First aid: Skills you must have

By Dr Monda Ang’awa

On a recent camping trip, five-year-old Yvonne accidentally fell into the campfire as she played with her siblings. She suffered burns, which would have been less extensive if her family knew what to do before they rushed her to hospital.

Knowing the basics of first aid and carrying them out quickly has saved many lives or minimised injury during a safari or holiday. Here’s what to do:

Cuts from glass bottles, doors or windows may occur. Always raise and support the injured area and apply pressure around it. Do not remove the piece of glass as this increases the bleeding.

Press a clean piece of folded cloth on the wound firmly so that the pressure applied reduces the bleeding. Do not do this too tightly as this would act as a tourniquet, cutting off blood supply to the area, and possibly resulting in dead tissue. Do not remove the dressing if it is soaked with blood because you would be removing the clots formed, causing even more bleeding. Instead, apply another dressing on top of this and get the injured person to hospital as soon as possible.

If someone’s clothing catches fire, get him down on the ground, turn his face away from the flames, and roll the victim in large and heavy piece of material like a blanket or towel to smother the flames and put out the fire. Do not remove his clothing as this could damage his skin more, if the clothing was made from synthetic material and had melted into the skin. Pour cold water on the affected skin instead and keep the person warm.

Remove metallic watches or jewellery, as metal retains heat and causes more burns. Do not apply any creams, butter, lotions or sprays to a burn because this will effectively be ‘cooking’ the skin. Take the victim to hospital.

The brain will always kick-start the body’s cooling mechanisms in hot weather. We can lose around 10 litres of fluid over 24 hours in hot weather. One can easily overheat during hot weather because our cooling mechanism is extremely inefficient in humid weather. One then gets heat exhaustion, or worse, heat stroke, which is life threatening. Fainting in very hot weather is usually a warning sign because blood is then diverted from the brain to the skin in an attempt to cool the body. Move the victim to the shade, remove her clothing and give her fluids — a teaspoon of table salt and a tablespoon of sugar dissolved in a litre of cold water — over an hour. Plain water suppresses the drive to drink and stimulates urine production, which you want to avoid.

If someone is choking on something, never attempt to remove the offending object by sticking your fingers down his throat. You could push the object further down, completely blocking his airway, or, if it is a sharp object, cause more injury and swelling to the soft tissues.

Get the victim to try and cough the object out or bend him forward with his head down and give him five hard slaps between his shoulder blades using the palm of your hand. Repeat this several times as you rush him to hospital.

If this does not work, try the abdominal thrust (Heimlich manoeuvre) for bigger children and adults. Hold your arms around him just below his ribcage with your chest against his back and then push your arms up towards his head. For a baby or young child, lay her over your arm with her head lower than her trunk. Give firm slaps between her shoulder blades as you rush her to hospital.

This could be angina — a warning of an impending heart attack — a severe constricting chest pain that radiates to the left side of the jaw, neck or left arm. The victim will sweat, feel dizzy, short of breath and nauseated.

He feels like there is an elephant sitting on his chest. He may also have severe and persistent heart burn, also a common warning sign of a heart attack. He should move as little as possible. Keep him calm and give him medication for angina if he has it. Rush him to hospital immediately or call an ambulance.

Never move someone you suspect may have a spinal injury unless she is unable to breathe or you need to remove her from immediate danger. An unconscious person should be kept lying flat on her belly with her head turned to the side and tilted back. One of her arms should be under her head to support it so that she does not choke if she vomits. Place her other arm flat alongside the body then bend the upper leg so that it lies at a right angle to the hip.

— drbrigidmonda@gmail.com