What are the types and characteristics of basic first aid skills?

At present, the basic first aid skills popularized in China for ordinary people mainly focus on three categories: cardiac arrest treatment, trauma rescue, and common emergency intervention. The core commonality is that the operating threshold is low and the room for error is large. As long as the standards are followed, even if the actions are not 100% standard, there is a high probability that it can help the injured and even seize the golden window to save lives.

I have been in the community emergency volunteer team for almost two years. What impressed me most was what happened at the community court last summer: Uncle Zhang, who was playing badminton, suddenly fell straight down when he was taking off to catch a smash. People around him panicked and tried to help him. There happened to be a young man next to him who had just completed a street first aid class last week. He squatted down first. I came down and felt that the carotid artery was not pulsing, and my breathing had stopped. I knelt on the ground and performed chest compressions. Someone ran to the property to get an AED and followed the voice prompts to defibrillate. By the time 120 arrived, the uncle could hum. Later, the doctor said that if he had been delayed by two or three minutes, he would probably not be able to be saved. The characteristic of this type of skill related to cardiac arrest is that it is stuck in time. The golden rescue window is only 4 minutes, and the survival rate drops by 10% for every additional minute. Moreover, it is really not that difficult to operate now. The AED is all voice-guided. You just follow the instructions. Even if the compression depth is one or two centimeters different, it is better than doing nothing.

Of course, what we encounter every day are not such urgent and fatal things, but small accidents such as bumps, cuts, and sprains. Not long ago, my daughter's colleague's baby fell off his arm while riding a balance bike. My grandma was so panicked that she rubbed the wound with unopened toilet paper and sprinkled incense ash from her hometown on it, saying it would stop the bleeding. As a result, the wound became infected and she had a fever for three days. The biggest feature of this kind of trauma rescue skills is not to "treat injuries" but to "prevent causing trouble." Whether it is pressure to stop bleeding, wound dressing or fracture fixation, the core is to avoid secondary injuries. Take the scratch just now, let's take the flow first. Rinse away the sand and dust with clean water, then disinfect with iodophor, and put on a sterile patch. If you really suspect that you have broken a bone, don't pull and move it casually. It is safest to find a cardboard pad to tie and fix it, and wait for medical care to deal with it. Oh, yes, this part is still a bit controversial in the industry: Should we teach ordinary people how to use a tourniquet? One group thinks that it is difficult for ordinary people to judge the tightness, and it is easy to strangle the limbs and cause necrosis if it is tied for a long time. It is better to just teach how to apply pressure to stop bleeding. ； The other group believes that in the extreme case of severe arterial bleeding and pressure cannot be stopped, a tourniquet is the last resort that can save lives. So now we usually mention it in popularization classes, but we will repeatedly emphasize that you must record the time after tying, and loosen it for 1 to 2 minutes every 40 minutes. You must not just put it on and leave it alone.

There is another category that everyone comes into contact with the most, which is actually the treatment of daily emergencies such as choking, burns, heatstroke, and hypoglycemia. The characteristic is that it has a strong sense of scene. They are all situations that can be encountered in life from time to time, and there is no threshold for operation. My cousin choked while eating glutinous rice at home last month and her face turned purple. Her husband happened to have seen a video of the Heimlich maneuver before. He hugged her waist from behind and pushed her upward three times, and the rice ball spurted out. If she had waited for 120 to come, she might not be able to survive. There are also many people who apply toothpaste and soy sauce on burns and scalds. In fact, these are wrong. Remember to rinse the blisters with running cold water for 15 minutes. This is more effective than any other folk remedies.

To be honest, many people think that first aid is a matter for medical staff, and it is useless for ordinary people to learn it. I think this thing is like the fire extinguisher in your car. You may not need it in your life, but when you really encounter an accident, there is a huge difference between knowing it and not knowing it.