Hey all I just came across an emergency situation irl that I felt useless in because of how slowly I was thinking. Basically it was someone getting an epileptic seizure and I had the info in my head for what to do but I did end up freezing a bit before I did anything. Really didn’t like it. The person is fine now but if I had reacted faster, we might have been able to prevent a couple problems.

I’ve been in other emergencies before where I had to call the shots but I guess I want to think faster and keep it consistent at a higher level, and I want to improve on it for future scenarios, but what can I do to do that?

Edit: Just wanted to say thanks for everyone’s replies, I’ll be looking into a routine to acclimate myself with these kinds of situations

  • snooggumsEnglish
    15·
    9 months ago

    The majority of effort for emergency preparedness is repetition so you don’t have to think about it. Understanding is good too, but in a lot of cases you shouldn’t be taking action based on speed if you don’t know the right thing.

    For example, it is generally better to just make sure someone having a seizure has room and isn’t going to fall off something. Things like sticking stuff in their mouth like in the movies is a terrible idea that makes the situation worse, so not acting is actually better than acting most of the time in the case of seizures.

    As a counterexample choking requires immediate and correct actions. Some things will expel the object and others will get it stuck in a harder to expel location, so bboth time and foreknowledge is important.

    All you can do is learn about the right things to do, such as taking a first aid class, and practicing them so you don’t need to think about what to do.