Helmets? That's interesting; I tend to open the visor a bit when at a stop, it gets really warm in there really fast. I know you shouldn't try to take off a helmet in case of an accident, but is opening the visor at least okay?
At least here in Germany this advice is considered outdated and people in (mandatory for driving) first aid courses get taught a simple technique to remove a helmet safely (ideally with two people).
Reason being is that with the helmet on it is harder to monitor breathing and impossible / very difficult to do CPR, and the helmet will also interfere with the stable side position.
- a big concern around pathogens - always have gloves with you and put them on when administering first aid especially if the person is bleeding; use a mouth dam for mouth to mouth and if you don’t have one don’t do mouth to mouth, just chest compressions, etc
- training first aid responders around what to do when a person needing medical attention tells them not to help because they don’t have health insurance (this point was repeated numerous times by the EMT training us, saying it was routine for them to have to deal with it)
I knew someone (in California) who crashed his bicycle on a curb in front of a number of people. He picked himself up and had a bloody but minor wound on his arm. But overall he was unharmed, just some surface bleeding.
"Of course" multiple people called 911, and an ambulance arrived in short order. He had insurance, but he wasn't interested in getting in an ambulance, he wanted to look after his bike while wrapping up his light wound, and then treating it later.
I'm told the exchange was awkward to say the least.
Point being, medical cultures can differ quite a lot, even from locality to locality, and the differences can be seen even in the handling of minor scrapes.
Also big (area wise) skin wounds can get infected even if they are not bleeding.
My grandpa taught me that; to let wounds bleed freely for a while, if possible, to reduce the chance of infection.
I wonder how valid that is.
- Mouth-to-nose is usually better than mouth-to-mouth, at least when there is no obstructions (like bleeding, broken nose, snot, etc).
- If you're doing chest compressions, expect a high probability of breaking a few ribs. Don't stop, as it is highly unlikely the ribs will break "inwards" and puncture a lung, and a broken rib is still better than being dead.
- Remove all clothing from the chest area you're working during CPR. Yes, that includes bras, specifically. The reason being that any clothes will hurt your hands/rip your gloves (if you have some)/shave the skin off your hand especially when you have to do CPR for 15mins. Bras in particular often have wires etc in them that will hurt your hands even worse. As one of the EMTs training us put it: "Don't be shy, no time for false modesty, it may cost a life."
- Don't forget to breath when giving mouth-to-*. Also, don't forget to actually lift your head when you breath. Else you will just breath in the spent air again that you and the person you're helping just exhaled. Given that CPR is very physically taxing, according to the EMTs it is quite common for people giving the CPR to faint themselves if they breath incorrectly.
- It is more important to call for help than to do CPR. Always call first, if you're alone. And stay on the phone until you're being told you can get off the line. Apparently a lot of people either do not call, or call, scream some stuff into the phone, then hang up to administer help, often forgetting to tell crucial details like their location because it is such a high stress situation.
- Defibrillators do not actually restart hearts that stopped beating. They essentially stop the heart in order to reboot it in hopes it will restart with a proper pace/rhythm.
Or it may cost the rescuer quite a bit when a woman regains consciousness half-naked with a man on top of her.
At the end of the day, would you rather let a woman in need of CPR die because you are afraid of maybe getting sued, with an even smaller chance of a conviction?
People feel often ashamed, can feel humiliated, violated, happy, sad, or anything their want, but they have to understand that CPR means that 1) you life is at risk and 2) some stranger(s) will put their mouth in yours and their hands near your breasts for some time. Period of time that can last for many minutes or even hours. Often longer than the duration of most violations. There is often a legal obligation to do it for some people. To pass and quit the area is not an option.
Sorry but there is no time to find a young sexually acceptable partner for you to happily wake up in her/his arms and upload your booze adventure to instagram, forever-happy style. Deal with it. There is nothing sexually arousing in the experience for the rescuers about your vomit taste or about your body leaking different kinds of fluids over yourself. Not even remotely.
If they can move on their own, then they can get to the clinic of their choice themselves if and when they choose to; if they can't (which can be caused by anything from a sprained ankle to a fractured hip) then they still may prefer to be delivered to the hospital by family&friends or a taxi instead of paying thousands for an ambulance delivery.
it seems other than for the first point the question only becomes relevant after any relevant first-aid actions are completed.
i have been in a situation where a guy fell out of his wheelchair. he wasn't injured, he just could not get back into his wheelchair and he was to heavy for any of us to help him without us risking to drop him in the process which might have then actually risked an injury. he looked like the kind of person who might not have had insurance. though he didn't make any statement about that and no-one even considered that to be an issue. we saw no choice but to call 911, which sent an ambulance with people who could help (and they knew him too).
i wonder now how we would have reacted if he had told us that he has no insurance. we might have been looking for alternative help with an outcome that could have been good or bad.
with that in mind i'd think other than for the reasons you mentioned the statement should be ignored.
And for opening the visor in accidents, I'm no expert but I believe it would be safe to do if you can do it without moving their head. IIRC the reason you don't want to take off the helmet is because you could strain their neck doing so. If you could move the visor without moving their head, it probably won't hurt, but at the same time I'm not sure if I'd worry about that in this kind of situation (having seen a motorcycle accident, the amount of co2 that person is breathing is, to me anyway, far down the list behind "call 911" and "make sure they don't get run over again").
I think the findings were more to try and get the helmet manufacturers to design systems which let more air in during an accident or when stopped.
[1] has the study I remember reading about, and it turns out that according to their abstract, opening the visor at a stop has little effect on average! So maybe my behaviour of cracking the visor isn't doing much...
I used to ride with a just-a-bit opened visor because it was so hot in the city, with all the traffic and all, (and the beard didn't help the air flow) so I ended with eye infection because of the dust ingress. So I just bought one with better vents (and audio). Worth every $ even though I had to patch the audio circuitry a bit.
Maybe you should consider upgrading.
full face helmets can at times have the same effect if you bundle up to well during winter but I would be loathe to give it up