SLC21/WK1: Empowering Life-Saving Skills: A Guide to First Response and Basic First Aid

It is always a beautiful thing to be participating in Steemit contest and today I will be submitting my entry for one of the Steemit contest. Stay tuned below.

Made with Canva

There are actually a whole lot of experiences that in the little years I have spent on this earth that I have witness of which there is a need for emergency attention regarding someone life and health. But among the list I will be sharing one of the experience that even after many years, it has not leave me at all.

Alright, this day started like the other day when I was on a trip coming from Lagos after visiting my brother and heading back to Ibadan. Of course I was also in the public bus that took me from the car park like how usually we always onboard the bus. I can still remember vividly, suddenly, one of the female passengers close to me inside the public buys begin to gasp for air.

At first I was shocked and wondering what is wrong. In like 5-6 seconds, that particular female passenger have fallen down to the floor and at that particular time struggling for breathe. At that moment, I was scared to death the same way other passengers was also sacred. Everyone in the public bus was also panicking as everyone of us did not even know what to do at that particular time.

At that particular time, I remember the advise my PHE teacher back then in secondary school always give for us to learn first-response skills. At that participate time, I wished I learnt it because that will have actually save a life and help the helpless passenger who collapsed to the floor. The truth is we knowing some basic techniques like the CPR or even how to check an individual breathing level can go a long way to sustain a life even before a professional arrived to the scene.

Since that incident, I have actually come to realise the importance that lies in been aware of the emergency response skills most especially in Nigeria as a country that every situation seems to be demanding health-wise. Trust me, learning the first response skill will go a long way to provide life saving help even before the emergency services get to the scene.

It is always devastating whenever I witness a road accident because most of the time it result to loss of lives and even if it does not result to loss of lives, it result to severe injuries from the victim. Well back to the question, imagining I was walking home and I witnessed a road traffic accident between a car and a motorcycle, well there are some steps I will take to respond to the person in the scene and I break it down to ten steps below;

• Step 1; The first thing I will make sure I do is to ensure the scene safety. What do I mean by that? Of course I will make use I check for hazards that might be on the scene which might want to either cause me or even the victim in question to suffer danger. I can also do that by making sure I move the victim to a place away from the scene if probably the scene contains a lot of hazard.

• Step 2; The next step which I will do is to instantly call for help. That I will make sure someone around carry out the duty of calling the emergency services. They are many of them in my country Nigeria which I will also be discussing below. I will make sure that the person calling the emergency services request for help and give them the needed information about the accident, location and generally the scene to the emergency services.

• Step 3; The third step I will carry out is to Approach Cautiously. What do I mean by that, I will make sure that I handle the victim gently so that I will not worsen the injuries that the victim might be suffering from at that particular time.

• Step 4; The next step I will make sure I carry out is to make sure I assess the Responsiveness. This I can also do by making sure that either tapping the motorcyclist shoulder who was involved in the accident. Why I will be doing that is because I want to check whether he is still responsive or not at that particular time.

• Step 5; The next step I will carry out is to check for the airway. Now this particular one will be determined based on the result at step 2. What do I mean by that? If probably I discovered that there is no response coming from the motorcyclist, then I will check if the airway is still clear. This I can also make sure I achieved by either tilting the head back and why I will be doing that is to clear the airway gently without the neck being affected.

• Step 6; The next step after checking the airway is to make sure that I look for breathing. This might sound so new for many of us but that will involve me either listening attentively to the breathing level of the victim roughly around 5-10 seconds. The breathing level being noted out after the 5-10 seconds of checking will determine the next step whether I will need to prescribe more first aid measures for the victim most especially if his breathing is not going normally.

• Step 7; At this particular time, the emergency services should have arrived but if they have not arrived, then I will begin the CPR myself. If the breathing is not going well as it should go, I will prescribe CPR to the victim because at that particular time, he needs his breathing to be back normally.

• Step 8; I will attend to the bleeding at the leg either by getting a clean clothes around the environment at which that scene happen. Why I will be getting the cloth is to help slow the bleeding because if the victim loses out on too much of blood, that can result in his loss of his life.

• Step 9; Then at that particular time, I am still waiting for the emergency services to arrive, then I will just continue to do the work of reassuring and monitoring. I will just encourage people around to stay calm and tell them everything will be fine so that I can calm the tension. Then I will continue to monitor the victim breathing level and pulse also.

• Step 10; The last step which I will carry out is to tell the emergency services everything that happen and what I have done when they arrived so that they can know where to continue. With these ten steps, I believe I might have been of help to the victim in that scene.

Design with canva

The info graphics illustrate the step by step DRABC procedures

Below are the duties of this numbers 👇

(1). General Emergency Line helps to provide a quick response across the emergency services.

(2). Lagos State Emergency Call Centre is used to help report all emergencies that might have happened.

(3). National Centre For Disease Control helps to report diseases outbreak that happens. Examples like COVID.

(4). Fire Services help to report emergency case that needs the assistance of Fire Departments

(5). Ambulance Services make use ambulance is available to all scene that needs it emergency.

(6). Federal Road Safety Corps Line is majorly used to report emergency involving road and traffic accident.

(7). Road Safety Emergency Number is used to report road emergency cases.

(8). Lagos Emergency Ambulance Services helps to report emergency case that needs Ambulance Transportation.

(9). Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) Number helps to report emergency case of security threats.

(10). 911 number helps to report emergency cases.

Quiz Completed Successfully ✅️

Thank you for this lecture, looking forward to more interesting and benefiting lectures in the more weeks to come

I invite @lovelystar , @newekemini5 and @okere-blessing to drop a very constructive comments on this post and also to participate in this contest.