What are the contents and methods of basic first aid skills?

There is no fancy content in basic first aid. The core is centered around the principle of "preserving life first, then preventing injury from worsening, and finally helping to relieve discomfort." All methods have been verified on a large number of fields. Ordinary people can learn most of them in a short time, and they can really save lives at critical moments.

The highest priority is definitely the response to cardiac and respiratory arrest, that is, if a person suddenly falls to the ground, screams, and if the carotid artery (the beating blood vessel on the side of the neck) does not pulse, just perform chest compressions immediately. Oh, by the way, there are still some differences in this industry. In recent years, European and American guidelines say that non-professionals who have not received complete training do not need to perform artificial respiration. They only need to maintain a frequency of 100-120 times per minute and a depth of 5-6 cm. Just wait until the emergency personnel arrive or the AED is in place. However, our experience on the frontline is that if you can perform standard mouth-to-mouth ventilation, the effect of 30 compressions and 2 ventilations will definitely be better. If you don't, it doesn't matter. Just don't be too stunned to start. Last month, a programmer in an office building in our area suffered a heart attack and fell to the ground. His colleague, who had attended our charity class before, pressed the button as soon as he came up. The security guard took the AED downstairs except twice. When he was sent to the hospital, he was already conscious and recovered very well.

In addition to this kind of fatal sudden arrest, the most common emergency encountered every day is airway obstruction by foreign bodies, which means suddenly choking when eating, being unable to speak, and the face turns red from holding back. Just use the Heimlich maneuver. Last week at a community free clinic, I met a three-year-old child who got stuck in jelly. My grandma hugged her and patted her back vertically, pushing the jelly deeper into the airway. The child's face turned purple. I quickly picked it up and hugged him from behind. I put my fist on the two fingers above his belly button and punched it inward and upward three times quickly. The jelly spurted out and the child immediately started crying. By the way, this is not a rigid rule. If you encounter pregnant women in the third trimester of pregnancy or obese people with particularly large abdominal circumferences who cannot hold their waists, you can also hit the lower half of the sternum. The effect is the same. You don’t have to stick to the standard action card positions in the textbook.

As for the treatment of small injuries such as daily bumps, burns, and sprains, it is the most common pitfalls. Spreading incense ash on cuts, applying toothpaste on burns, and rubbing safflower oil on sprains are all wrong. For minor bleeding, apply clean gauze or lint-free towel to the wound. Pressing it for three to five minutes will basically stop it. For major bleeding in the extremities, press the blood supply vessel on the side of the wound close to the heart. ； For burns, just flush running water with room temperature for 15-20 minutes as soon as possible. Do not use ice or rub anything randomly. Try not to break the blisters to avoid infection. ； If you have a sprain, apply ice first. Don't rub it and don't apply plaster immediately. The more you rub it, the worse the swelling will be. There was a worker at a construction site who had his forearm burnt by welding slag, so he applied half a bottle of soy sauce on it. When he arrived, the wound was infected. It should have been cured in a week, but he was hospitalized for ten days and suffered from old sins.

In fact, these skills are really not difficult. If you practice for a long time at the local Red Cross’s free public welfare training, you will basically be familiar with them. It is more reliable than frantically searching for short videos and waiting for an ambulance when you encounter an accident.