Pardon me, sir, do you need emergency first aid?

Sorry to break the news but most people aren’t going to be able to tell you they need emergency first aid help.

We can talk all day long about being prepared to deliver life-saving treatment but it doesn’t do anyone a whole lot of good if you can’t recognize when they are suffering from a symptom that needs immediate attention in the first place. How can you distinguish an illness as an emergency and when is it time to call for help?

The most common sudden onset illnesses you might run into are the following:

1. Choking
2. Asthma
3. Stroke
4. Heart attack
5. Broken bone

Would you know what to do in each of these instances? More importantly, will you be the one to immediately recognize there is an emergency AND take action? It’s easy to wait for someone else, assuming anyone would have more experience than you but the patient could die while bystanders hem and haw about whether or not help is needed.

It normally takes an ambulance or first responder up to six minutes to arrive on scene after being called. This makes the first order business to MAKE THE CALL or have someone else do it while you get busy trying to keep the person alive for that length of time. 360 seconds can seem like an awful long time.

Next time we’ll go into specific symptoms to watch for.

The Holistic Survival Team