- Saving lives when you're a medical professional
or a first responder makes sense.
But how about when you're an ordinary civilian?
We're about to watch some serious life-saving videos.
Let's get started, peewoop!
- [Paramedic] What was the reaction, what was the trigger?
- [Friend] She's not allergic to anything
that's known, she's had some salmon.
Have you touched anything, or?
- I don't know, I haven't (slurs).
- Okay, see, the way that she's talking,
right away, we have to know that her airway is closing.
So you have to act quickly.
There is no use trying
to figure out what this person is allergic to.
The only important thing is to recognize the ABC's
of first response
and in this case, the airway's being compromised.
So you have to act quickly with
that epinephrine a.k.a an epinephrine autoinjector
like an EpiPen.
- My tongue is (slurs).
- That's it, the tongue is swelling.
You gotta make moves.
You have to act quickly here.
This is like when I was on the plane
and the pilot's like, "Do we have an hour
and a half to go back to Canada
or an hour to go to the Portugal Islands?"
No, we don't.
- [Paramedic] So we'll go half a milligram
of adrenaline, Salbutamol please.
Eventually, some hydrocortisone as well, all right?
- So they're also giving her some steroid here as well.
A steroid reduces inflammation.
But the first thing you wanna do is get
that epinephrine on board.
That's what's gonna open up the airway.
That's what's gonna actually constrict the blood vessels
to increase blood pressure.
'Cause part of an anaphylactic attack
is not just your throat closing,
it's blood pressure drastically dropping.
- [Paramedic] So, Tami, what you're having
through that nebulizer is what we give
to asthmatic patients to open up the airway, okay?
- Remember, patients
who are experiencing anaphylactic attack,
feel very uncomfortable
'cause you can experience gastrointestinal distress,
vomiting, low blood pressure
and then when you get the EpiPen,
you're still not out of the woods.
You're still very uncomfortable and your heart's racing.
Now you got a dose of adrenaline.
(Tami murmuring)
- [Paramedic] Sorry?
- [Tami] My tongue is just getting really swollen.
(machine beeping)
- [Paramedic] Sorry?
- My tongue! - Your tongue, okay.
All right.
- In a lot of situations like this
as well, it's very important
to have a good line of communication with the patient
because what they may be experiencing or thinking
that they're experiencing is not
what they're actually experiencing.
I'll give you an example.
When I was on the plane,
after the first dose of epinephrine, the gentleman
who was experiencing the anaphylactic attack told me
he thinks it's coming back.
But after I directly observed his throat
with my iPhone flashlight,
this was the tools I'm using there,
I actually saw that his throat was just getting very dry
because I gave him a big dose of adrenaline
which is one of the side effects.
So his throat wasn't actually closing up again.
So it's important to directly visualize these things
as well as talk to the patient.
- Are you feeling any better?
A little bit.
Little bit, good.
Okay, so we've done something right then?
- See, using humor
to diffuse the situation here is really powerful.
He's not making her the target of the joke.
They're both together making light of the situation
in order to decrease that stress.
Anything you can do to take away
that anxiety will help the patient.
- [Narrator] Doctors still don't know
what caused her allergic reaction.
- You know, in a lot of cases we don't know.
That's why allergy testing along
with a thorough history is really important here.
There's even very unique situations
where if you get a certain type of tick bite,
a lone star tick bite,
you could actually end up developing an allergy
to red meat that you've never had in your life
which is what happened on the gentleman
in the airplane that I was fortunate enough
to be on at the time to save his life.
- [Narrator] 35-Year-old mom, Tela Levy turns away
for just a moment.
11-Month-old, Etan on the changing table.
- On an elevated surface
and in the presence of water like
in a bath, you do not leave your children unattended,
no matter how quick you think it is.
Even with dogs, I would put in with dogs as well.
- [Narrator] The baby begins to roll, every parent's fear
and then he tumbles over the edge.
Out of nowhere,
his older brother, nine-year-old Joseph, catches him.
- Wow, what a catch!
Honestly, they gotta stop doing SportsCenter Top 10
for a week and just show this kid making a catch.
- I just yelled, "Mom," 'cause I saw the baby
and I just ran and I caught him.
- Yankees, sign this kid now!
- I can't even carry him so I don't know how that happened
and I can't even run that fast either.
- That's superhuman.
It goes without saying, babies falling, very dangerous
'cause they're developing still, their organs.
So very susceptible to injuries and drops.
Remember, babies' bones are also soft,
especially their skulls.
So their brain is not as well protected
as an adult skull.
Okay, we have a child drinking water, drinking water,
drinking a lot of water, choking.
Anytime you see someone reach for their throat like that
and is trying to talk but can't move air,
that's a sign that someone's choking.
In scenarios like this,
for a child of this age, you would treat them
just like an adult, not an infant
and you would start the Heimlich Maneuver.
Some agencies do talk
about doing five back taps with the person bent
over the arm and then start the Heimlich Maneuver.
You're gonna be squeezing as hard as you can
and you're gonna do that five times.
Go back to the back blows
until you free whatever the obstruction is.
Don't do this blind finger sweeping thing
because that can actually push the object further down.
Instead, what you wanna do is try
and visualize if you can see whatever it is
that's out in the mouth and then pull it out.
See, that's a child saying they're choking right there.
Oh, we got the Heimlich Maneuver.
Perfect, good execution.
Wow, got it out.
