Emergency medicine

Get an overview and secure the scene before you help.

1. Stay calm and watch out for your own safety – never become the second casualty yourself.

Severe bleeding takes priority – stop it first.

1. Apply firm, direct pressure to the wound – with your hand, a dressing or a clean cloth, without stopping. Once the bleeding has stopped, a pressure bandage keeps up the pressure.

Is the person breathing normally? That decides the next steps.

1. Make sure it is safe for you. Speak to them loudly, gently shake their shoulders. No response? Call loudly for help.

No normal breathing = start chest compressions immediately.

1. Call 144 (speakerphone) and have a defibrillator (AED) fetched immediately.

Cool with lukewarm water – and know when it belongs in the emergency department.

1. Stop the heat source: smother flames with a blanket or extinguish with water, burning clothing – lie down and roll

2. Cool the affected area immediately under running, lukewarm tap water (about 15–20 °C) – for 10 to 20 minutes; children 5 to 10 minutes, do not cool newborns and infants under water (University Hospital Zurich, University Children's Hospital Zurich)

3. Early on, remove jewellery and any clothing that is not stuck to the skin, before the area swells

4. Leave clothing burnt into the wound in place

Cool immediately and call 144 in case of confusion or unconsciousness.

1. Pale, clammy, sweaty and rather cool skin

2. Headache, dizziness, nausea, thirst and a feeling of weakness

3. Fast pulse and fast breathing

4. The person is usually still awake and responsive – body temperature is only slightly raised

Rewarm hypothermia gently, thaw frostbite quickly – cold is treacherous.

1. Mild hypothermia: the person is awake and clear-headed, usually shivering

2. Moderate hypothermia: clouded consciousness – drowsy, confused, responds only when spoken to

3. Severe hypothermia: unconscious but breathing – life-threatening, call 144 immediately

4. No signs of life («apparent death»): not a death sentence – in deep hypothermia, pulse and breathing are often barely detectable, and even cardiac arrest is often still reversible

Call Tox Info Suisse on 145 first – do not act on your own initiative.

1. If the person is unconscious, has breathing difficulty or has stopped breathing, call 144 first

2. Otherwise call Tox Info Suisse on 145 – around the clock; from abroad +41 44 251 51 51

3. Have ready: who (age, weight), what (product, label), how (swallowed, inhaled, skin, eyes), how much, when, what symptoms, call-back number

4. Keep or photograph the packaging, plant or mushroom remains

Grasp close to the skin, pull straight out – don't twist, don't squeeze.

1. Stay calm – the sooner the tick is removed, the lower the infection risk. Have a tool ready: fine-pointed tweezers, a tick removal tool, or a tick card

2. Grasp the tick as close to the skin as possible – directly at the mouthparts, not at the engorged abdomen

3. Pull the tick out slowly and steadily straight up – not with a jerk, not with a twist

4. If parts of the mouthparts remain in the skin, there is no reason for concern: they will be expelled by the body like a splinter – don't dig around in the skin

Stab wound: call 144, leave the object in place, press firmly – a tourniquet only helps on an arm or leg.

1. First look after your own safety: do not intervene where there is violence, keep your distance and only help once it is safe.

2. Call or have someone call the 144 emergency number (ambulance) and report that it is a stab injury. If violence is involved, also alert the police on 117.

3. Do not pull out an object lodged in the wound.

4. Press firmly and directly on the bleeding site with your hand, a dressing or a clean piece of cloth – without stopping and without checking in between, until the emergency services take over.