Poles cannot provide first aid? “I was afraid I would break his ribs”

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We all know this view: the street, the accident, the injured and… a crowd of paralyzed onlookers. Someone is calling for an ambulance, someone swaying in their steps is trying to come closer and see what happened. There are no real, quick actions. Why? What makes us afraid to provide first aid? Karol Bączkowski, paramedic and first aid trainer, talks about how to overcome fear, what mistakes to avoid and what to do to help paramedics effectively help our loved ones.

1. One of the most common reasons for not giving first aid is fear of the consequences. “People are afraid that if they do something wrong, we’ll blame them and they’ll be in trouble.” They forget that they can get into trouble because they won’t give it. Many also believe that it is enough to call for help and this means that the obligation to provide first aid is fulfilled. It does not mean – says Karol Bączkowski
2. The lifeguard draws attention to the fact that people often have bad ideas, which are a straightforward way to intervene by the ambulance: – Recently a “hit” was a man whom I passed on the street: he was riding a bicycle and reading a book at the same time. We’ll probably meet at some point 
3. According to the trainer, the most difficult thing is to help a loved one. – It is much more physically and mentally demanding, but this element of stress and adrenaline motivates us to act at the same time. We enter superhero mode, we know that no one will do it for us – there is me and a man who lies down and needs help. You have to act 
4. More information can be found on the Onet homepage

Paulina Wójtowicz, MedTvoiLokony: When thinking about first aid, we most often think of having an accident or fainting in the street, which often requires CPR. Meanwhile, there are many more situations when you need to save someone. Which are the most common?

Karol Bączkowski *: Ambulance interventions most often occur at home. On the spot, we find all kinds of spikes in blood pressure, malaise related to chest pain, heart attacks, strokes, epilepsy attacks, burns, and injuries – especially in children. Unfortunately, people cannot really help in these situations. Basic knowledge is lacking, for example that the burn should be cooled for longer than less, that the foreign body is not removed from the body, that in the event of bleeding, a tight dressing must be applied and the limb lifted.

These aren’t the only myths around first aid. Let’s debunk a few of them.

When a man loses consciousness, it is not necessary to put his head between his knees, below the heart. For common sense – it is easier to put him on the ground and possibly raise his legs so that he does not suffocate. When it’s lying down, we are better able to open the airways.

We do not put anything in the mouth of a person with an epilepsy. Notoriously, when we come to such a call, the injured person has a stick or a fork in his mouth and a wounded mouth. This myth is related to the belief that a person can swallow his own language. This is not true, a man can choke on his tongue, but not swallow it.

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From another plot: after leaving the treatment room, after blood collection, we often bend the arm, and we should leave it straight and press the puncture site. Or nose bleeding and tilting the head back – that’s a mistake, because that’s how we swallow blood and we can choke on it.

And the quintessence of the resistance to helping a person who is not breathing: I will not compress my chest because I will break ribs. I have been breaking people’s chests professionally for over 14 years, because this is always the case and we will not run away from it. It is normal for the chest to burst under the influence of thousands of compressions in a short period of time, and it should not stop anyone from helping.

People in general fear that if they do something wrong, we’ll blame them and they’ll be in trouble. They forget that they can get into trouble because they won’t give it. Many also believe that it is enough to call for help and this means that the obligation to provide first aid is fulfilled. Does not mean.

The rest of the text below the video.

How to overcome the fear of helping?

It is definitely worth having items with you, the possession of which will increase the psychological comfort that we have the tools to help. Telephone to call for professional help, disposable gloves not to be afraid of getting infected, first aid kit. It helps that we are not alone, there is always more fun with someone, plus there is a second pair of hands to help, for example to make a phone call. Knowledge also gives comfort, that is, that we were on a first aid course.

1. See also: Car first aid kit – what should it contain and how to store it?

Who is the most difficult to provide first aid?

