Many drowning people find themselves in the water unexpectedly, for example when a boat capsizes or falls from a pier or bridge. Others are unable to stay afloat for various reasons - due to inability to swim, fatigue, poisoning by poisonous sea animals, intoxication, due to a heart attack.
Young children can drown by falling into the toilet if left unattended. Even an adult can drown in a bathtub with very little water, or choke in a bucket of water (see “How to Prevent Drowning”).
Symptoms
Even the most skilled swimmer can have an accident in the water. Be alert if you notice the following signs:
- difficulty breathing;
- signals for help (although some drowning people cannot give them);
- floundering with almost no progress.
Do not rush to save a drowning person by swimming without special training. It can pull you under water too.
Do not overestimate your strength when rushing to help. Know your physical limits.
Symptoms after rescue
A drowning person pulled out of the water may be unconscious or in a state of stupor (decreased level of consciousness). He may be scared, irritated, restless or inhibited. Other symptoms at this point may include:
- rapid, slow or absent pulse;
- irregular heartbeat;
- shallow or choking breathing;
- vomiting;
- low body temperature (if a person drowned in cold water);
- cough with pink frothy sputum;
- bloating;
- pale or bluish skin tone;
- cardiac arrest.
LET'S LOOK MORE CAREFULLY
What happens when a person drowns
Diving under water is dangerous to life, but not directly for the reason that can be assumed - inhalation of water. This does begin a dangerous sequence of events, but what is truly destructive is the lack of oxygen in the body.
Path to ruin
When submerged under water, a person inhales or swallows water. So he tries to hold his breath. This increases the amount of carbon dioxide in the blood.
At some point, the level of carbon dioxide affects the respiratory center in the brain, the person begins to breathe again and inhales even more water. Then vomiting begins, the person swallows water again, then loses consciousness, convulsions begin, and he inhales water again.
What happens when the larynx is blocked
In some people, the larynx becomes blocked after inhaling water. The airways become blocked and due to lack of oxygen the person stops breathing and loses consciousness.
Cold water survival
Some people - especially young children - who have drowned in cold (below 12°C) water survive without brain damage. In such a situation, artificial respiration and cardiac massage should be started immediately and continued until the rescued person begins to breathe on his own. This may continue for several hours.
What to do
If you decide to save a drowning person, remember that if you act incorrectly, you can both drown. For example, a drowning person may drag you underwater in .
Therefore, it is better to save a drowning person by handing him something or throwing a life preserver. Here different ways rescuing drowning people.
Standing on the shore, extend your hand or some object to the drowning person: an oar, a stick, a chair, a board, a rope, a tree branch.
Throw a drowning person a life preserver tied to your boat, pier, pole, or edge of the pool.
To help someone drowning in shallow water, go into the water, but not deeper than your waist. Stretch a stick, a board, throw a rope, a circle. Then drag the drowning person to a safe place.
If there is a boat, swim to the drowning man. Let him try to grab the side while you row towards shore. If he can't hold on, try to pull him on board, carefully so as not to capsize the boat.
How to prevent drowning
The best way is to follow safety rules when swimming. If you spend time near water, familiarize yourself with safety precautions.
Don't swim alone. Remember the basic rule: if everyone is responsible for the other, no one can slip under the water unnoticed.
Do not dive in shallow water unless you know how deep the water is.
Before swimming or boating, do not drink alcohol or take medications that cause drowsiness.
In winter, do not walk on ice unless you are sure of its strength.
Do not sled from the shore if the ice is unstable.
In spring, never drive on a road that is closed due to a river flood.
Keep children away from unexpectedly flooded streams. The child may not understand that the stream where he splashed last summer has now become a roaring torrent that can carry him away. It is even better not to leave children near water unattended at all.
SECONDS COUNT
When you reach the victim, check if he is breathing. If not, immediately begin artificial respiration (mouth-to-mouth method), even before you have completely pulled the drowning person out of the water. Call an ambulance immediately. Do artificial respiration even in a boat or in shallow water. Then place the victim on a hard surface and continue with your actions. If you know how, proceed to indirect cardiac massage (see,).
- Don't waste time trying to empty your lungs of water. If the rescued person is not breathing, immediately begin artificial respiration.
