Life Saving Techniques

Recently my husband went through a practical workshop on treating casualties during an emergency in his office. As I went through his papers, I saw that there are many easy techniques that everyone can follow during an emergency.However, one should know the techniques before applying the same on someone. Hence,I decided to post some of those basic life saving techniques which can help everyone play a vital role during an emergency.

CPCR is one such basic life saving technique where C stands for Cardio,P stands for Pulmonary, C again for Cerebral and R for Resuscitation. When a person's heart or lungs are not performing naturally, CPCR is performed.

CPCR consists of three vital parts-the airway,breathing and circulation.

In a situation where a person becomes unconscious,his airway gets blocked.To enable the airway to function normally, one can give artificial breaths either by mouth to mouth technique or mouth to nose technique.

To do this,one should keep the airway open,pinch the nose trills,take a deep breath and try to seal in the victim's mouth with air for 2 seconds.

Another method is tilting the head and lifting the neck by placing one's hand on the jaw and other at the forehead and move both hands in opposite direction. However,this shouldn't be tried on person's with neck injury.

In such a case,jaw thrust method should be applied where one should use the fingers to hook the jawbone below the ear and pull with jaw forward.

To make sure that the victim is breathing you should look for chest movements,listen for breath sounds, or feel the air coming out of nose or mouth. But if no breathing is sensed for 10 seconds,one should proceed to artificial breaths.

For mouth to nose breath supply, you should try to keep the airway open,close the mouth of the victim, seal the victim's nose with your mouth,blow and watch for chest rise and take your head away.

However, one should always note very carefully that if the air goes into the stomach instead of lungs, it can be fatal,as the stomach which gets filled with air can suddenly release air back along with its contents which can get into the lungs.This can be prevented by using fingers to press downwards on the C shaped cartilage on the neck.

To check for Circulation,look for neck pulse for 10 seconds.If its not felt ,you should go ahead with external cardiac compressions.

To know the cardiac compression steps and recovery positions ,keep reading my forthcoming blog posts and don't forget any step in case of an emergency. A simple step of yours can bring life and smile into someones family.