What are the types of basic first aid skills?

The core of the basic first aid skills currently recognized in clinical and emergency rescue fields is around the handling of the four most common emergency scenarios outside the hospital, covering cardiac and respiratory arrest, traumatic bleeding, airway foreign body obstruction, and common emergencies. There is nothing too fancy. The core principle is "save lives first, treat injuries later, do not add chaos, and help in place."

When I was doing charity first aid training at the subdistrict office two months ago, an uncle asked me if I needed to be able to set bones and bandage fractures to be good at first aid. In fact, it was really not the case. The basic first aid requirements for ordinary people are very pragmatic. They are all practical exercises that can be mastered in a day or two, and there is not much theory that needs to be memorized. At the top of the list is definitely the use of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and automated external defibrillator (AED). After all, the golden rescue time for sudden death outside the hospital is only 4 to 6 minutes. Last year, a 28-year-old programmer in our subway collapsed due to a myocardial infarction. There happened to be an office worker next to him who had just completed first aid training. He went up and performed CPR for 3 minutes. When the station staff brought the AED for defibrillation, he was conscious on the spot. By the time 120 was sent to the hospital, he was fine. I would like to mention here that there are indeed a lot of controversies about ordinary people doing CPR. Some people feel that they are afraid of being held responsible without a certificate. In fact, the "Good Person Law" of the Civil Code has clarified that voluntary first aid is not responsible. However, many industry experts suggest that it is best to spend some time and participate in offline practical training. Otherwise, irregular movements may really break the ribs. Although it is not a big problem, it is still troublesome.

In addition to sudden death scenarios with low probability but extremely high mortality rate, what we encounter most every day are various minor injuries, and the corresponding hemostatic, bandaging, and immobilization skills also fall into the category of basic first aid. The last time I went on a 120 mission, I met a young man who broke a blood vessel in his forearm after falling while riding an electric bike. The bleeding was severe. He was so panicked that he strangled his upper arm with a hoodie string to stop the bleeding. By the time we arrived, his forearm was already cold and purple. If it had been half an hour later, it might have been due to ischemia and necrosis. In fact, 90% of daily bleeding can be stopped by pressing a clean cotton cloth on the wound for three to five minutes, without the need for a tourniquet. Oh, yes, there are differences in the industry on whether to teach ordinary people how to use tourniquets. One group thinks that ordinary people cannot control the tightness and loosening time of tourniquets, which may easily cause limb ischemia. It is better to just teach pressure to stop bleeding. The other group thinks that in cases of heavy bleeding such as car accidents and knife wounds, tourniquets can still save lives when pressure cannot be stopped. There is no harm in learning more.

Then there is the Heimlich maneuver that everyone has heard of, which is specially used to deal with foreign body obstruction in the airway. Last month, a grandmother in our community was feeding jelly to her 3-year-old grandson. The child jumped and it got stuck in the throat, and his face turned purple. Just boiling water downstairs. The lady from the fruit shop had participated in our training before. She went up and pushed the stomach three times using the Heimlich technique. The jelly spurted out and the child cried on the spot. It would have taken at least 10 minutes to wait for 120 to arrive. I really couldn’t imagine the consequences. However, I would like to remind you that the Heimlich that many people learn now is a universal version. In fact, babies under 1 year old cannot use abdominal thrusts, and must use back pats and chest compressions. This is not made clear in many popular sciences, and it can be regarded as a small loophole in the current popularization.

The rest are the treatment of some common emergencies, such as how to position someone in a resuscitation position to avoid suffocation on vomit when someone faints, flush someone with running cold water for 15 to 20 minutes if they are burned, how to alternately rinse with soapy water and running water for more than 15 minutes before getting vaccinated when bitten by a cat or dog, how to move to a cool place to replenish light salt water if you have heatstroke, these seemingly trivial skills are actually considered basic first aid. Last week, a parent came to the emergency department with a scalded child. He said that the child had spilled boiling water and she immediately carried him and flushed him with cold water for 20 minutes. When he was delivered, he only had superficial second-degree burns and the chance of leaving scars was very small. If he had applied toothpaste and soy sauce as the old man said, the infection might have been aggravated.

In fact, many people think that first aid is a matter for medical staff and there is no need to learn it on their own. This is not true. When a critical situation occurs outside the hospital, the ordinary people next to you are the most life-saving people. These basic skills are not difficult to learn and you can master them after practicing a few times. When you encounter an emergency, you may be able to save the lives of those around you.