First aid. Not. (original) (raw)
footpad gnawing my lip moodily
July 21 2013, 15:28
I had a chance to use my first aid knowledge last week, when a middle-aged woman lost consciousness on the bus.
I'm by no means a qualified first aider, but I've been taught fairly extensive basics at least half a dozen times, I've read a couple of first-aid manuals, and (not least) I mentally go through the steps occasionally so that I'm ready for circumstances like responding to a car crash.
So generally I'm reasonally confident that I know what to do about the most common medical emergencies. If someone loses consciousness on the bus, I know the series of steps to go through: see if they're conscious, check Airways Breathing Circulation, call an ambulance, get them into the recovery position, etcetera. If they're in more serious trouble, not breathing or some such, then I know how to proceed, although I also know that their chances are pretty poor at that point.
Here's what I actually do if someone loses consciousness on the bus:
Nothing. Like forty-odd other passengers, I just stood there and watched.
Actually it's even more embarrassing than that, because I did just enough to get in the way. I was sitting with my back to the incident, and by the time I realised something was amiss, the woman was already down and another passenger was holding her head (which made me think: epilepsy). I leaned over and took the woman's pulse, and I wasn't even sure I could feel it. She was just there lying with her eyelids fluttering. The thing I should have done at that point was to ensure the paramedics were being called, then to bellow at the bus driver not to proceed from the stop, and then to start actual first aid. But from that moment I had already lapsed into the same stunned indecision as everyone else.
Fortunately the bus driver was on the case and did everything that needed doing, and the paramedics arrived within a few minutes. I don't know the fate of the patient, but I was probably not critical to it.
÷
Moral of the story, and the lesson learned: emergency response is hard. And the hardest thing is not knowing what to do, but having the grit and presence of mind to stay mentally composed and do it.
That one was probably as easy as serious medical emergencies get. Next time it happens, I think—I _think_—that I'll take a deep breath, and then do what actually needs doing. But I suddenly have a much more sober and measured appreciation of my own psychological limits.