First Aid and CPR Guidelines

• First aid aims to care for life-threatening conditions, minimize further injury, and ensure victim comfort.
• Emergencies are characterized by being unusual, unforeseen, and different from one another, often occurring without warning.
• Scene surveys determine scene safety, cause of injury, and number of victims.
• Place patients in a half-sitting position for angina, heart attack, and dyspnea.
• Avoid applying direct pressure to eye injuries, skull fractures, and stab wounds.
• The recovery position keeps airways open in unresponsive victims without spinal injury, protects lungs from aspiration, and relieves pressure on the vena cava of pregnant women.
• CPR stands for Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation.

CPR Guidelines

• For infants, use two or three fingers to lower the sternum during CPR.
• Use one hand to lower the sternum during CPR on children.
• Use two hands to lower the sternum during CPR on adults.
• Two-rescuer CPR is preferred because it is less exhausting and results in more effective resuscitation.
• CPR can lead to sternum/rib fractures, lung bruising, pneumothorax, and liver laceration.

Common Chest Compression Mistakes

• Shoulders are not directly over hands.
• Elbows are bent.
• Hands are improperly placed on the victim's chest.
• Fingers touch the victim's chest during compressions.
• Chest pain can result from muscle/rib pain, pneumonia, or heartburn, not exclusively cardiac issues.
• Anaphylactic shock can be caused by drugs, insect bites, food, radiographic dye, or pollen grains.
• Shock can lead to cell failure, organ damage, and death.

Signs of a Bandage Being Too Tight

• Faint pulse
• Tingling
• Coldness of extremity
• Blue fingernails
• Lightning strike victims often sustain injury to the nervous system, skin, and heart/blood vessels.
• Chest injury signs include distended neck veins, hemoptysis, and chest wall deformity.

Signs and Symptoms of Skull Fracture

• Clear pink watery CSF from ear or nose
• Discoloration around eyes
• Deformity
• Pain
• Blood from ear or nose
• Splints can be rigid, soft, or self-made.
• Syncope, psychogenic shock, and simple fainting are sudden, brief losses of responsiveness not associated with head injury.
• Signs refer to conditions you can see, feel, hear, or smell on a victim.
• Symptoms are the victim's chief complaint.
• Aspiration is breathing foreign matter into the trachea.
• Choking is upper airway obstruction.
• Gastric distention is the inflation of the stomach with air.
• The brachial point is a pressure point in the upper inside arm.
• The femoral point is a pressure point in the groin.
• Epistaxis (nosebleeds) result from injury, disease, activity, or temperature extremes.
• Septic shock is the most serious type, caused by severe bacterial infection.
• Hypovolemic shock is caused by hemorrhage, burns, vomiting and diarrhea.
• Neurogenic shock stems from insufficient blood supply due to vasodilation.
• Frostbite is the freezing of body tissues, while frostnip is the freezing of skin surface.
• Concussion is a temporary loss of brain function.
• Stroke occurs when blood flow to the brain is suddenly cut off.
• Acceleration injury occurs when the brain strikes the inside of the skull following head impact.
• Pneumothorax involves air entering the space between the lung and pleural lining.
• Hemothorax involves blood entering the space between the lung and pleural lining.
• Flail chest is multiple rib fractures in the same area.
• Sprain is an injury to ligaments.
• Strain is an injury to a muscle.
• Contusion is blood collection under the skin.
• Tendonitis is tendon inflammation.
• Cramp is an uncontrolled muscle spasm.
• Dislocation is when bone ends are no longer in contact.
• Fracture is a crack in a bone.
• Scald burn is from hot liquid.
• Arc burn is a skin burn caused when an electrical current "jumps".
• Hemoptysis is coughing up blood that is bright red and frothy.
• A true bite occurs when flesh is caught between teeth.
• The tongue is the most common cause of upper airway obstruction.
• Infectious diseases can be transmitted by saliva, semen, amniotic fluid, and CSF.
• Mishandling a victim with a spinal injury is worse than doing nothing.
• Open the airway by jaw-thrust maneuver when a spinal injury is suspected.
• During abdominal thrusts, hands exert pressure on the diaphragm.
• Do not tilt the head back during epistaxis (nose bleeding).
• Bleeding scalp wounds do not affect blood supply to the brain.
• Do not wrap amputated parts in wet dressing.
• Plastic dressings cannot be used to cover burns.
• With chemical burns, apply water under low pressure.
• Apply cold or ice to scorpion stings to relieve swelling and pain.
• First-degree and second-degree burns are extremely painful.
• Third-degree burns are not painful because nerve endings are destroyed.
• Don't break blisters in second-degree burns.
• Sunburns are first or second-degree burns.
• Do not put an eye cup on a chemical burn in the eye.
• The "stop, drop, and roll" method caters to victims with thermal burns.
• Full-thickness burns (third-degree) take weeks to years to heal and may need organ transplantation.
• Do not remove or wash out objects stuck in the eye.
• Use the head-splint technique for drowning victims with suspected spinal injury.
• Young snake venom is three times more poisonous than adult snake venom.
• Two distinct fang marks (1/2 inch apart) indicate a snake bite.
• Avoid applying ice packs to the back outside of the knee in musculoskeletal injuries to prevent nerve damage.
• Food poisoning includes salmonellosis, staph poisoning, and botulism.
• Check CSM (circulation, sensation, movement) before and after splinting.
• Give diluted salt solutions for muscle cramps.
• Do not reinsert protruding organs; avoid infection.
• Cut around clothing stuck to burned skin to minimize damage.
• Apply new dressings over blood-soaked ones.
• Bandage over dressings on wounds, not too tightly.
• Ring pads control bleeding in skull fractures.
• Never move impaled objects.
• Apply cold water for 15 minutes to care for blows to the eye.
• Reimplant knocked-out teeth under specific conditions and keep them in saliva or milk.
• Avoid scrubbing knocked-out teeth, removing tissue fragments, or removing partially extracted teeth.
• Do not put knocked-out teeth in powdered milk, water, or mouthwash.
• Victims can suck on ice chips for bitten lip or tongue.
• Rinse jellyfish stings with vinegar or alcohol.
• Wash dog bite wounds with soap and water.

RICE Acronym

• Rest the extremity.
• Ice to reduce pain and swelling.
• Compress with an elastic bandage to decrease swelling.
• Elevate above heart level to decrease blood supply.
• The RICE procedure treats open musculoskeletal injuries.