Section 3: CPR and Choking Emergencies

CPR and Choking Emergencies

Carsedra Glass

EDUC 1005: Child Health, Safety, and Nutrition

Professor Eissler

09/17/17

While eating lunch and joking with a friend in the lunchroom 8-year-old Timmy begins to choke on a grape, seeing this his friend Eric runs to get Principal Morris standing near-by. Acting immediately, he accesses the situation and sees that Timmy cannot cough, so Principal Morris has one teacher call 911 and his parents, while others calm the kids, he then starts to perform the following first aid steps for choking:

1.       Kneeling slightly behind him and providing the support he places one arm diagonally across his chest and leans him forward.

2.       He firmly strikes Timmy between the shoulder blades with the heel of your other hand.

3.       After giving at least five back blows and the food not dislodging he starts abdominal thrust.

4.       Still kneeling behind the child, wraps his arms around his waist, locates his belly button with one or two fingers, makes a fist with the other hand and places his thumb side against the middle of Timmy’s abdomen, just above the navel and well below the lower tip of his breastbone.

5.       He gives several quick, upward thrusts into the abdomen and the grape comes flying out.

Timmy is ok and able to breathe again, the Principal stays with him until paramedics arrive and his grandmother picks him up.

As the class comes in from playing on the playground, 6-year-old Molly who is last in line starts having an Asthma attack. Ms. Williams her teach is in the front instructing students as they walk in and doesn’t see her. Forgetting her inhaler inside, she finds more and more difficult to breathe, as a student stops to ask Ms. Williams a question which stops the line.  By this time Molly is gasping for air and falls to the ground. Ms. William is looking up sees Molly as she collapses on the ground.  Ms. Williams rushes the rest of the children inside as she yells for the teacher’s assistant to call 911 and Molly’s mom.  She gets to Molly and finds her not breathing, right away she starts the following steps to administer CPR:

1.       Placing Molly on her back on the grass and knows she needs to open the airway.

2.       With the Molly lying on her back, she tilts her head back slightly and lifts the chin.

3.       As her head is tilted back and chin lifted, Ms. Williams pinch Molly’s nose shut, makes a complete seal by placing her mouth over Molly’s mouth and breathes into her mouth twice, but she is still unresponsive

4.       She then places the heel of one hand in the center of her chest, with her other hand on top.

5.       Ms. Williams positions her body so that her shoulders are directly over her hands.

6.       Keeping her arms straight pushes straight down about 2 inches on Molly’s chest, and then lets the chest to return to its normal position. Her compressions are hard and fast yet smooth, and not jerky.

7.       Counting out loud (one and two and three) she does about 30 chest compressions at the rate of two per second. She repeats the steps are breathing into Molly’s mouth twice again.

Medic's soon arrived as Molly becomes responsive again, Ms. Williams stays with Molly until her mom arrives.

As teachers and caregivers part of the duty is to be prepared in case of an emergency, so that means being ready before one occurs. “The early childhood education environment that is organized for possibilities of an emergency situation will be better prepared to respond to an emergency when it actually occurs” (Robertson, C., 2016, pp 170).   To do that you first need to know about the emergency to know how to act. Then put together response plan based on that knowledge.  Part of the knowledge needed is how to perform or administer first aid properly, so teachers and caregivers need to be trained in things like CPR, how to help a choking child or even administer emergency medicine. Being able to do these things can mean life or death for the child in the teachers care.

To be more prepared there are other steps that can be taken to help prepare you for a medical emergency. Such as, having emergency information for each child to include; parents or guardian other emergency contact info, parental release form giving the school/caregiver the right to treat the child, health records.  Next, make sure to have a checklist of vital information like; school address, child’s name, a medical emergency that the operator may need near the landlines. Most of all a first aid kit that is easy for teachers to find but not children. The kit should include but not be limited to instant ice packs, bandages, gauze, safety pins, pads for eye injuries, tubes of cortisone and antibiotic ointment. Also, eye wash, bottled water, unbreakable thermometers, special instructions for kids with special needs and steps on performing or administering first aid.

Reference:

Robertson, C. (2016). Safety, nutrition, and health in early education (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning.