Rule Number One for Handling an Emergency is to _____

August 5, 2022 admin 144 Views

Download Article

An emergency is whatsoever situation that poses an immediate threat to a person’s health, security, holding, or environment. Knowing how to assess the signs that make up an emergency will help yous know how to handle it. In improver, existence well-prepared for an emergency will pay off when it’south time to handle whatever emergency state of affairs.

1
Remain at-home.
Although emergencies require rapid action, the nigh important factor in finer handling the situation is to keep calm. If you find yourself becoming confused or anxious, stop what y’all’re doing. Take a few deep breaths to assist yourself relax. Remember that to be calm in a stressful situation you must deliberately adjust your behavior. Acting calm volition as well help other people nearby relax too. Reassure yourself that you tin can handle the situation.^[1]
- The reason you feel panicked in an emergency is the result of your body’southward automatic overproduction of the stress hormone cortisol. The cortisol goes to the brain and slows down the pre-frontal cortex, which is the region responsible for planning complex action.
- By overriding your trunk’s reaction, you can continue to admission your disquisitional thinking faculties. You won’t be responding from emotion but from rational thought. Look around and assess the situation to see what needs to be washed before acting.
ii
Seek additional help.
In the Us, phone call 911 for emergency assistance. Utilise whatsoever number applies to phone call emergency services outside the U.S. This phone number will reach an emergency dispatcher who will need to know your location and the nature of the emergency.
- Answer all of the questions the dispatcher asks. The job of the dispatcher is to provide quick, appropriate emergency response. She tin only exercise this by asking these questions.
- If you’re calling on a traditional telephone or a GPS-equipped cell phone, emergency services may be able to rails your location even if you’re unable to speak. Even if you can’t talk, telephone call emergency services and someone will exist able to observe you to provide help.
- It may be a good idea to become over how you would communicate during an emergency, peculiarly if you have a reason to await an emergency might arise.
Advertisement
3
Make up one’s mind the nature of the emergency.
What signs indicate that at that place is an emergency? Is this a medical emergency, or is there a threat to the property/edifice that may result in homo injury? Information technology’s important to terminate and take inventory of the state of affairs calmly before reacting to the emergency.^[2]
- An injury due to a motor vehicle accident, smoke inhalation, or burns from a fire are examples of medical emergency situations.
- A medical emergency consists of sudden physical symptoms, such every bit seizure, intense bleeding, head trauma, loss of consciousness, chest pain, lack of breath or pulse, choking, sudden dizziness, or weakness.
- Intense want to hurt yourself or someone else constitutes a mental health emergency.
- Other mental health changes may also be considered an emergency, such as sudden changes in behavior or experiencing confusion, which tin be an emergency if they occur without cause.
- Behavioral emergencies are best met past remaining calm, watching from a short distance, and encouraging the person in crisis to stay calm as well. This way you tin can react appropriately if the state of affairs becomes volatile.
4
Know that sudden changes can be emergencies.
Chemical spills, fires, breaking water pipes, electrical outages, natural disasters such equally floods or fires are all examples of potential workplace emergencies. If you have advanced warning of the possibility of an emergency, such as the warning of a alluvion, heavy snowfall, tornado, etc., you may be better prepared. However, the nature of an emergency is to exist unexpected.^[iii]
- When assessing emergency situations, be aware that the state of affairs may be volatile. It may modify rapidly.
- If y’all have accelerate warning of an emergency, gear up alee of time for the best results.
5
Be warning for human-caused emergencies.
Assaults or threats of violence at a workplace or home are emergencies that call for rapid response. In about cases, in that location are no predictable patterns or methods for these emergencies. These situations tend to be unpredictable, and they change apace.^[4]
- If you notice yourself in an emergency of this nature, keep yourself safety. Run to a safety location, or detect shelter in identify. Do non fight, except every bit a last resort.
- Being attentive to alert signs in your workplace, including whatever human action of physical violence (pushing, shoving, etc.) should be immediate. Your function should have a procedure for workplace violence, including a phone number you can telephone call to report the situation. If you lot don’t know your office’s procedures, ask your supervisor or a trusted coworker.
- Open up, honest communication between employees and supervisors is part of maintaining a safe, healthy workplace.
6
Assess the immediate threat.
For instance, if one person appears injured, are you or anyone else in danger of also being injured? For case, if one person is caught in a car, is the machine turned off? If in that location has been a chemical spill, is the spill spreading towards anyone else? Is the person caught in a structure that’s collapsing?
- If the threat isn’t contained, this will affect your response.
- Be aware that any emergency situation may change abruptly, and then ongoing assessment is required.
7
Remove yourself from danger.
If y’all, or others, are at risk of being harmed, exit the situation immediately. If you have an evacuation plan, follow it. Go to an surface area where you will be safe.
- In a situation where y’all cannot leave, find the safest possible location inside your given area. For case, hiding beneath a solid surface, such as a desk or table, may aid if there is a chance of being hit by falling debris.
- If you’re about a car accident, make sure you’re not in the line of oncoming traffic. Get off the road.
- Exist aware that in an emergency, elements are probable to modify quickly. In your cess, find if volatile or flammable elements are present. For instance, in an car accident, gasoline may catch burn abruptly.
8
Help others get out a hazardous area.
If you can safely assist someone else in leaving a dangerous situation, do so. If returning to the emergency situation is risky, a trained rescue person may exist improve equipped to retrieve anyone in harm’s way.
- Offering exact reassurance to an injured person if he is conscious will aid another person, even if yous tin’t movement them. Let that person know who yous are and what is happening to them. Ask them questions to continue them conscious.
- If the emergency is stable, stay with the victim.

