What are the basic first aid skills?

For ordinary people without a medical background, the core of basic first aid skills that can be used frequently and learned in a short time are cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) + automated external defibrillator (AED) operation, first aid for airway foreign body obstruction (Heimlich maneuver), and pressure to stop bleeding. The remaining preliminary treatment of burns, scalds, and poisoning are auxiliary skills to reduce subsequent injuries. You don’t need to memorize too many complicated details. If you can do the first three correctly in an emergency, you can solve 80% of fatal first aid scenarios.

I have been doing community first aid science popularization for almost three years, and I have seen too many examples of people being saved from death just because they knew a little basic first aid. Last month, an aunt who had taken our popular science class met someone who had a heart attack and fell to the ground at the market. She immediately called the people around her to call 120 and looked for the AED at the entrance of the market. She knelt down and performed chest compressions for the patient. The AED was handed over to her in less than 7 minutes. She followed the machine's voice prompts to operate and discharge. By the time 120 arrived, the patient had resumed spontaneous breathing. Later, she went to the hospital for follow-up, and there were no sequelae. If no one around had dared to apply pressure at that time, it would have taken at least 15 minutes for 120 to arrive, and there was a high probability that he would not be able to be saved.

Many people think that the threshold for first aid is high, but this is not the case at all. Let’s talk about the most common foreign body obstruction in the airway. A child swallows a nut, or an old man eats a dumpling until he is speechless, or his face turns purple from holding it in. Don’t slap the person on the back blindly and keep patting him until he gets stuck. Put your arm around the other person’s waist from behind, place your fist two fingers above the navel, and quickly push inward and upward three or five times. Most of the foreign objects will be ejected directly. A mother who attended the class told me that she didn’t know the Heimlich maneuver before. The first time her baby got stuck in jelly, she only patted her back and almost choked her. Last year, her baby got stuck in her throat after eating a hard candy. She pushed the candy out in just two strokes according to the method she learned, and cried on the spot.

Don’t panic when you encounter bleeding from trauma. Don’t put messy things like incense ash or toothpaste on the wound. Just find a clean gauze or towel and press it firmly on the bleeding site. Most of the time it can stop it. Unless you have bleeding from a large artery in your limbs and you can’t hold it down, don’t just press it. I tied a tourniquet. I met a young man in the emergency room before. He fell while riding a bicycle and bruised a blood vessel on his arm. I found a skipping rope and tied it on my upper arm for almost 3 hours. By the time I got to the hospital, my forearm was already black from lack of blood. It was originally just a small wound that required a few stitches, and almost required amputation. There is also the current debate about the treatment of burns and scalds. The older generation always say that applying soy sauce and badger oil will heal quickly. We on the front line really do not recommend it. For small-scale shallow burns and scalds, running cold water for 15-20 minutes is enough. Applying these colored and impurity things can easily cause infection and affect the doctor's judgment of the depth of the wound. As for the disposal of accidentally ingested poisons, the old idea was to induce vomiting as soon as possible. Now there are different opinions in the academic circles. If you drink corrosive poisons such as toilet cleaner and 84, vomiting will cause repeated burns to the esophagus. It is better to drink cold milk or dilute it with egg white first and send it to the hospital immediately for professional treatment. Inducing vomiting by yourself may aggravate the damage.

In fact, to learn basic first aid, you really don’t need to bear the burden of taking a professional certificate. You don’t need to memorize the treatment methods of dozens of diseases. Just memorize these most frequent operations. Don’t panic and dare to do it when you encounter an emergency. You are already better than most people. After all, the essence of first aid is to help the injured survive the critical ten minutes before 120 arrives.