“Education is learning what you didn’t even know you didn’t know.”
- Daniel J. Boorstin
A blocked airway can kill someone in four to five minutes, but it can take more than nine minutes for an ambulance to arrive. So a simple procedure such as opening someone’s airway can save their life while they’re waiting for emergency medical help.
Here are some quick and easy first-aid tricks that can ease pain, stabilize an injury, and keep you in one piece until you can get to an E.R.
1. You were stung by a bee.
Take a straight edge, like a butter knife or paring knife, and scrape away the stinger. Forget the tweezers. Once tweezers clamp on the stinger, it releases the venom. This will save you the agony of the poison in your blood: After removing the stinger with the straight edge, mix baking soda with water to form a thick paste and slap it on ASAP. The sting is produced by an acid, and if you put baking soda on as soon as you can, it neutralizes that acid.
2. You have a first-degree burn.
Icing cuts circulation, and you need healthy blood cells for healing. Instead, expel excess heat by running cool water over the burn for several minutes, then cut an onion in half and let it rest on the wound. Onions contain a mild analgesic which is supposed to help heal first degree burns.
3. Your tooth is killing you.
First, make an appointment with your dentist. Then suck on a clove near the throbbing chopper. The oil in the clove acts as a mild local anesthetic. Plus, it will freshen that dragon mouth. You could also wrap an ice cube and rub it on the V-shaped soft spot of your hand, where the bones of your thumb and index finger meet. The cold, rubbing sensation travels on the same pathway to the brain as tooth pain, and by icing your hand, you override the signals from your mouth.
4. You sliced off a small piece of a digit.
Here’s the trick: Stop the bleeding and speed repair by gluing on the missing part. Run water over both the wound and the chunk you lop-ped off. Put the piece back in place and apply pressure. If you’re short on tape or Band-Aids, you can use superglue. Emergency rooms use a similar acrylic-based resin called Dermabond. Then head to the E.R. to show off your handiwork.
5. You have a nosebleed.
Don’t put your head between your knees or tip your head back. The latter is especially bad because you can breathe the blood into your lungs or get it in your stomach and vomit. Press the fleshy part of your nose, and not the part where your glasses sit — lower than that — as if you are trying to stop a bad smell. Now — and this is the important part — press firmly for a complete 10 minutes by the clock. People don’t do that, they let up every three seconds to see if it stopped. Ten minutes!
6. You’re choking.
If you are choking and alone, you can perform the Heimlich maneuver on yourself by giving yourself abdominal thrusts. Or position yourself over the back of a chair or against a railing or counter and press forcefully enough into it so that the thrust dislodges the object.
7. You sprained something.
Fashion a makeshift brace. Here’s what to do: Slip on a snug high-top sneaker to brace your ankle. It gives the same support as an air cast. To lock down a wrist, place the fat side of a spatula in your palm, with the handle pointing toward your elbow, and tape it in place. Then head to the E.R.
8. Your hand is full of thorns.
Coax them out with candle wax or duct tape. Here’s how to do it: Light a candle and pour melted wax on the hand, let the wax harden, then peel it off. This should free the more stubborn spines. Then use the sticky side of duct tape or roll a lint brush over the area to pick up the stragglers. Gently, of course.
9. You can’t remove a stuck ring.
Here a great trick: Pass an end of fine string or dental floss under the ring. With the other end, begin tightly wrapping the string around the finger. Ensure that the string is wrapped evenly and smoothly past the lower knuckle. With the end that was passed under the ring, begin unwrapping the string in the same direction. The ring should move over the string as the string is unwrapped. If the ring cannot be removed, unwrap the string and go to a hospital emergency department.
10. You feel like puking.
Sailors swear by ginger to suppress seasickness and general nausea. But there’s an acupuncture technique that works just as well if you’re feeling queasy. Find the pressure point “pericardium number six”: From the heel of your palm, measure three finger widths toward your elbow. In the center of the wrist area, tape a golf ball snug against that point, and your stomach should calm down.
Everyone should learn at least the basic first aid techniques. You may need to use them at any time at home, at school or work or even while you’re traveling. Knowing what to do can make the difference to a person’s recovery.
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Cindy
Oh this is very useful. ^^ Thank you!
October 14, 2007 at 6:39 pm
Ben Gray
Great list! But hey … wait … where’s the tutorial on how to open a closed airway as described in the opening paragraph? I was really interested to find that out.
October 15, 2007 at 8:34 am
s t e v e b r o o m e . c o m » 10 Fast First Aid Fixes
[...] Here are 10 Quick & Easy First Aid Tricks that can relieve pain, stabilize an injury and/or keep you in one piece until you can get to the ER. I always thought tweezers were the tool for removing a singer after a bee sting. I was wrong. [...]