As for the type of relationship, it is definitely a close person, because this is where a powerful emotional charge comes into play. When it comes to emotions, it is much more difficult for us to act, call for help, express ourselves. We are afraid to do it effectively and strongly, because we can harm a loved one, not a stranger.

mgr rat. med. Karol Bączkowski

Time becomes countless in the face of stress. He runs, he is like lightning, it seems to us that eternity has passed, and we are only two minutes behind us. It is much more physically and mentally stressful, but this element of stress and adrenaline also motivates us to act. We enter superhero mode, we know that no one will do it for us – there is me and a man who lies down and needs help. You have to act.

Such a lot of stress can also be paralyzing.

Yes, but it doesn’t have to be a literal, physical paralysis of the body. At the scene, we often find “rescuers” who not only fail to save, but also panic, shout at those who want to help, including us – that we are doing something wrong, compressing the chest too much, causing harm, and vulgarisms. It’s not helping.

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There are probably more types of behavior that make it difficult for rescuers to work. What should we do when providing first aid to improve the intervention of an ambulance service that comes to the scene, for example to the victim’s home?

It certainly makes our work easier to listen to the dispatcher giving precise instructions on what to do before the ambulance arrives. The preparation of the apartment for our arrival also has a significant impact, i.e. closing the animals in the other room, so that we do not have to struggle with the dog, which sees us as strangers.

1. When and how to call an ambulance, and when not to do it?

An easy communication route helps, i.e. when we do not have a cluttered corridor or room and we can easily enter there in a cardiology chair or bring a stretcher to evacuate the patient, because he cannot always leave by himself. Unfortunately, most of us have cramped flats, packed with furniture, and sometimes it is enough to remove the shoe cabinet from the hall before the arrival of the ambulance and the rescue operation becomes more efficient. It makes our work easier, when at home she is not smoked with cigarettes, you can breathe freely.

It works great when people are prepared on the level of the list of drugs they are taking – they will take out boxes with doses, the last discharge from the hospital, the results of recent tests, a list of possible allergies.

It’s a bit like preparing for a Christmas carol. After all, no one invites a priest and says: “Please wait, I will only vacuum, ventilate and set the table”. Preparing the apartment for an ambulance visit, unless it is an emergency, where every minute of action counts and we devote it to first aid, is very helpful.

What surprises you most about the people during such interventions?

On the positive side, people are trying to act after all. They can or cannot provide first aid, they try to do something, they do not wait for the ambulance to arrive with their arms crossed. They work intuitively and do a great job, especially when they are well motivated by the dispatcher and listen carefully to instructions. The negative is that they have bad ideas.

What?

Prosaic, such as driving a car without wearing seat belts and explaining that “I have never had an accident”. It is always the first time, often with dire consequences.

Or letting your child ride a bike or scooter without a helmet. On the spot, I find a surprised parent saying that “he has never capsized, he has been doing great so far”. And all this despite the sight of a child with a bleeding head. I am surprised by the parents who do not do it themselves – that is, they drive without a helmet. There are also those who do not have it themselves, but require them from children – this is no science, because when a child decides whether to put on a helmet or not, he will not do it because it did not have the appropriate pattern.

However, recently a man I passed on the street was a “hit”: he was riding a bicycle and reading a book at the same time. We’ll probably meet at some point.

You mentioned children. Apparently, it is them that is the most difficult to provide first aid. Why?

The procedure itself does not differ significantly from the one we use in adults. It is modified for initial rescue breaths. The point is that children are smaller, and their heads are usually disproportionate to the rest of the body, which can cause injuries. They have a lower body weight, so we dose the drugs differently. Children also have a not fully developed mechanism of thermoregulation, other airways, tighter, so they are more likely to be short of breath. Besides, they react differently to strangers, they are afraid and cry. There are many differences. Added to all this is the fact that when something happens to them, their parents are most often with them. And here we come back to the topic of providing first aid to a loved one and the emotions associated with it.

Polish parent can help his child?

Differently. In general, if a person has a child and cannot help him, we are in a big question mark. You have to get ahead of the facts, learn it. It is not difficult to buy a first aid kit and be happy that you have one. You should know what’s in it, how and when to use it, so as not to think about when an event will surprise you. It is essential to learn the Heimlich maneuver for children who are very likely to choke.

