: the victim begins to breathe on his or her own 2. the victim has no pulsebegin CPR immediately 3. more advanced medical personnel takes over 4. you are too exhausted to continue 1.
Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is an emergency medical procedure for a victim of cardiac arrest or, in some circumstances, respiratory arrest.[1] CPR is performed in hospitals, or in the community by laypersons or by emergency response professionals.[2] CPR involves physical interventions to create artificial circulation through rhythmic pressing on the patient's chest to manually pump blood through the heart, called chest compressions, and usually also involves the rescuer exhaling into the patient (or using a device to simulate this) to inflate the lungs and pass oxygen in to the blood, called artificial respiration.[1][3] Some protocols now downplay the importance of the artificial respirations, and focus on the chest compressions only.[4][5] CPR is unlikely to restart the heart; its main purpose is to maintain a flow of oxygenated blood to the brain and the heart, thereby delaying tissue death and extending the brief window of opportunity for a successful resuscitation without permanent brain damage. Advanced life support and defibrillation, the administration of an electric shock to the heart, is usually needed for the heart to restart, and this only works for patients in certain heart rhythms, namely ventricular fibrillation or ventricular tachycardia, rather than the 'flat line' asystolic patient although CPR can help bring a patient in to a shockable rhythm. CPR is generally continued, usually in the presence of advanced life support (such as from a medical team or paramedics), until the patient regains a heart beat (called "return of spontaneous circulation" or "ROSC") or is declared dead
The ABCs: Here's a summary of how you might perform CPR on a non-responsive adult (There is actually a different procedure used to save infants and young children).To learn all about and practice CPR in detail, you should sign up for training from an organization like the American Red Cross. A is for Airway When you pass out, your tongue relaxes, and it can roll back in your mouth and block your windpipe. Before you can start CPR on an unconscious person, you'll probably need move their tongue out of the way. Here's how to clear a blocked airway: 1. Place the palm of your hand across the victim's forehead and push down gently. 2. With the other hand, slowly lift the chin forward and slightly up.
3. Move the chin up until the teeth are almost together, but the mouth is still slightly open. Tilting the head back and lifting the chin move the tongue out of the airway. At this point, you should check again for breathing. If the victim is choking on something, you may see their chest heave as they try to breathe, but you won't be able to feel or hear air being exhaled. You'll have to take additional measures to clear out what's blocking their windpipe, including: 1. Compressing the abdomen with forceful thrusts. This creates pressure that forces the object up and out of the windpipe. 2. Trying to manually dislodge the object with your fingers. Once this is done, you have to check for signs of breathing again. Just clearing out the windpipe may sometimes be enough to allow the victim to start breathing on their own! If the victim starts breathing and moving around on their own, you can stop CPR. If this doesn't happen, you'll have to help them breath, by providing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. B is for Breathing Your lungs have one main function: remove carbon dioxide and take up oxygen. Normally, the muscles in your chest contract and expand your chest cavity, allowing your lungs to fill up with air. Oxygen and carbon dioxide diffuse across the immense surface area of your lungs. Finally, your chest muscles relax, and you exhale. Rescue breathing uses your lungs to force air into the victim's lungs at regular intervals. The timing of each breath (about 1.5 to 2 seconds per breath) mimics normal breathing. However, the process is much more like blowing up a balloon than real breathing. You inhale deeply, form a tight seal with your mouth over their mouth, and exhale strongly to push air out of your mouth into theirs. Because you also pinch the victim's nostrils closed, the air has nowhere to go except down into the lungs, which expand as they fill with air. Mouth-to-mouth breathing is hard work. Normally, when you inhale, the chest muscles drive the process. In artificial respiration, you're working against the victim's relaxed chest muscles. When the chest muscles are relaxed, the chest cavity is small, keeping the lungs in a deflated state. As a rescuer, you have to exhale forcefully into the victim's mouth for 1 to 2 seconds to overcome this resistance. As the lungs fill with air, the victim's chest is pushed up at the same time; you can actually see it rise. When you remove your mouth from the victim's and break the air seal, their chest falls and once again deflates the lungs. As in normal breathing, this results in air being exhaled from the victim's mouth.