October 15, 2007 at 9:23 am
alex
Um, you mentioned a blocked airway, but didn’t actually say how to reopen it. Unless you are referring to Heimlich maneuver, but I didn’t get that as related.
a blocked airway doesn’t always mean food.
October 15, 2007 at 9:35 am
Capt. Jean-Luc Pikachu
Mythbusters tried ginger for nausea, and it worked… They tried the P6 acupuncture point and it didn’t. YMMV.
October 15, 2007 at 11:16 am
Ernie Dufour
Good to know.. onions and burns.. did not know that.
October 15, 2007 at 11:26 am
Joy
These first aid tips are very helpful. I will always keep them in mind. ^^
Thanks for posting!..^^
October 15, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Shawn
Another good one is to use Cayenne Pepper to stop bleeding. I cut the tip of my nose of in a freak shaving incident in the shower (No, I’m not kidding) and used that trick to stop the seemingly endless stream of blood. The powdery consistency aids in clotting, and the oils in the pepper constrict the capillaries.
Shawn
October 15, 2007 at 10:17 pm
Andy
Very helpful and interesing advices . Can be very helpful any in circumstance.
October 15, 2007 at 10:47 pm
Free Classifieds
The one to prevent puking is really useful I guess. I think applying pressure along should be good enough.
Will try that next time when at the tabled rinking.
October 16, 2007 at 1:42 am
bernard
If you feel like puking the best remedy is……….
………PUKE!!!!!
December 28, 2007 at 2:33 pm
Nathan
Smiling also suppress the gag reflex
December 28, 2007 at 7:20 pm
Steve Y
I agree with Bernard about the puking thing, especially if it is the result of drinking too much alcohol. Your body is trying to tell you something when it says PUKE. So just do it! It would be more helpful to come up with ways to make yourself puke, when you don’t have Ipecack readily available. I hate the hours of nausea waiting to puke. For sea-sickness, I would agree with the article, but would also add ‘get off of the boat.’
February 26, 2008 at 9:15 am
Steve Y
Warm salt water rinse (as salty as you can stand) and aspirin/ibuprofen can dull toothache pain.
February 26, 2008 at 9:19 am
Weight Lifting Complete
Great list. How about adding something about getting stuck under a barbell full of weights when you’re doing bench press? What do you do then? Dump the weight. What if the collars are still on the barbell?
May 25, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Don
1. You were stung by a bee.
Pull the stinger out like a man. Wuss.
2. You have a first-degree burn.
I told you not to touch that!
3. Your tooth is killing you.
Have some more candy, fatty.
4. You sliced off a small piece of a digit.
Stay out of the kitchen, you can’t cook anyway.
5. You have a nosebleed.
That other guy better have one too.
6. You’re choking.
See, those teeth are important!
7. You sprained something.
Lose some weight chubby, your ankles aren’t made of titanium.
8. Your hand is full of thorns.
Gardening is not for you.
9. You can’t remove a stuck ring.
Really, it’s time to cut back on the cupcakes.
10. You feel like puking.
Some people never listen…
September 9, 2009 at 12:13 pm
pariah
How to open a blocked airway. Get a sharp pointed knife and a Bick Pen with the ink cartridge and end removed. With the open knife in one hand feel for your Adams Apple. Just below that should be a soft gap just above the Hyoid Bone. Thrust the blade about 1 – 1.5 inches in. You should feel / hear air come out of your neck. Make the cut big enough for the pen cartridge to fit. Insert the cartridge until you can breath through it and hold pressure over the site until the bleeding stops.
I’ve done this many times on myself and it works like a charm.
Oh, call an ambulance shortly thereafter although they probably won’t be able to understand what you’re trying to say.
September 14, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Brent
In reference to the weightlifting comment, you can avoid that by a) asking for a spotter or b) using the power rack as an artificial spotter. If you truly fail on a heavy lift, you are an idiot for not doing one of the above. However, if you don’t have the collars on, you can dump the weight on one side. Or, if it’s lighter, you can roll the weight down past your stomach to your pelvis so you can sit up. Then you can either ask for help or simply stand with the weight and set it down.
Also, this list is terrible. I only read the first few – the bee sting is right, but onion? On a burn? No, fuck that. Have you ever eaten a strong onion? It burns and stings. Imagine that on a burn. No. Put some burn cream on it.
Next – superglue the digit? No, what you do is you put the severed digit in a bag and then put it on ice. That way you can actually have it reattached nerves and all. If you superglue it, you have no blood vessels and no nerves reattached. Good luck with the gangrene there. Seriously. They use the superglue after they reconnect things. That’s as far as I got and that’s as far as I will get.
September 14, 2009 at 10:52 pm