First Aid

First Aid and Consent

Before we talk about first aid, let's first ask ourselves what first aid means. First aid is the emergency treatment given to a victim to preserve his or her life before the ambulance or professionals arrive. First aid is emergency treatment, not a long term solution. The consequences can be ignored as long as you preserve their lives. Within reasoning, you should always ask for consent. It is implied consent if the person is unconscious, and most of the time up to your discretion if they are intoxicated, or drifting in and out of consciousness. In the case that you need to treat a minor, ask his or her parents if they are present and able, if not the consent is implied. There are cases that consenquences can be covered with a state's good samaritan laws, but not all states have the same ones.

CPR

One of the most common forms of first aid is CPR, which stands for cardiopulmonary resuscitation. If you already know the process then the recommended intervals is 30 compressions and 2 rescue breaths. You have around 10 seconds to give the rescue breaths, but anymore than that continue with the compressions. Before doing all of this however, check the victim for a pulse. You can check for their pulse using either their wrist or their neck. See the picture located to the left for reference. When checking for a pulse, never use your thumb because you could confuse your thumb's pulse for the victim's pulse. If you have not done so already, then flip the victim over onto their back to allow for you to do CPR and to put less pressure on their chest. Also check if the victim is breathing by seeing if their chest heaves up or down or putting your finger under their nose. If the victim is not breathing, then open an airway. Do this by grabbing their chin and pulling down while lifting their head up. Now the proper ratio for CPR is to do 30 compressions and two rescue breaths. The ratio is 30:2. Do not take more than ten seconds longer with the rescue breaths, after 10 seconds, continue giving compressions. The compressions are to keep the heart pumping, and blood flowing through the body.

Priority of Importance:

Bleeding

In the case that the person is bleeding, the first step is to apply direct pressure to the wound. After that, elevate the wound above the victim's heart level. Then put pressure on a pressure point near the wound to stop the flow of blood. Then apply a tourniquet or use anything that can tightly bandage the wound. Don't keep the tourniquet on for too long because the victim will lose an arm or where ever the tourniquet is stopping the flow of blood to.

Moving the Victim and Splints

There are different ways to move a victim onto a stretcher and some require you to have more people at hand. The important thing to remember is to lift the victim's head while lifting them, and keep their spine straight. Then you may push the stretcher underneath the victim, and you're done with the process of moving the victim. For applying splints in case of broken bones or if you need to keep something straight, just find something solid like a piece of wood and tape or wrap it to the desired spot.

Sources:

Consent before applying First Aid

I learned the rest from a Hospital Corpsman at bootcamp(HM2).