BASIC FIRST AID: What Can You Do At Home

In emergency cases, it's very difficult to stay focused. It takes training and experience to be able to handle situations like this and it's particularly hard if you do not have a medical background. So, what can you do during these following situations? Read up.

CHOKING. This emergency can happen anywhere - at home or even when you are in a public place. So how can you tell if someone is choking? The universal sign for choking is if a person clutches his throat with both hands. This accompanied by the inability to talk or cough is a sure way to know that he is in trouble.

So, what can you do? You can stand behind the choking person and position your closed fist above the stomach (you know that bone just above your stomach?), and with your other hand, give it a forceful, upward pull towards you. Keep on repeating it until the victim is able to spit out what ever particle choked him. This is called the Hemlich Maneuver.

ANXIETY ATTACK. In the medical field, we call this hyperventilation. It is when a person breathes too fast using his mouth to a point that he cannot breathe at all.

So what do you do? Get a brown paper bag or plastic bag and ask the person to breathe thru the bag. What happens is, you replace the carbon dioxide that the person looses due to his ineffective breathing by letting him inhale it back from inside the bag.

SEVERE VOMITTING OR DIARRHEA. When a person is loosing too much fluids and electrolytes due to vomiting and diarrhea, he is at risk of severe weakness and dehydration.

So what can you do at home to counteract this? Take a liter of water, put 1 spoonful of salt and sugar and drink away. This is the best way to replace all the fluids and electrolytes that he lost.

CUT WOUND. Like what happend to my sister's co-worker yesterday, as he was opening a can, he accidently cut his thumb and the bleeding was severe.

So what can you do? At first, you can put a pressure dressing on the cut to help with the bleeding or put the affected part on ice. If the bleeding don't stop, you can press on the nearest pulse or apply a torniquet above the injury. That should be enough until you can go to the hospital.

These are just first aid. You should still go to the hospital and get checked out.