First aid

Do you have a first aid certificate?

  • No, I have never had a first aid qualification

    Votes: 28 17.8%

  • I did one once, but it's not in date (more than 3 years)

    Votes: 59 37.6%

  • Yes, and it's in date

    Votes: 70 44.6%
  • Total voters
    157
I once went to a "gentleman of the road" (dosser) who had collapsed and fallen off a bench outside a Spar supermarket on a council estate.
I didn't really have much option but to perform CPR, including mouth to mouth on his filthy, smelly and bewiskered, face.
This was before the invention of face masks or saliva dams. All we had was a small rubber airway.
He was dead as a do-do, but for the benefit of the watching throng we needed to go through all the procedures. Luckily a GP arived from a nearby medical centre and pronounced him dead.
 
tudorsailor said:
Good story. Who did the mouth to mouth on an elderly lady who had just vomited then? I keep a one way pocket face mask in the glove box for just this reason.

TudorSailor
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No-one. The local GP decided that mouth-to-mouth wasn't necessary. I have little doubt that she (the GP) made a fairly rapid diagnosis of the casualty's condition, especially given her advanced age, and assessment of the circumstances of her injuries, and only went through an initial period of chest compressions before quickly determining that there was no longer any kind of pulse or other indications of life.

FWIW, when I did my own refresher last year, I asked the instructor about mouth-to-mouth with an unknown casualty (risk of HIV, hepatitis, etc). He said that no first aider was under any obligation to administer m-to-m if they felt there was any risk to themselves. However I also keep a face-mask in the car (also on the boat, and in my commecial workshop), and wouldn't hesitate to use it if faced with a similar situation in the future.

My bigger worry is that I'd probably have forgotten 95% of everything else I was taught on the course!
 
Rigger Mortice said:
I'm not sure that it would be much use. I may well be wrong, but my understanding is that a defib will simply get the ticker working again. If the underlying cause of it stopping/going into fibrillation is still there then it will be a short lived (literally) success. Without the approriate intervention then the difib will only buy you a very short time.

By coincidence, we have a community presentation this evening on a proposal to buy a defibrillator for the village. I'll see if I can find out.
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I asked the question and the response was.

1. They wouldn't recommend a defib on a small boat because of the problems in a wet location. (It makes sense I suppose)
2. They felt it was probably of limited benefit for the reasons I gave before. BUT, that was very much a judgement call.
3. They said it would definitely not be of any use to a single hander!!
4. I was told that RNLI does not carry defibs on its boats because of 1 & 2 above.


The good news is that we got the go ahead for a community defib. It will cost about £2,000 and one local farmers group offered 50% of the cost. I walked into the pub after the meeting and somebody pressed another £100 into my hand. A good night.
 
Rigger Mortice said:
I'm not sure that it would be much use. I may well be wrong, but my understanding is that a defib will simply get the ticker working again. If the underlying cause of it stopping/going into fibrillation is still there then it will be a short lived (literally) success. Without the approriate intervention then the difib will only buy you a very short time.

By coincidence, we have a community presentation this evening on a proposal to buy a defibrillator for the village. I'll see if I can find out.
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If there's an underlying reason why the heart is stopped, CPR won't get it going again, either. Basically, a defibrillator is the first-aid of choice if the heart is stopped; if that won't get things running again, then probably nothing will. Defibrillators are available in many public places, such as stations and so on; they are steadily increasing in availability.
 
Babylon said:
I was recently in a head-on collision, where the driver of the other car died. My own car was on the back of a recovery vehicle which had already stopped in a narrow village street as the old woman driving a small hatchback crashed into us at about 30mph. Both of us in the front of the cab knew she had suffered some kind of medical event before the impact, as we could see she had no awareness whatsover of our presence or took any kind of braking or evasive action, but just carried on at the same speed into our front.
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The instructor on my last course (a Doc and A&E consultant) told a similar story of being present when a car left the road and crashed into street furniture. He hauled the driver out and it seemed to him that the driver had had a serious "medical event". Nonetheless he started CPR without success. He was called to the inquest, where he told his story. The coroner asked him if that would explain why the driver, apart from having a heart attack, also had several broken ribs. "Yes", was the answer.
 
AntarcticPilot said:
If there's an underlying reason why the heart is stopped, CPR won't get it going again, either. Basically, a defibrillator is the first-aid of choice if the heart is stopped; if that won't get things running again, then probably nothing will. Defibrillators are available in many public places, such as stations and so on; they are steadily increasing in availability.
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There seems to be a misunderstanding of what a defibrillator does, it is not used to restart a heart which has stopped. A defibrillator is used to shock a heart which is in VF or VT, to stop it in the hope that recommences in a normal sinus rhythm. It can quite easily be used by one person also. CPR on the other hand is difficult to do to a satisfactory level over a period of time.
 
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Lakesailor said:
I once went to a "gentleman of the road" (dosser) who had collapsed and fallen off a bench outside a Spar supermarket on a council estate.
I didn't really have much option but to perform CPR, including mouth to mouth on his filthy, smelly and bewiskered, face.
This was before the invention of face masks or saliva dams. All we had was a small rubber airway.
He was dead as a do-do, but for the benefit of the watching throng we needed to go through all the procedures. Luckily a GP arived from a nearby medical centre and pronounced him dead.
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If anybody is unsure wether to give me to mouth or not due to blood, trauma to the mouth/nose area or due to casualty vomit, do not worry.
Start chest compressions, place palm of your hand two fingers above the centre of the casualtys chest, (sternum), and press down if possible 100 times a minute, 1/3 the depth of the casualties chest.
Do this until,1/ another helper arrives to assist then swap over.
2/ you cannot physically carry on, due to exhaustion
3/ arrival of the emergency services.

