First Aid ABC's

One of the most important skills we can learn is simple first aid. Having the ability to deal with medical issues even at a very basic level can determine if someone lives or dies when there is a emergency. The knowledge you gain by attending even one class is something you can use and more than likely something you will use on a regular basis.

First aid is a subject you really need to sit in a classroom setting to learn. There is no way this post could cover every situation or impart the knowledge you would need to cover every situation you could encounter. What we will do here is cover a few concepts which can assist everyone when faced with a medical emergency. First and foremost, if you have medical emergency and have the ability call for help!! The sooner you call the sooner they will arrive! Weather someone has stopped breathing, bleeding badly or is unconscious minutes count toward what the outcome is going to be and you need to get help coming your way as soon as possible.

The next vital thing, as the person giving aid to someone you MUST remain calm! Yes you might be looking at a bloody mess but you cannot let the injured person know how bad the injury is!!!! By keeping cool during the situation you allow the injured person to remain calm or at the very least you do not add to their panic. When the injured person becomes upset their blood pressure rises, they are less corporative toward being helped and they can easy slip into shock. Even over a simple injury victims can go into shock if they “think” the injury is worse than it is. Even an untrained person can take action to help an injured person and one tool we can use is the ‘ABC’s’ of first aid.
If you come across an injured person follow these steps;

A – AIRWAY, are they breathing? If someone is not breathing all bets are off. It only takes a few minutes to die without air and permanent damage can be done to a person even if they recover from the lack of oxygen.

B – BLEEDING, after ensuring the person is breathing or at least the airway is open to allow breathing in the case of an unconscious victim you next want to deal with bleeding. In a lot of cases this is what you will be immediately dealing with. People cut themselves all the time while cooking or working around the house and you will quickly see they are breathing due to the screaming or cussing coming from them.

Bleeding looks bad and can cause people to freak out. In most cases applying direct pressure and elevating the wound will stop the bleeding. You would be surprised to see how much blood a person can lose before the loss has a really devastating effect on them. Direct pressure is the first step you want to take to stop the bleeding even if the pressure you are applying is just with your hand. The sooner pressure is applied the quickly the wound will stop bleeding. Now does this work for every wound you can come across? No, yet this will work for the vast majority of wounds you are likely to come across.

This is also the step where you would start CPR. If the person is unconscious, unresponsive and you cannot find a pulse this step becomes starting the flow of blood. Knowing how to do CPR properly is a very important skill and one each of us needs to take the time to learn.

C – CIRCULATION, this is the last of these very basic steps we are going to look at. Is the person in a position which stops the flow of air and blood in their body? In the case of CPR is it working? Is the air making it’s way into the lungs or gut? Are you doing the compressions properly? This also covers checking for shock. In most cases everyone will go into some form of shock over being injured but we want them to suffer from the lowest level of shock possible. Hopeful the level we can keep them at is “Man this hurts”. This might mean we have the person sit down, lay down and/or we elevate their legs to help the blood stay in their core areas. This is when you being calm has the greatest effect.

The ABC’s are just the starting point. This can be expanded on way more than what we can fit into this posting. Even if you are not trained but you can remember to keep your head about you and remember ‘ABC’ you will be of greater help to someone who is having a medical emergency than those people who have no training and panic when they see the injured person. The need for all of us to receive medical training by qualified instructors can be emphasized enough here!!!

Here is a link to the American Red Cross. I strongly recommend everyone take the time to find training in their own area!



As Always,

Stay Safe!!!