Learn First Aid Vocabulary in English – It could save your life!

Hi.

Welcome to www.engvid.com.

I'm Adam.

In today's video we're going to look at: "First Aid".

Basically, taking care of somebody during an emergency if some bad thing happened, like

a car accident or you fell down while mountain climbing, or anything bad that happened where

you got injured or wounded, you're going to be receiving first aid before they get you

to the hospital where they're going to take care of you.

So, first, as the name implies, first aid is the first thing they do

when the emergency happened.

Somebody will call 911.

In some countries I'm pretty sure it's 119, but again, wherever you are make sure you

know the emergency number for EMS, the emergency medical services.

Basically these are the people that send the ambulance and come in the ambulance.

They're also called first responders.

They're the first people to respond to the call to come and make sure everything's okay

or to try to make everything okay.

The people who drive the ambulance are called paramedics.

Okay? You will also find paramedics in fire trucks.

Usually ambulances and fire trucks come together.

The fire trucks have a lot more equipment on them.

Now, the first thing they're going to want to do is figure out what's going on, so they're

going to assess the situation.

Right? They're going to look around, see what kind of injury's involved, what kind of action

they need to take, for example.

But sometimes they come, they see blood everywhere, right away they know they need to stabilize.

"Stabilize" means make stable, means if somebody's bleeding, first stop the bleeding.

If somebody is having a heart attack or somebody's in shock, stop that situation first before

you do-excuse me-anything else.

Now, one of the things they're also going to do is demobilize.

"Demobilize" means make sure that the person who is injured doesn't move.

Can't move, can't be moved.

Okay?

They will put him in a straight line, make sure that everything is secure so if he moves

or she does even more damage, that's not a good thing.

So, stabilize, demobilize, assess what's going on.

And then what you're going to do is you're going to administer first aid.

So we don't do first aid, we don't make first aid.

We administer.

It basically means, like, give, but we...

This is the more common word.

You can say give first aid and you attend to the person, means you take care of them,

you figure out what they need, give them that.

Okay?

Now, in some cases they're going to have to defibrillate.

They're going to use a defibrillator.

This is a machine that sends an electric shock into the body.

So if someone's having a heart attack, for example, and their heart just stops beating,

they're going to take the two paddles, they're going to charge the machine with electricity,

going to put them two paddles, and: "Whoom", send electricity into the body, get that heart

pumping again.

So this machine is called a defibrillator.

The action is to defibrillate.

Okay?

Now, it is becoming more and more common to see these machines in all kinds of areas;

on planes and trains they have them, in many public places they have a machine ready just

in case somebody needs it.

Hopefully not.

Something else they might have to do is give CPR, cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

To resuscitate basically means to bring back to life.

So CPR, if somebody stops breathing, if the lungs stop pumping air in and out of the body,

then they're going to have to give CPR, administer CPR.

Somebody will have...

They can have a bag with a pump or somebody will just have to put their mouth on your

mouth and blow air into your lungs.

Fill the lungs, push it out, fill the lungs, push it out, make sure everything is okay

until the lungs start basically working by themselves.

So that's called CPR.

Another thing they may do, they may...

Again, this is part of the demobilizing, they're going to put a neck brace around your neck.

It's a... Basically it's a piece of hard cloth, it's thick, they put it around so you can't move

your head.

If you injured your neck and you're moving around, you could end up being paralyzed.

Okay?

Paralyzed...

If you become paralyzed means you've damaged your spine, the bone down your back and you

won't be able to move your legs, maybe you won't be able to move your upper body.

Not a good situation.

So they put a neck brace so you can't do any damage to your spine.

Then they will put you on a stretcher, it's a long board, sometimes with wheels if it's

the ambulance.

Otherwise, like for example, soldiers, they just have a board.

They put you on there, they make sure you're secure, then they lift you up and carry you

to the hospital.

Okay?

So these are the first steps, but just because this is the main things that the ambulance

guys do... Excuse me.

The paramedics, it doesn't mean that you can't also administer first aid for somewhat more

minor things. Okay?

So it's very important that you keep and always have ready a first aid kit.

So we're going to look at what a...

What should be inside a first aid kit now.

Okay, so everybody should have a first aid kit ready somewhere.

You should have one at home, maybe have one in your car.

Especially if you're going to go on a road trip, make sure you have one with you.

If you're going to go to some remote areas where there aren't phones or towns or hospitals,

take a first aid kit with you.

So, basically, the essentials of a first aid kit are a bandage.