- Do not rush to interrupt your actions: this method requires time for breathing to recover. Continue until rescue services arrive. If you are tired, ask someone to relieve you.
- If you suspect a neck injury, do not move the victim unless there is a direct danger to his or your life. If you still need to move it, place a board. If a person is lying face down in the water, gently roll them over, keeping their head, neck, and body in a straight line (see "Take Care of the Victim's Neck").
Protect the victim's neck
Every year, many people dive shallow or get injured while surfing. In this case, some injure the neck or spine, which can lead to.
That's why it's important to know what to do—and what not to do—if you have a diving or surfing accident. Correct actions will help a person avoid injury.
Send someone for an ambulance immediately.
If doctors can arrive soon, wait. They have everything you need for neck injuries.
If help is not forthcoming, you will have to move the victim. An assistant will be needed for this. Remember the main rule when moving victims with a neck or back injury: the head, neck and torso must be in one line at all times.
If the victim is lying face down, carefully turn him over. While he is still in the water, place a board under him so that it reaches his buttocks. Use it to pull the victim out of the water. If there is no board, gently pull it under your arms.
Do not drag the victim sideways. Make sure his head remains in line with his body at all times.
Leave the victim lying on the board. Don't move it unless absolutely necessary.
If you need to perform artificial respiration or chest compressions, move the victim as little as possible. For example, lift your chin no more than necessary to allow air into the airways.
In places where there are bodies of water, there is always a danger of drowning. In winter, fishermen may not calculate the thickness of the ice and end up trapped in ice. And in warm time year, the number of victims increases several times. Any person who is a good swimmer should know the rules for rescuing a drowning person on the water. After all, having necessary information, you can not only help a person, but also protect yourself from an accident.
You must be able to calculate your strength and act very quickly. After all, a person’s life is in your hands, and any delay is fraught with grave consequences. In the first minutes, it is much easier to resuscitate a drowning person. After all, the water will not yet have time to enter the alveoli of the lungs.
Causes of tragic incidents
While on vacation, people relax, lose the ability to think rationally and often overestimate their strength. Those who know how to swim try to swim far into the sea, showing their skills. Having warmed up in the sun, beachgoers go to cool off in cold water. Not everyone knows that a sudden change in temperature can cause a cramp in the leg or arms. The parents were distracted and did not look after the child. Children do not yet have a sense of fear and can go deep without understanding the consequences.
A separate group includes extreme sports enthusiasts who are chasing adrenaline, doing everything necessary for this. They swim in a storm, jump from a cliff into the water, go on rubber boat far out to sea. People who are intoxicated often become victims of deep water. They, as the saying goes, are knee-deep in the sea.
The first signs of a drowning person
Before you rush into the water to save a drowning person, you need to make sure that the person is really drowning. How can this be recognized from the shore?
- The position of a drowning person's body is usually vertical.
- His hands are raised up, and he seems to be trying to grab something with them. But in reality he just splashes his hands on the water.
- The head rises above the water and then disappears.
- At first, a person can scream and call for help, but if he no longer has the strength, he remains silent. Children almost always do not scream, but simply open their mouths wide in horror, trying to grab air.
- If a person does not answer the question: “Are you all right?”, then this is a sign of trouble that has happened to him.
The first actions of the rescuer
Before you rush to save a drowning man, you need to think about the situation. Be sure to ask someone to call water rescue and emergency services. If possible, you need to quickly take off your clothes. If this cannot be done, then you need to at least turn the pockets outward. Be sure to take off your shoes. After all, water quickly accumulates, which interferes with movements and pulls strongly to the bottom.
It makes sense to throw yourself into the water to save a drowning person if the rescuer can swim well. Health allows you to withstand strong loads, since a drowning person can instinctively grab his rescuer tightly, hit him, pull him to the bottom, and drown him. You need to be prepared for such a turn of events and know how to get out of strong hands a desperate man.
You also need to check where it is best to start rescuing a drowning person. It is advisable to choose the most the nearest point on the shore. It is better to run more along the shore than to swim further on the water. You should also not jump into the water in an unfamiliar place, as there may be pitfalls there. Need to come in quickly.
When rescuing a person, take some kind of floating device with you: an inflatable ring, a ball, a board. Any object that a drowning person can grab onto will be useful. Otherwise, he will have to hold on only to you and it will be a problem to bring him to shore.