If you can do this, you will do no worse to what is already a bad situation!!!!
 
bammylovechops said:
If anybody is unsure wether to give me to mouth or not due to blood, trauma to the mouth/nose area or due to casualty vomit, do not worry.
Start chest compressions, place palm of your hand two fingers above the centre of the casualtys chest, (sternum), and press down if possible 100 times a minute, 1/3 the depth of the casualties chest.
Do this until,1/ another helper arrives to assist then swap over.
2/ you cannot physically carry on, due to exhaustion
3/ arrival of the emergency services.

If you can do this, you will do no worse to what is already a bad situation!!!!
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Nope. It used to be two finger widths above the bottom of the sternum, but that advice has now been revised to placing hands in the centre of the chest (approximately nipple line) If you reread your advice, you will see that this would have the rescuers hands too high on the chest and therefore ineffective, as well as more likely to break ribs. Contrary to some opinions, breaking ribs during CPR is not inevitable and is most commonly caused by poor hand positioning (although occasionally the patient has brittle bones which doesn't help)
 
Horatio said:
Nope. It used to be two finger widths above the bottom of the sternum, but that advice has now been revised to placing hands in the centre of the chest (approximately nipple line) If you reread your advice, you will see that this would have the rescuers hands too high on the chest and therefore ineffective, as well as more likely to break ribs. Contrary to some opinions, breaking ribs during CPR is not inevitable and is most commonly caused by poor hand positioning (although occasionally the patient has brittle bones which doesn't help)
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You are absolutly correct, the two fingers advice was for the purpose of giving general guidance for all ages and sexes not being overly pedantic, without getting to bogged down without looking for nipples etc, the point about it being ineffective is also true, as is all CPR, perfect CPR if done 100% correctly is only 30% efficient, the bit about breaking bones is wholly inaccurate.
 
bammylovechops said:
You are absolutly correct, the two fingers advice was for the purpose of giving general guidance for all ages and sexes not being overly pedantic, without getting to bogged down without looking for nipples etc, the point about it being ineffective is also true, as is all CPR, perfect CPR if done 100% correctly is only 30% efficient, the bit about breaking bones is wholly inaccurate.
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Resus council guidelines are trying to simplify hand positioning, hence mid chest positioning. I don't think its being pedantic, but we can agree to differ on that; I'll certainly accept that there is no mention of nipple line in there. What is wholly inaccurate about breaking bones please?
 
"you will see that this would have the rescuers hands too high on the chest and therefore ineffective, as well as more likely to break ribs"

Hi,

I agree that we should agree to disagree.

Agreeing with some of what you said about the simplifying of hand position though, that was why I said what I said about the two finger and sternum.
The idea was about encouraging the "layman" to get involved in a CPR situation not frightening them about hand position.
In a classroon/study type of enviroment I totally agree with you about the nipple line, but this does not reduce rib breakages, more the pressure and depth of compression applied that dictates breakages.

As stated earlier we shall agree to disagree, but must agree the purpose is to encourage people to get involved in CPR situation.
 
Only about 15 per cent of patients requiring CPR in a hospital and approximately 1 per cent of patients who have arrested in the community and had CPR survive to leave hospital. And this dismal figure hasn’t changed since CPR was first introduced in about 1960. Moreover, these figures do not give any indication of what state the survivors are in. Many are in a coma or have severe brain damage.
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It's not really worth getting too agitated about.
 
Nope, it isn't. I absolutely agree with Bammylovechops sentiment about getting people to have a go. You cant make a bad situation worse by trying.
 
AliM said:
Lakesailor - that's interesting reading. Basically your chances of survival if your heart has stopped increase by only a very, very small amount if someone gives you CPR.

Now, suppose you were in a situation when someone close to you collapsed clutching his/her heart. Obviously, you send out a Mayday, phone 999, or whatever, but you know they have little chance of making it (if their heart has stopped). You have to do something though, so you do whatever you dimly remember from your First Aid course N years ago, and then when the helicopter/lifeboat/ambulance arrives, you at least feel that you've done your best.

I wonder who has actually been in that situation, and did doing something (or being unable to) affect them afterwards - regardless of the effect on the patient!
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i think this is a very valid point, if you did nothing (through ignorance or fear of doing more harm than good) you may well have problems sleeping at night for a while afterwards, but if you tried something even if it doesn't work i think this would help you get over it quicker??
 
It is a valid point.
However it doesn't address the proposition that 1st Aiding seems to be centred on CPR.

I haven't done any training for ages. Maybe someone can tell me that I have the wrong impression.
 
Having read all of the previous threads it would appear that some or even most could do with some CPR/first aid input, as I suggested earlier, for them that have an iphone/ipad please download the free app, iResus, it breaks things down into easy to grasp chunks, splits catorgoies between adult and child.
It is definatley worth reading before "it" hits the fan and is a life saving guide to have in your hand when it is most needed.

Final point even though this is a boaty type forum I promise that CPR is massivly used more on terra firma, maybe even on one of your own!!!!

Top tip find a web page that gives some CPR guidance, the simpler the better, laminate a couple of copies and stick one in your car the other on your boat, hopefully hopefully to gather dust never to be needed however...............................................
 
Lakey, you are right: the chances of CPR working are very small but it's a relatively simple procedure which may make all the difference so it's worth trying. When teaching first aid courses I always remember that the safety of the first aider is the first consideration so I go to some lengths to point out the low rate of success and the implication that lack of success does not mean a failure on the first aider's part.
 
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