Video
Dr Pixie: It’s really important not to be too embarrassed to ask for help and to know what to do in a crisis because remember it could save your life or the life of a friend.
(Speaking to class): So if you just want to flop down on the floor in front of me like you’re collapsed. What do you recognise here that makes you realise she’s breathing?
Pupil 1: Her chest goes up and down when she breathes.
Dr Pixie: Exactly. And you can also, you can look, and you can listen, and you can feel it if she’s breathing through her mouth or her nose you can feel her breath on you. So if you go up close you can feel it on the side of your face. If you’ve assessed she’s breathing and you’re happy with that and that she’s not in any danger, shout out and get some of your other friends to come and help as well, but you might find you’re on your own. She’s had loads of beer, look at the beer she’s had, she’s had all that beer. Open up her airway first of all, it just makes it easier, it stands to reason, it’s easier for her to breathe. Next, we’re going to get her over onto her side. We’re going to pop her hand up like that just to give her a bit of a pillow for her cheek. And then we’re going to pop her leg up and roll her onto her side like this. Now, you can now see that, if she does get sick, at least she’s going to get sick out onto the floor and her clothes but she’s not going to choke. Here we have, this little teenager has been out and has been to a party and you’re at the same party, you go to the bathroom, you find them inside the bathroom and they’ve collapse. What’s the first thing you’re going to do? Come on, basic. Check if they’re breathing, right. We’re going to check. We are going to ask if they’re alright first of all. Clearly they are not alright; they stink of alcohol and have vomit all round their mouth and everything. We check to see if they are breathing, they’re not breathing. I’m going to tilt back that airway, ok. First thing you need to do is call for help because the longer it takes for the help to get there, yeah they might wake up and come round in the next 5 minutes, but every second counts. You’ve got to get those phones out or shout for help, get somebody else to call for an ambulance. In the meantime, what you need to do is you need to compress on this person’s chest. It’s pretty easy. So, you’re just going to pop your hands here on the sternum, so that’s the breast bone, and you’re just going to go 1,2,3,4… and keep compressing like this. And you may find when you’re doing this that the person starts coughing or waking up but you might find you’re doing this, and you keep doing this, and you have to keep doing it for 5 or 10 minutes until an ambulance comes. But that activity for 5 or 10 minutes may actually save the person’s life and I can tell you it’s really, really tiring. Every so often you should stop and re-assess but if they’re not breathing and nothing else is happening you’ve got to keep going, keep compressing their chest. There’s no need to go about giving them rescue breath because that’s why people don’t resuscitate. The worst case scenario is you think you find someone in the bathroom, and they’re a friend from school or as I say a girl or a boy you don’t like and you think oh my, I not going to try and kiss him to try and revive him or they might have vomit or blood in their mouth, forget about it, don’t do that, just keep compressing on the chest and when the ambulance comes they can take over. And I can promise you that very simple measure could save somebody’s life. Just because you’re a teenager it doesn’t mean you can’t save a life. If you find a friend who’s collapsed and he’s breathing, put them in the recovery position. If you find they’re not breathing, call for help and promptly start chest compressions. This simple activity could actually save their life.
Dr Pixie presents a short guide to how to resuscitate somebody who is unconscious. The guide includes tips on how to spot if somebody is breathing, and the correct method of performing chest compressions to keep them alive long enough for an ambulance to arrive.
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i know first aid from st johns ambulance and still a volunteer
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