If you have to rescue a fisherman who has fallen under the ice, then you cannot approach him while standing, you must advance while lying on the ice. You can give him a long stick, a net, a ladder, or a whole fishing rod. You can create a chain of people lying on the ice and holding each other. This will be the safest way.
How to provide assistance correctly?
To quickly swim to a drowning person, it is better to use the crawl style of swimming. You should always approach the victim from behind. Since a person experiencing a panic state is able to hit you, start drowning you, block your movements and pose a threat. This must be remembered and guarded against.
If you can’t swim up to him from behind, then you need to dive under the person and grab him tightly under the knee. With your free hand, sharply push the other knee forward and, thus, turn the victim’s back to you.
When the drowning person is already with his back to you, you need to grab his armpit with your right hand right hand and firmly fixing it, float to the surface of the water. You need to move towards the shore on your back, supporting the person’s head above the water.
How to protect yourself?
Actions when rescuing a drowning person are associated with great risk. A drowning person is frightened, in a state of shock and may grab his rescuer with his hands. This threatens the death of a person who wants to help. You need to be able to act correctly in such situations and, without losing your mind, use force to free yourself from the deadly embrace.
When getting rid of the grip, you need to twist yourself, press on your chin, twist your arms reverse side, but don't release it. You need to try to wriggle out sharply, while explaining and reassuring the person with words.
How to tow a drowning person to shore?
Methods for rescuing drowning people can be different, depending on the situation and how much the person resists and in what condition he is. As a rule, a person is towed while lying on his back or side. You can hold him by the head, armpits, by the arm in the shoulder area, by the hair or collar if he is wearing clothes.
When delivering a person to shore, you need to carefully ensure that his head is above the surface of the water at all times so that it does not get into his respiratory tract. When a rescuer swims sideways, he can navigate the terrain and choose the shortest route for rescue.
If the lifeguard had the opportunity to take life-saving equipment from the shore, such as a circle or a ball, that people have on the beach, then the drowning person must be forced to clasp them with his hands. Of course, if the person is still conscious.
Types of drowning
The actions to take when rescuing a drowning person depend on the type of drowning. There are three types of them.
- White asphyxia, otherwise this type is also called imaginary drowning. From fear of water getting into the lungs, a person reflexively experiences a spasm, breathing stops and the heart stops. Such a drowned person can be revived after 20 minutes.
- Blue asphyxia occurs when water enters the alveoli of the lungs. By appearance This is easy for a person to understand. The face, ears, lips, fingers acquire purple shade skin. This one needs to be rescued urgently; the rescuer only has 5 minutes left.
- The next type of drowning occurs when there is depression of nervous processes. This happens under the influence of alcohol or hypothermia of the body. Rescue is given from 5 to 10 minutes.
First aid
When rescuing a drowning person, you must first check for breathing and a heartbeat. If vital signs are present, then you need to remove his wet clothes and lay him down so that his head is down or on his side. Cover warm blanket. If a person is able to drink, then you can give him a warm drink.
When a person is unconscious, you need to get down on one knee, put the person with his stomach on the other knee, head down. Try to clear the sand from his mouth and straighten his tongue forward to prevent it from sticking. The water that has entered the body should pour out. Only after this should resuscitation begin. According to the rules for saving a drowning person, you need to do artificial respiration and chest compressions.
Resuscitation measures
To carry out artificial respiration, a person is placed on a hard surface with a cushion under the neck. For a person to begin to breathe, his lungs must fill with air. To do this, the rescuer takes a deep breath, bends over the mouth of the drowned person and exhales into his respiratory tract. If the chest rises, it means that air has entered his lungs. This should be done every 1-2 seconds. There should be at least 30 exhalations per minute.
During breaks, cardiac massage is performed. It's better when it's done by a second person. The palms of two hands are placed on the person’s chest in the area of the heart, one on top of the other. Rhythmically and strongly pressing on the sternum. You need to do 15 presses in 10 seconds. Resuscitation continues until the person comes to his senses. This can happen for quite a long time. But under no circumstances should we stop. According to statistics, most of the rescued people did not survive only because resuscitation efforts were stopped.
Be sure to call an ambulance, because rescuing a drowning person in the water is a lengthy process.
