05 Emergency First Aid

Emergency First Aid

Priorities in an Emergency

In all emergency situations, the rescuer must:

  • Assess the situation quickly
  • Ensure safety for the rescuer, casualty and bystanders
  • Call for help
  • Commence appropriate treatment following the Basic Life Support Flow Chart.

Emergency Action Plan

  • Call for Help
  • Stay with the Casualty – you should not leave an injured person alone, because if they become unconscious they will not be able to help them self

Your Action Plan should include the following:

  1. Quickly assess the situation.
  2. Ensure safety for yourself and the casualty. Where there is danger, remove the cause of danger from the casualty or the casualty from the cause, without putting yourself in danger.
  3. Decide what you must do first, following the priority given under the DRS ABCD of First Aid.
  4. Move the casualty as little as possible. The casualty should be moved with care only if:
    in danger from fire, road traffic, hot road surfaces, electric current, drowning etc, providing it is safe to do so.
    it is necessary to establish and maintain a clear airway or perform CPR
  5. Reassure the casualty.
  6. Let the conscious casualty rest in the position he finds most comfortable.

How to Call an Ambulance

  1. Dial “000” (Triple Zero) in an emergency (if unsuccessful trying 000 on a mobile then try 112).
  2. Ask for ambulance.
  3. Give the location of where the ambulance has to go (that is, state, district or suburb, street, road, address). Give a cross-street reference, building or landmark.
  4. Give the phone number you are calling from and your name.
  5. Explain exactly what has happened.
  6. Possible number of casualties (people hurt or sick).
  7. How old the casualty is.
  8. If the casualty is conscious/ breathing.
  9. Do not hang up until the operator tells you to.

When calling for help, the "call first" approach is recommended. This is because in the vast majority of cardiac arrests, the arrest is due to ventricular fibrillation, which is treatable by defibrillation. Outcomes of these patients have significantly improved when the time to defibrillation is short. In cardiac arrests occurring in children, or where the arrest is due to airway obstruction or inadequate ventilation, (e.g. submersion, drug overdose) there is a potential benefit in commencing resuscitation before calling for help. In these cases, the “call first call fast" approach is recommended as in the next section. In many situations the call for help will occur at the same time as the commencement of resuscitation.

Where there is more than one casualty, the care of an unconscious casualty has priority.

The casualties that are calling out should not distract the rescuer; their needs are less urgent as they are able to breathe.

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