What is the most difficult moment for first aid?

Approach a person in need and check if they are breathing. This is by far the greatest stress: go the distance of 10, 15 or 20 meters and approach a person who has just fainted in the street, has been hit by a car or has fallen from a height.

Stress subsides once we know what we are dealing with?

If a person in need is breathing, that’s for sure. Okay, we are in a crisis, I agree, but we also have a living, breathing human and a bit more time. We clear the respiratory tract, call for help and wait for it, supporting this person. The pressure goes down. When there is no breath, the tension also drops – in the sense that we already know where we stand and that we must act. Adrenaline is kicking in. We call for help and start chest compressions.

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Oppressions are one thing, there is also the mouth-to-mouth method. It has always been controversial. Is it not necessary then? Can someone’s life be saved by skipping this stage?

We would have to go back to what we do chest compressions for. We do it in order to push the blood with oxygen to the brain, slow down the processes of its death due to hypoxia. In this way, we want to buy more time for nerve cells while waiting for the ambulance service to arrive. So we can slow down the dying process by just doing chest compressions and wait for the rescuers to arrive. Of course, this amount of time bought is also relative and depends on many factors, especially how much has passed since the event, i.e. when the brain is hypoxic and how efficiently we have operated.

There is a lot of talk about first aid situations. There are such, but when is it better not to do it?

We do not help when it is too dangerous. When someone or something – human or animal – can hurt us. It is dangerous at night, when the terrain is unknown and unsecured, when we are not secured, we do not have the appropriate equipment. You should definitely not jump into a fire, into a burning car, climb at height without protection, disregarding the warning signs. We do not avoid situations when there is a lot of blood and biological material, but we must always wear protective gloves.

1. How to provide first aid not to get infected with the coronavirus?

I have the impression that Poles approach first aid according to the saying “I want to, but I’m afraid”. How does it look from your perspective? Are we really afraid to save others?

We are afraid like all people in the world. Fear stems from the lack of education and the neglect of the state apparatus, which does not notice this problem at all. First aid and health are hardly talked about in schools, so people are not aware of how important it is. The state throws the obligation to provide first aid on the citizens and is satisfied, because “it will be somehow”.

And it will be?

Only if there is a change, both at the level of the system and education. There are not enough rescuers, i.e. those who provide first aid most often. Another group are nurses, among whom almost every third is already of retirement age. It takes people not only to educate themselves in first aid, but also to be able to pass this knowledge and skills on.

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There is a need for systemic solutions, at least for medical high schools, but also for introducing health science to the school curriculum, if not earlier. Children could learn there not only first aid, but also about diseases that may affect them: obesity, diabetes, depression, posture defects. In a word: about what has a direct impact on our health and may lead to a situation that one day we will need someone to give us first aid.

The effects will not be immediate.

And this is unstoppable for the rulers. But these effects will be when, in 10-15 years, these children and teenagers are consciously making certain choices, including saving another person’s life. In 20 years, they will have their children to whom they can say: margarine is not a good idea, white bread is not a good idea and other things that are related vessels and may lead to the introduction of restrictions on the sale of some products that are extremely harmful, like those with excess sugar or palm oil.

What does this have to do with first aid?

Well it does. A person who is sick, will burden the system, need help, call an ambulance, go to the Emergency Room. These are huge costs that could be avoided in the future if we tackled it now.

So education is the basis, but we also have problems with that. We don’t want to help because we can’t, but we don’t want to learn either. In addition, it is knowledge that needs to be refreshed.

The rule is simple: to be good at something, you have to learn it and train it. It’s like working in a gym: you can’t go once and get the effect. You have to practice, refresh, ask and prove yourself. Hopefully as rarely as possible, but when it comes to a situation when it is necessary to provide first aid, so that we can and would like to do it.

We encourage you to listen to the latest episode of the RESET podcast. This time we devote it to emotions. Often times, a particular sight, sound or smell brings to mind a similar situation that we have already experienced. What opportunities does this give us? How does our body react to such an emotion? You will hear about this and many other aspects related to emotions below.

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