Advertising

1
Make up one’s mind if you can practice annihilation to help.
The most important thing you can do is to remain calm, stay in control of the situation, and call for help. Sometimes there is nothing that you can do, and that’south fine. Don’t be worried about admitting that at that place’s nothing y’all can do to help.
- If others on the scene are upset or fearful, reassure them. Utilize them in going to get help.
- It’s better to remain with someone in a supportive way than to do an action that may result in additional damage. If you’re non certain what to do, simply stay with the person. If possible, accept their pulse, make notes of events as they happen, and ask them about their medical history. This is information you may need when talking to the emergency team.
two
Take time to call back before acting.
Beingness in an emergency state of affairs tin result in panicked thinking and actions. Instead of reacting to a situation, take time to calm down. Exhale securely earlier you have any action.
- Things change suddenly in emergency situations. Don’t panic if things suddenly go in a unlike management than you’d expected.
- Have fourth dimension to pause whenever you’re overwhelmed, panicky, or dislocated. If you demand to terminate in the middle of taking an activeness to at-home down, that’southward okay.
3
Get the outset aid kit.
A kickoff aid kit should accept constructive tools for taking care of many medical emergencies. Any first aid kit should incorporate bandages, gauze, adhesive record, disinfectant, and other useful items.^[five]
- If y’all can’t retrieve the commencement help kit, consider what other items in your immediate vicinity might be good substitutes.
- You should keep a first aid kit at your abode, and your workplace is required by police force to maintain a first aid kit.
- A good first assist kit should also have a “space blanket” which is a light-weight piece of special cloth meant to conserve body heat. This is a vital piece of equipment for people who are chilled or shaking, equally it can help keep them from going into shock.
four
Ask basic questions of the injured person.
It’s important to discern the mental land of the victim in guild to better understand the person’s injuries. If the person appears confused by the question or provides the wrong respond, this may suggest additional injuries. If you’re not sure if the victim is unconscious, bear on their shoulder. Shout or enquire loudly, “Are you lot okay?”^[vi]
- Questions you lot should inquire include: What is your name? What is the date? How old are you?
- If they do not respond to questions, yous can try rubbing their chest or pinching their earlobe to proceed them witting. You lot can also gently touch the eyelids to see if they will open.
- Once you’ve determined the bones mental status of the person, cheque with them about whatever medical complications. Ask them if they have a medical alert bracelet or some other medical ID.
5
Avoid moving an injured person.
If someone has a cervix injury, moving him could result in injuring the spine. E’er call emergency services if someone has a cervix injury and is unable to motion.^[7]
- If the person can’t walk because of leg or foot injuries, y’all can help motility them by holding them at the shoulders.
- If the person is afraid to get out a dangerous situation, respond with reassurance.
6
Employ the telephone merely to ask for help.
Your full attention should be on the nowadays state of affairs, and talking on the telephone is distracting. In addition, if you lot are on an older model telephone, the emergency dispatcher may be trying to reach yous. Stay off the phone unless you lot’re calling to ask for help.
- If you’re not certain if you’re in a true emergency, call emergency services and the dispatcher can aid you figure out if emergency officials should be sent.
- Don’t endeavour to document the emergency unless you are sure you are out of danger. Taking “selfies” or posting about your state of affairs on social media in ongoing emergency situations may result in boosted injury and legal complications.