Today I want to continue the topic summer holiday, but with a bias about water.
Of course, I would like the essence of the article to be as easy as its beginning, but, unfortunately, it won’t work out that way. After all, the sun is getting hotter and hotter. The water in the sea and other bodies of water is warming up. The number of picnics is increasing. The temperature in the body of many people rises, and sanity often fades into the background. The result is drowning. Moreover, as statistics and news reports show, people, despite all the warnings and other preventive measures, continue to drown. The reason in most cases is heat, alcohol, water - convulsion, loss of consciousness...
Our minds can replace the ellipsis in the previous paragraph with “drowned man,” but I want to replace them with “saved person,” who next time will be more conscious about the issue of his own safety on the water.
Let's look, dear readers, at how we can help in a situation when a person begins to drown and needs the help of another person. Moreover, after pulling a person out of the water, you also need to provide him with first aid. So…
Help for a drowning person. What to do?
If you see a drowning person, no matter how trite it sounds, you must:
1. Pull a person out of the water;
2. Call an ambulance;
3. Provide him with pre-medical care.
These 3 points, if performed correctly and quickly, are actually the key to a successful completion of the situation. Delays are not acceptable!
1. We pull a drowning person out of the water
A drowning person in most cases panics, does not hear words, and does not understand what is happening. He grabs onto everything he can and thereby becomes dangerous for the person who wants to save him.
If the person is conscious
To pull a person out of the water, if he is conscious, throw him a floating object - an inflatable ball, board, rope, etc. so that he can grab onto it and calm down. This way you can easily pull it out.
If the person is unconscious or exhausted:
1. While still on the shore, get as close to the drowning person as possible. Be sure to take off your shoes, excess clothes (or at least heavy ones), and empty your pockets. Jump into the water and approach the drowning man.
2. If the person has already gone under water, dive after him and try to see him or feel him.
3. Once you find the person, turn him over onto his back. If the drowning person starts to grab onto you, quickly get rid of his grip:
- if a drowning person grabs you by the neck or torso, then grab him by the lower back with one hand, and with the other hand push his head away, resting on his chin;
- if you grab the hand, then twist it and pull it out of the hands of the drowning person.
If such methods do not help get rid of the grip, then take air into your lungs and dive, the drowning person will change the grip, and you can free yourself from it at this time.
Try to act calmly and do not show cruelty to the drowning person.
4. Transport the drowning person to shore. There are several methods for this:
- being from behind, clasp your chin with your palms on both sides and row your feet towards the shore;
- stick yours in left hand under the armpit of the drowning person’s left hand, at the same time, grab the wrist of his right hand with your left hand, row with your feet and one hand;
- take the victim’s hair with your hand and place his head on your forearm, row with your feet and one hand.
2. First aid for a drowning person (First aid)
When you have pulled the victim ashore, urgently call an ambulance and begin immediately providing him with first aid.
1. Get down on one knee next to the injured person. Place him on your knee, belly down, and open his mouth. At the same time, press with your hands on his back so that the water he swallowed flows out. The victim may experience and - this is normal.
If a person is semi-conscious and begins to vomit, do not let them lie on their back, otherwise they may choke on the vomit. If necessary, help remove it from oral cavity vomit, mud or other substances that interfere with normal breathing.
2. Lay the victim on his back and remove excess clothing. Place something under his head to raise it a little. To do this, you can use his own clothes, rolled into a roller, or your knees.
3. If a person does not breathe for 1-2 minutes, it can be fatal.
Signs of cardiac arrest are: absence of pulse, breathing, dilated pupils.
If these signs are present, immediately begin to take resuscitation measures - do “mouth to mouth” and.
Take a deep breath into your lungs, pinch the victim's nose, bring your mouth close to the victim's mouth and exhale. It is necessary to make 1 exhalation every 4 seconds (15 exhalations per minute).
Place your palms on top of each other on the victim's chest, between his nipples. In pauses between exhalations (during artificial respiration), do 4 rhythmic presses. Press on the chest quite firmly so that the sternum moves down by about 4-5 cm, but no more, so as not to aggravate the situation and further harm the person.
If the injured person is elderly, then the pressure should be gentle. If the victim is a child, apply pressure not with your palm, but with your fingers.
