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This explains what CPR and choking help are, and how they work. It is not a course, and reading it does not certify you. A hands-on class with a dummy is worth far more than any page.
If someone is in danger right now, stop reading. Call your local emergency number. Put the phone on speaker.
The steps here follow guidance that is shared across most countries. The emergency number is not. Ours says "your emergency number" for that reason. Look yours up now, before you need it.
Plenty of people watch someone collapse and do nothing. Not because they do not care. Because they are afraid of getting it wrong.
That fear is backwards. The person's heart has stopped. They cannot get worse. Only doing nothing keeps them there.
These two words get swapped all the time, and they are different problems.
A heart attack is a blocked pipe. Blood cannot reach part of the muscle. The person is usually awake. They can talk. Something hurts.
Cardiac arrest is the pump stopping. No blood moves anywhere. The person drops, and they do not answer you.
Sort what you would see.
Tap an item, then a bucket
You do not need to find a pulse. Even nurses get that wrong under pressure.
Shout at them and shake their shoulders. Do they respond? Then watch their chest for up to ten seconds. Is it rising normally?
No, and no. That is your answer. Start.
A collapsed man takes a long, noisy gasp every few seconds. What is happening?
Call your emergency number before you start pushing. Put it on speaker and set the phone down beside you.
The person on that line will count with you. They will also tell you where the nearest defibrillator is. You do not have to remember anything. They have it written down.
Kneel beside them. They need to be on their back, on something firm.
Put the heel of one hand on the middle of the chest. Put your other hand on top. Lace your fingers together. Lock your elbows straight and lean your shoulders over your hands.
Your body weight does the work, not your arms.
Push down about five to six centimetres. That is roughly two inches. It is deeper than feels polite. That is the whole point.
Let the chest come all the way back up between pushes. The heart only refills when you let go.
The rate is a hundred to a hundred and twenty pushes a minute. That is about two a second. Faster than most people guess.
Rescuers are taught to hum a song with the right beat. Any song at that speed works. Pick one you actually know.
Counting out loud works too, and it keeps you breathing. Under pressure, most people speed up and go shallow without noticing.
For a teenager or adult who suddenly collapses, pushing alone is enough. Their blood still holds oxygen. What it lacks is a pump.
If you are unwilling or unsure about breaths, do not stop to think about it. St John Ambulance says to give continuous chest compressions instead.
A child is pulled from a pool and is not breathing. Do breaths matter here?
Pushing correctly can crack the cartilage that joins ribs to the breastbone. It makes a sound people never forget.
Cartilage heals. A brain without blood does not. If you feel or hear that, keep going. It is not a signal to stop.
A defibrillator is the box in a case in shopping centres and stations. Open it and turn it on. It talks you through everything after that.
It reads the heart before it does anything. If a shock would not help, it will not give one. You cannot use it on the wrong person.
You are the only person in the room with a man who has collapsed.
Put these in order
This is hard work, and tired arms go shallow without noticing.
If someone else is there, trade places about every two minutes. Swap fast, during a single beat, so the chest is barely still.
Choking looks urgent and usually is not, at first. The test is one question, and it decides everything you do next.
Ask them: are you choking?
Someone at dinner is coughing hard and can just about say your name. What should you do?
No cough. No sound. No air. Now you help, and quickly.
Help them lean forward, and hold their upper body with one hand. With the heel of your other hand, hit sharply between the shoulder blades. Five of those. Check their mouth after each one.
If five blows do not clear it, stand behind them. Put your arms round their waist.
Make a fist between the belly button and the bottom of the chest. Grab your fist with your other hand. Pull sharply inwards and upwards. Five of those, then back to five blows. Keep going.
Call your emergency number if the blockage has not cleared. If they stop responding, start CPR.
A one-year-old is choking and silent. Do you use the same waist grip?
You cannot get your arms round yourself with any force.
Use a chair back, a counter edge, or a railing. Press the top of it into your belly, just above the button, and drop your weight. That is the same movement, with furniture doing the pulling.
Almost nobody freezes because they forgot the depth in centimetres. They freeze because starting means deciding it is really happening.
So decide now, while nothing is happening. If someone drops and does not answer, you will push on their chest.
Look up your emergency number and say it out loud.
Then find the nearest defibrillator to where you live or work. Many countries have a public map of them. Knowing where one is turns a search into a fetch.