1
Have an emergency plan.
The best response in an emergency situation is to follow the emergency plan of your home or workplace. Certain people may exist identified as emergency leaders, with special training. In an emergency, you volition save necessary time and energy by following the plan and your designated leader, even if you don’t fully agree with them.^[8]
- Your emergency plan should accept an associates place to gather once you’ve evacuated the dwelling house or edifice.
- Go along emergency phone numbers posted near the phone.
- Important medical data should exist stored on your phone or in your wallet.
two
Know your physical address.
You’ll demand to know your location in order to tell any emergency dispatcher where to send help. While it may exist piece of cake to know the address of your dwelling, it’south likewise important to memorize the address of your workplace. Get into the habit of checking the address wherever you lot are.^[ix]
- If you don’t know the physical address, be ready to say the name of the street you’re on and whatsoever nearby intersections or landmarks.
- If your cell phone has GPS, you lot tin can employ it to determine your physical accost. However, this wastes much needed time in an emergency.
three
Identify your closest exits.
Ever be aware of the exits to any building y’all’re in, whether they’re home, part, or commercial locations. Identify at least 2 exits, in instance ane is blocked. In a workplace or public location, exits should be clearly marked.^[10]
- Cull 2 places where you tin regather with your family or coworkers. One location should be outside the dwelling house or workplace. The other location should be outside the immediate vicinity, in case the neighborhood is dangerous.
- Emergency exits should be physically accessible, according to ADA laws.
4
Take a get-go help class.
Having a first assist kit isn’t helpful unless yous accept training to use it. Having preparation to properly employ bandages, compresses, tourniquets and other tools will help in an emergency. The Red Cross regularly offers these courses in almost areas of the Us.^[11]
- Many Red Cross courses are as well offered online.
- First aid courses can exist age-specific. If yous have children, or just want to know how to aid children in example of an emergency, take a get-go aid course specific to profitable children in an emergency. If you piece of work with children, you lot’ll be required by law to receive this training.
5
Consider taking CPR in addition to first aid.
Having CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) grooming is a life-saving help for someone having a heart attack. If you haven’t taken a CPR course, you can nevertheless offering chest compressions for someone suspected of having a heart attack.^[12]
- A breast pinch is hard pressure applied swiftly to the ribcage at the rate of 100 compressions per infinitesimal, or just over i per 2nd.
- CPR for children and infants is taught by the Carmine Cross. If you accept children, take a grade in providing CPR for children in social club to be prepared in case of an emergency. If you piece of work with children, you may be required by law to receive this training.
6
Know what chemicals are found in your home or workplace.
If an emergency occurs in your workplace, you should know where to detect the MSDS (Material Data Safety Sheet) for whatever chemical used. Having a list of the chemicals used in your home or workplace, together with any first aid measures required in case of emergency, will be the most effective mode you can set for emergency situations.^[13]
- Your workplace should take an eyewash station if yous regularly come into contact with chancy chemicals.
- Brand sure you are prepared to share whatsoever relevant data regarding chemicals with your emergency response team.
seven
Go on emergency phone numbers posted near the phone.
Postal service the number for 911 also as other of import medical telephone numbers, including the phone numbers of family members who should be contacted. The phone number of the poison command center, ambulance eye, your doctors’ telephone numbers should be posted alongside contact numbers of neighbors or nearby friends or relatives, and work telephone numbers.^[14]
- All members of your house, including your children, should be able to access these telephone numbers in case of an emergency.
- For children, elderly people, or disabled people, consider having a posted script to help them call back what to tell others when calling on the phone with an emergency state of affairs. You tin even role play with them to become over the script and teach them proper actions for different emergency situations.
8
Wearable a medical ID tag if yous have a chronic health condition.
If you have a status that a medical response team should be aware of, such equally diabetes, certain allergies, epilepsy or other seizure disorder, or other medical weather, a medical ID tag can provide this information should you exist unable to.^[fifteen]
- Most medical responders look on a person’s wrist for medical ID tags. The second almost common place to expect is at the person’s neck, as a necklace.
- People with disabilities and health conditions, such equally Tourette syndrome, autism, dementia, etc., may wish to consider wearing medical ID badges to help any emergency responder better sympathize their needs and behavior.