Perform artificial respiration and chest compressions until the person comes to his senses. Don't give up and don't give up. There have been cases when a person came to his senses even after an hour of such measures.
It is most convenient for two people to resuscitate, so that one does artificial respiration, and the other.
4. After breathing has been restored, until the ambulance arrives, place the person on his side so that he is lying steadily, cover him and warm him.
If the ambulance cannot arrive, but you have a car, complete all the above points in the car while driving to the nearest medical facility.
May the Lord protect us all, dear readers, from such situations.
Help for a drowning person - video
Compliance with water safety measures reduces the likelihood of an accident several times, but cannot prevent it completely.
To save a drowning person, you need to know certain rules, and some of them are useful even to those who cannot swim. We are talking about providing assistance to a drowning person from the shore, when there is no need to rush into the water.
Providing assistance to a drowning person from the shore
If you find yourself in a situation where you need to rescue a person who is drowning close to the shore (or to a boat), there is no need to panic. First of all, shout for help to attract the attention of others: among them there may be excellent swimmers. Try to find some object that floats well on the surface of the water and throw it to the drowning person. This could be a car camera, a board, a large plastic bottle- any means that he can grab onto and make it at least a little easier to maintain himself on the surface. If the distance from the shore (boat) to the drowning person is small, try to give him a long stick or throw a rope that he can grab onto.
If it happens on the beach, then vacationers will always have inflatable rings and mattresses.
The lifeguard station must also have a life preserver. It is bright red, made of polystyrene foam and has a rope around its circumference that you can grab onto with your hand. When throwing a lifebuoy, carefully calculate your strength: it is quite heavy - 7 kg - and can cause a blow to the head of the person being rescued. When the circle lowers onto the water near a drowning person, he takes hold of it with his hands and, with the help of movements of his legs, approaches the shore; if he is unable to do this due to fatigue, then he simply stays in one place, holding on to the circle, and waits for rescuers. The safest thing is for a drowning person to put the ring on himself.
To do this, you should under no circumstances dive under the circle. You need to press on its nearest edge, and the circle will stand perpendicular to the surface of the water, after which it can be put on (first the head is inserted, then the arms, shoulders, and finally the person being rescued spreads his elbows to the sides and places his hands on the circle).
If the circle is tied to a long rope, the end of which is on the shore, the rescued person can be pulled to the shore.
Rescuers at the station may have special balls on a long rope, which are also effective for rescuing drowning people near the shore. Even if a rescuer has already rushed to the drowning person, do not hesitate to throw the swimming device: you cannot know how much strength the drowning person will have to stay on the surface.
Providing assistance to a drowning person by swimming and transporting him
Remember: if you do not have sufficient swimming skills to jump into the water and swim to save a person, do not do it. It’s better to call for help on the shore: rescuers will arrive quickly or good swimmers will respond. Now the opposite rule: if you are an excellent swimmer and see a drowning person, be sure to save him.
There can be no other choice in the matter of saving lives.
First, try to quickly assess the situation.
If the incident occurred close to the shore, you can throw a lifebuoy or other floating objects to the drowning person. If there is a boat nearby, it is better to use it than to cover the required distance by swimming.
In the case where a drowning person is in a river, it is necessary to take into account its current: never swim against him. It is better to run upstream to swim to the drowning person.
Always try to reduce the distance you need to swim to reach a drowning person.
Do not jump into the water with your clothes on: when they get wet, they make it difficult to move in the water. Take off your clothes and definitely your shoes and quickly but carefully enter the water to swim to the drowning person. Do not jump into the water head down: it is dangerous, and you still have to save the person. Swim up to the drowning man so that he does not see you. Otherwise, he will try to cling to you and you will both go under water. If this does happen, take a breath, hold your breath and go down groaning. Underwater, he will begin to choke and will try to get to the surface as soon as possible, releasing you. Now you can begin transporting the person being rescued. If the victim is tired from fighting water element, but is quite capable of controlling his actions and is ready to follow instructions, the following method is best for transporting him to the shore. The rescuer swims breaststroke, and the person being rescued holds on to him from behind, with his hands on his shoulders, while helping him move forward with small alternating crawl kicks.
If the victim is exhausted and does not respond adequately to the rescuer’s commands, then he must be transported independently in several ways.