If the victim you should ... Does air exhaled from someone else's mouth really provide enough oxygen to save an unconscious person? Normally, the air you inhale contains about 20 percent oxygen by volume, and your lungs remove about 5 percent of the oxygen in each breath. The air you blow into a victim's mouth thus contains about 15 to 16 percent oxygen, which is more than enough to supply their needs. After you've given the victim two breaths, you then check to see whether or not they have a pulse and whether they are able to breathe on their own. This will determine If the victim . . . you should what you do Is breathing and has a stop CPR, and stay with them until help next. pulse arrives Is not breathing and continue rescue breathing has a pulse begin chest compressions, alternating Has no pulse with rescue breathing
C is for Circulation If the victim's heart is not beating, all your breathing efforts are for naught; the oxygen that you're getting into their circulation isn't going anywhere! Once again, you have to take over for a failing organ. This time you essentially become a surrogate heart to pump oxygenated blood out to the rest of your body. How can you have any effect on blood flow from outside of the body? All it takes is your hands and some strength. The steps are simple:
1. Kneeling by the victim, place the heel of your hands one atop the other about .4 to .8 inches (1 to 2 cm) from tip of the breastbone. 2. Using the weight of your body, push the victim's chest down. You should compress their chest 1 to 2 inches (2.54 to 5.08 cm). 3. Hold in this position for half a second, then relax for half a second 4. Repeat steps two and three 14 more times. 5. Give the victim two rescue breaths as you did before to deliver more oxygen to the blood. 6. Repeat steps 1 through 5 three more times, then check for a pulse. In reality, all you are doing is squeezing the heart between the breastbone and the backbone to force blood out. Compressing the chest creates positive pressure inside the chest that pushes oxygenated blood out of the heart through the aorta. From here, it travels to the brain and then on to other parts of the body, delivering oxygen for cellular respiration. When you relax, the pressure inside the victim's chest subsides. Deoxygenated blood moves back into the heart from the veins. First Aid Kit Essentials • • • • • • •
Two pairs of Latex, or other sterile gloves (if you are allergic to Latex). Sterile dressings to stop bleeding. Cleansing agent/soap and antibiotic towelettes to disinfect. Antibiotic ointment to prevent infection. Burn ointment to prevent infection. Adhesive bandages in a variety of sizes. Nonstick Sterile Pads: these are soft, superabsorbent pads that provide a good environment for wound healing. These are recommended for bleeding and draining wounds, burns, infections. • Eye wash solution to flush the eyes or as general decontaminant. • Thermometer • Ice pack • Prescription medications you take every day such as insulin, heart medicine and asthma inhalers. You should periodically rotate medicines to account for expiration dates. • Prescribed medical supplies such as glucose and blood pressure monitoring equipment and supplies or a nebulizer machine.
Animal bites An animal bite can result in a break in the skin, a bruise, or a puncture wound.
First Aid 1. Calm and reassure the person. Wear latex gloves or wash your hands thoroughly before attending to the wound. Wash hands afterwards, too.
2. If the bite is not bleeding severely, wash the wound thoroughly with mild soap and running water for 3 to 5 minutes. Then, cover the bite with antibiotic ointment and a clean dressing. 3. If the bite is actively bleeding, apply direct pressure with a clean, dry cloth until the bleeding stops. Raise the area of the bite. 4. If the bite is on the hand or fingers, call the doctor right away. 5. Over the next 24 to 48 hours, watch the area of the bite for signs of infection (increasing skin redness, swelling, and pain). 6. If the bite becomes infected, call the doctor or take the person to an emergency medical center.
DO NOT DO NOT go near an animal that may have rabies. DO NOT try to catch it yourself. If an animal's behavior is strange, it may be rabid. Notify the proper authorities. The police can always direct you to the proper animal control authorities. Tell them what the animal looks like and where it is so they can capture it.