Add together New Question

Question

What am i supposed to say when I call an emergency number?

Jurdy Dugdale is a Registered Nurse in Florida. She received her Nursing License from the Florida Board of Nursing in 1989.

Medical Review Board

Expert Reply

Y’all state the emergency and location that you are in. You can then tell them what y’all know near the scene.
Question

What you would if yous witnessed any class of abuse in a care setting?

Jurdy Dugdale is a Registered Nurse in Florida. She received her Nursing License from the Florida Lath of Nursing in 1989.

Medical Review Lath

Practiced Answer

I would commencement talk to my immediate supervisor. If I did not get the required response I would write information technology downwardly formally and present it higher than my supervisor. it is ok to use the name of the person you suspect every bit the abuser.
Question

What should I do during a pyschiatric emergency?

Dr. Padam Bhatia is a board certified Psychiatrist who runs Elevate Psychiatry, based in Miami, Florida. He specializes in treating patients with a combination of traditional medicine and evidence-based holistic therapies. He besides specializes in electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), compassionate use, and complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Dr. Bhatia is a diplomat of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and a Young man of the American Psychiatric Association (FAPA). He received an MD from Sidney Kimmel Medical College and has served equally the chief resident in adult psychiatry at Zucker Hillside Infirmary in New York.

Board Certified Psychiatrist

Adept Answer

In an emergency, a psychiatric risk assessment is crucial to understanding what level of care that patient needs. If y’all’re a lay person and you’re with someone who’south in a lot of distress, start with validation. Brand sure that person understands that what they’re feeling is okay. And then, proceed on to meet if they’re willing to take help. Going to the nearest emergency room sounds similar a very big step to take, but if you’ve been validating them, it may be easier.
Question

How do I deal with an injured person in an emergency situation when they’re exposed to further injury?

Luba Lee, FNP-BC is a lath certified Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) and educator in Tennessee with over a decade of clinical feel. Luba has certifications in Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS), Emergency Medicine, Advanced Cardiac Life Back up (ACLS), Team Building, and Critical Care Nursing. She received her Master of Scientific discipline in Nursing (MSN) from the Academy of Tennessee in 2006.

Master’s Caste, Nursing, University of Tennessee Knoxville

Adept Answer

It depends on the situation. For case, if a person is having a seizure, help them gently to the floor into a recovery position on their side, loosen clothes effectually their cervix, remove spectacles and protect their caput by placing a coat or blanket underneath it.

Inquire a Question

200 characters left

Include your email address to get a message when this question is answered.

Submit

Make sure everyone in your home or workplace knows where starting time aid kits are kept.
Keep a first assistance kit in your auto.
You may wish to take an out-of-area emergency contact, in case all local phone lines are total.

Advert

Don’t hang upward on an emergency dispatcher until you’re told it’due south okay to exercise and so.
Never movement someone with a neck injury.
Don’t identify a pillow nether the head of someone who’s unconscious, as this might result in spinal injury.
Don’t leave workplace doors propped open. Emergency exits should open up from the inside, preventing unauthorized people to enter.
Never give an unconscious person food or drinkable.

Advert

About This Article

Article Summary
X

To handle an emergency situation, start by calling 911, or the advisable emergency services number if yous’re outside the U.Due south. If someone is injured, endeavour asking questions like “What’s your proper name?” and “Where does it hurt?” to see if yous can help in whatsoever way while you wait for the paramedics. Alternatively, if the situation is a workplace emergency like a burn down or chemic spill, evacuate the expanse immediately and get to a safety place, like the parking lot. In a situation where you can’t go out the premises, observe the safest location inside your area, similar underneath a desk or table.
For more communication from our Medical reviewer, including how to set your habitation and workplace for an emergency, keep reading.

Did this summary help yous?

Thanks to all authors for creating a folio that has been read 384,550 times.

Did this commodity assistance you?