1) Transport on the back. While in a supine position, the rescuer takes the drowning person by the lower jaw with both hands; in this case, the rescuer’s palms are placed over the cheeks and ears of the person being rescued, so that the latter’s head is above the water and he can breathe. It turns out that the shoulders of the person being rescued are placed above the hips of the rescuer, who can now swim on his back using breaststroke kicks and transport the victim.
2) Transport on its side. The rescuer puts the drowning person on his back, puts his right hand under his right hand from the back and with the same hand takes him by the chin so that the rescued person’s head is above the water and he can breathe.
Now the rescuer swims to the shore or to the boat, making strokes with his left hand and pushing off with his feet. You can transport the victim on the other side (depending on what is more convenient for the rescuer).
3) Transportation of a resisting drowning person. It may happen that the victim is in an extremely excited state, constantly tries to cling to the rescuer and interferes with him. Then the rescuer puts his right hand between the right hand and the back of the drowning man and takes him by the left shoulder. Now the rescuer swims to the shore or boat, making strokes with his left hand and pushing off with his feet. You can transport the victim on the other side (depending on what is more convenient for the rescuer).
Of course, this is very hard work- transportation of a drowning person. Its weight can greatly exceed the weight of the rescuer. If you are helping a drowning person not alone, but together with other swimmers, you can take turns transporting him. Giving the person being rescued a flotation device to hold onto will make transport much easier. Having delivered the victim to shore, it is necessary to immediately begin providing first aid.
First aid
Immediately after delivering the victim to shore, he must be given first aid. What it will be like depends on the well-being of the person saved. If he is just frightened by what happened and is cold, rub his body with a dry towel and dress him in dry, warm clothes so that he warms up and comes to his senses. A hot drink can also be a good way to warm up.
If the victim has lost consciousness, but is breathing normally, and his pulse is palpable, then give him a sniff to revive him. ammonia(should be in any car first aid kit) and warm up: rub with a towel, put on warm, dry clothes and provide a hot drink. When the victim is not breathing, but his pulse is still palpable, immediately call an ambulance medical care and before she arrives, begin performing artificial respiration on the drowning person.
The same should be done if the drowned person has no breathing or heartbeat.
To return the victim to life, the following steps are performed.
1) Clearing the airways. To prepare a rescued person for artificial respiration, you must first clear his upper respiratory tract and stomach of water.
To do this, place the victim with his stomach on the thigh of your bent leg so that his head is significantly lower than his body. Using gauze or a handkerchief, clear the mouth cavity of sand, silt, mucus and then press with your hands on the body of the rescued person: this will free his lungs and stomach from water.
Clean your mouth again. It is advisable to spend no more than 20-30 seconds clearing the airways and freeing them of water. Now, if the victim has no pulse, you need to proceed to artificial respiration.
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2) Artificial respiration.
Artificial respiration is performed until the victim begins to breathe on his own. The simplest, but at the same time effective way artificial respiration - “mouth to mouth”. Lay the rescued person on a hard, flat surface and tilt his head back as much as possible so that the tongue does not cover the larynx. Kneel to the side of the victim's head. Hold his head and neck with one hand and pinch his nose with the other hand. Inhale deeply and, pressing your mouth tightly through the scarf to the victim’s mouth, exhale. If after your exhalation the chest of the drowning person rises, it means that his airways are passable and you are performing artificial respiration correctly. Wait until the chest drops and continue to inflate the victim. Do the first 5-10 inhalations quickly - within 20-30 s, all subsequent ones - at a rate of 11-12 exhalations per minute. Perform artificial respiration until an ambulance arrives or until the victim can breathe on his own.
3) Indirect cardiac massage.
If the victim does not have a pulse after artificial respiration, you need to start chest compressions.
It should be performed precisely after artificial respiration, and then these two types of first aid should be alternated until the vital functions of the victim’s body are completely resumed
Start performing chest compressions after 4-5 blows of air have been made into the victim’s mouth. Stand to the side of him and place your hands at an angle of 90' bottom part sternum; in this case, the palms are one on top of the other. Raise your fingers so that short and energetic thrusts on the sternum are carried out only with the help of your palms overlapping each other.