If you got a small cut, this is like a sticky basically cloth and you put it over the cut,

and it stops the cut, absorbs the blood, and then you go on and you fix it later.

If you...

If you have a very deep cut, then you're probably going to need stitches.

Now, some people are not very comfortable taking a needle and thread, and sewing themselves.

So what you want to do is you want to put gauze on it, you want to stop the bleeding,

get to a hospital quickly and they will put stiches in for you.

They will basically join the skin together with a stapler or with needle, and close it.

Gauze, you've all seen it, it's this white sheet, you can see through it.

It's very light with lots of little holes.

And you wrap it around the wound and you...

But before that, you put some antiseptic, you clean it first of all, and then you wrap

it, you put a dressing on it.

So this gauze is called a dressing.

Okay?

But before that you clean it.

How do you clean it?

With antiseptic.

You can have pads, so like they're little packets, they're wet.

You use it to clean, and then you put the gauze.

Some people take a whole bottle of alcohol and some cotton pads, and they clean it off.

You might want to put some antiseptic ointment.

Ointment is like a...

Basically like a little liquid.

It's thick, it comes in a tube.

If you have a burn or if you have a cut, you put the ointment on the...

On the wounded area basically, and then you dress it with some gauze.

Okay?

You should also have tweezers.

Tweezers are like...

Like little metal things, like you can pick things out with.

Like if you have a splinter.

Okay? I'll put it here. Splinter.

If you're walking in the woods and a very small piece of wood goes into your skin, it

hurts a lot so you want to pick it out.

Right? So they're little tweezers, they can do that.

Or scissors, so you can cut the gauze and whatever else you need.

And a splint.

So if you break something, if you break a bone and you need to basically make it stable,

you want to make it straight and not move around too much, you use a splint.

Or if you need to basically...

So you broke the arm or the shoulder, you put the arm here, you put a little thing,

a splint on it, and it doesn't move around so you don't damage it even more.

Now, there's many things that can happen in any situation.

You can get injured or you can get wounded.

Injury is internal.

You won't see it, but you'll definitely know about it.

It'll be very painful.

A wound is on the outside.

You will bleed or there'll be something very visible.

So, a fracture.

A fracture basically means you've broken a bone.

Okay?

Now, the bone can be...

Let's say this is a bone for...

If you have any pets you know what this looks like.

A break is like this.

A fracture is basically down the bone. Right?

Either way you need to go to the hospital to take care of it.

A tear.

If you... Inside you have muscles.

If you tore a muscle you might not be able to move very much.

Not very much you can do with first aid, but you help the person be as stable as possible,

get them to the hospital.

If somebody has a bruise, you will see the black or blue, or whatever colour it turns,

but that's also inside.

There's bleeding inside.

You need to maybe put some ice on it or do something, get the person sitting down, off

his or her feet, get the blood flowing the other way.

A sprain means when you twist something.

It's almost broken, but not broken, but there's definitely damage.

It will swell.

There will be swelling.

Swelling is when the, like, area...

For example, if I sprained my wrist my wrist will become suddenly big like this.

Okay? Very painful as well.

Whiplash. If you're driving in a car and you're wearing your seatbelt and you suddenly hit something,

your whole body goes forward and back. Right?

So that motion creates whiplash.

Sorry about that.

So if you have whiplash, that's also very dangerous as well.

Now, stroke.

Stroke I'm not talking about like a head stroke which is very serious, but there's not much

you're going to be able to do in terms of first aid.

Sun stroke, heat stroke.

Okay?

If you have any of these, you need to get the person first of all to the shade, you

need to cool them down right away as much as you possibly can, get them to the hospital,

they'll get some water, some salts, etc.

A wound is visible, it's a cut.

The skin is broken, blood is coming out.

You're bleeding.

A tear also could be like...

It's like a cut.

Basically you've torn some skin off, there's going to be blood, it's going to be kind of ugly.

If somebody got dismembered means a part of the body came off.

Like, if you got hit by a car and your arm came off, what you need to do first, get that

arm, put it on ice, get the person to the hospital, maybe they can sew it back on.

Okay?

So...

But it's very not only important to have all these things and to know what you're talking

about, it's very important to know how to administer first aid.

So, if there is a first aid course near your house or not too far, I highly recommend that

everybody take a first aid course so in any case of emergency

you can save somebody's life.

You might even be able to save your own life by telling somebody what to do for you.

Okay?

Very, very important.

So I hope this was helpful.

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There'll be lots more coming like this.

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Bye-bye.