The sternum of a drowning person should fall under the pressure of the hands by 4-5 cm towards the spine. During the push, mechanical compression of the heart occurs and blood is pushed out of it into the aorta. After you have made a push, relax your hands without removing them from the sternum (at this time the heart cavity is again filled with blood from the veins). Perform indirect cardiac massage at a normal heart rate - 60-70 times per minute. It turns out that one compression lasts approximately 1 s.
It is very important to correctly alternate between artificial respiration and chest compressions. Under no circumstances should they be performed simultaneously. First, do 1-2 air injections, then immediately - from 5 to 15 pressures on the sternum (pressure is applied while the victim is exhaling). Artificial respiration should be performed for 60-90 minutes until the rescued person begins to breathe. Signs of the victim returning to life are the appearance of a pulse (in rhythm with the rhythm of the massage), pinkish color of the skin and mucous membranes, constriction of the pupils, restoration of independent breathing. Still, it is not recommended to stop performing artificial respiration until the medical team arrives. There are known cases of drowned people returning to life even after 1.5 hours from the start of first aid.
WATER RESCUE. HELP FOR A DROWNING PERSON.
On a hike, when near various bodies of water, people usually swim. Unfortunately, this is far from a safe process: it can drag you into a whirlpool, it can tighten your muscles, you can even simply slide off the shore without having the desire to swim. In any case, the victim needs urgent help.
This article will discuss two key points of water rescue:
- Pulling out a drowning person;
- Providing first aid.
So let's get started.
RESCUE FROM WATER.
The rescue process itself can become dangerous for the rescuer. The fact is that a drowning person panics, frantically grabs everything he can reach and, at the same time, his thinking is clouded by adrenaline, which is why he may not respond to words of help.
In addition, do not forget that speed is extremely important in salvation. If blood circulation is disrupted for more than 5 minutes, the victim's brain will most likely be damaged.
To reduce the risk, the rescuer is recommended to take the following steps: If the drowning person is able to fight for life, throw him the end of a rope, a board, or any floating object. If the drowning person has already lost strength or consciousness, do the following:
- Get as close to the victim as possible along the shore;
- Remove shoes and outerwear;
- Turn out the pockets - water may accumulate in them, making movement difficult;
- Jump into the water and swim to the drowning man;
- If the victim goes under water, dive and try to see him, and if visibility is poor, feel him;
- Try to turn him over onto his back;
- In case of interference caused by the reflex movements of a drowning person, free yourself from the grips as quickly as possible. This is done like this:
- If you are grabbed by the torso or neck, grab the drowning person by the lower back, and with the other hand push his head away, resting on his chin;
- When grabbed by the hand, twist it and pull it out of the hands of the drowning person;
- If these methods do not help, take air into your lungs and dive;
- The victim will try to change his grip, and you will be able to free yourself;
- Try to act calmly and without showing unnecessary cruelty.
Transport the victim to the shore is recommended in one of the following ways:
- grab the victim’s head from behind on both sides by the chin with your palms, row with only your legs;
- slide your left hand under the armpit of his left arm and grab the wrist of his right arm. row with one arm and legs;
- Taking the victim by the hair with one hand and holding his head above the water, placing it on your forearm, row with the other hand and legs.
FIRST AID
After you have pulled the victim ashore, he needs to be resuscitated. To do this, first help the victim get rid of water in internal organs. This is done like this:
- Kneel on one knee next to the victim;
- Place him on his stomach on his knee and open his mouth;
- By pressing your hands on your back and in the stomach area, help the water flow out.
Then the victim should be given artificial respiration and, if necessary, indirect cardiac massage:
- Undress the victim and place him on his back;
- Kneel before him. It is most convenient to place the victim’s head on his knees or some kind of elevation, for example a cushion made of clothing;
- Take air into your lungs, pinch the victim’s nose and, bringing your mouth closer to the victim’s mouth, exhale;
- Most the best option there will be one exhalation every 4 seconds, that is, 15 exhalations per minute;
- To perform chest compressions, place your palms on top of each other on the victim’s chest between the nipples. In the pauses between exhalations, do 4 rhythmic presses. You need to press quite hard on the chest, so that the sternum moves down about 5 cm.
It is most convenient to resuscitate a choked person together: one does artificial respiration, and the other does a massage.
SAFE HIKINGS TO YOU