(intense instrumental music)
Wow.
- [Narrator] Brock and Bodhi Schoff
were being typical two-year-old twins,
scrambling up their dresser to explore.
- Oh no. - But then suddenly,
it tips over, pinning little Brock under its heavyweight.
You can see Brock struggling and screaming
but Bodhi jumps right into action.
He immediately tries to push the dresser
but can't get it to move.
Finally, with a big lean, - What is he gonna do?
- [Narrator] He tries to push one more time
and somehow manages the strength to move
that large dresser and free his brother.
- That's why with a lot of furniture items like
that, you really should be securing them to the wall.
In fact, a lot of them do say
that you should secure them
to the wall in their instructions
and that doesn't just go for a furniture like that,
but also for heavy mirrors as well too.
- [Narrator] Mom says as soon as she saw
that video, she bolted the dresser to the wall
to make sure it won't happen again.
(child screaming)
- Oh, what is that?
- [Narrator] This five-year-old girl
had her own scary encounter with a wild animal.
A raccoon latched onto her leg and wouldn't let go.
- A raccoon's problematic,
being mammals, they can be exposed to rabies
and therefore transmit rabies.
- I grabbed it by the scruff of the neck.
It was growling, it was snarling.
It's a rabid raccoon, get in the house!
- A lot of times we'll think that a raccoon is rabid
when it's starting
to come out during the day,
exhibiting uncharacteristic behaviors like going up
to people because they usually don't do this.
They kind of run away more often.
- [Narrator] Out of an abundance
of caution, mom and daughter have gotten rabies shots.
- If you've been exposed to rabies
or even you think there's a possibility you've been exposed
to rabies, generally, what we do
is something called postexposure prophylaxis,
which means something like 15 minutes of washing the wound
then getting the rabies vaccines on specific set days
and then in definite confirmed cases
and in severely endemic areas,
you wanna be using immunoglobulins or monoclonal antibodies.
- [Narrator] It's a family crisis
that's unfolding in real-time.
But the little guy's parents, John
and Jane Kohler, quickly realize this is serious.
- He was turning blue.
- Cyanosis or turning blue is one of the danger signs
that not enough oxygen is moving.
And with babies, you wanna act fairly quickly,
but at the same time, stay calm
and deliver those same back blows
that we just talked about, the back thrust.
But with a baby, you wanna hold 'em down
so their head is lower than their body.
By doing this, you're actually allowing gravity
to help you free the obstruction
and then you do the same back thrusts.
Now if that fails, then you do the opposite.
You flip them to the opposite side.
Now on their back, head is still below
and then you're gonna be doing the Heimlich Maneuver
with them laying on your arm.
You don't want to do a full Heimlich Maneuver
on a child less than one year of age
because you can cause damage to their developing organs.
- [Narrator] Panic erupts.
- [Jane] (shrieks) Someone call 9-1-1!
Oh, my God, my baby!
- All right, so again, the mom is
in a very stressful situation.
The goal here is to say, "You call 9-1-1,"
not "someone" because then everyone else assumes
that someone is gonna call 9-1-1
and no one ends up calling 9-1-1.
- [Narrator] Major Hilliard had a device
in his car called a LifeVac,
which he suctioned to little Gabriel's mouth.
After several plunges of the device, a miracle.
- Soon as I did that last pull, his eyes popped open
and he started gasping for air.
- [Bystander] There it is.
- [Narrator] Mom and dad embrace in relief.
- So it's interesting, this LifeVac
and other devices like it have kind of been going viral
on social media.
The DeChoker is one that I saw as well.
The major organizations like the ones
that do first aid have not sort
of started recommending them
because there hasn't been good quality, rigorous trials
to show that they're more effective
than traditional back blows and the Heimlich Maneuver.
In situations like this,
all the major organizations are still saying,
"Use the traditional methods."
I'm curious when the government
or some agency is actually gonna put money
in this to make sure
that we can find out if these devices actually work.
Because if they do, we should have these devices
in every restaurant.
- In 2019, this friendly pickup hockey game suddenly turned
when one of the players collapsed
from a massive heart attack.
- Oh wow.
- [Teammate] Call 9-1-1!
- All right, call 9-1-1, good first step.
You gotta nominate someone.
- [Narrator] A player from the opposing team
then took charge.
As luck would have it, he was an emergency room physician.
- [Doctor] We got a defib here, got a defibrillator?
- Yep, the defibrillator is very important here.
The defibrillators we have
in most of these scenarios are automatic defibrillators
where you just attach 'em to the chest
and they will automatically read the rhythm
and tell you if this is a shockable situation or not.
- [Defib] Shock advised, charging.
Stay clear of patient.
- We administered that shock
and administered a little bit more CPR for another minute
and a half and he started breathing on his own.
- That's spontaneous return of circulation.
That's really exciting.
I mean if you're gonna have a cardiac arrest, having one
around an ER physician is the person you wanna be around.
The sad part about cardiac arrest is
that the majority of them happen outside of the hospital
and as a result, there's not enough people trained
in CPR or know how to perform CPR.
This is why I'm working
with the American Heart Association
to get these kiosks put all across the U.S.,
in airports, science museums,
where you actually learn how to perform hands-only CPR
with me on the screen, check this out.
- [Reporter] It may have been the whole crew
behind this nearly impossible mission back in 2009,
but it was Jason Ogelsby who dangled from a crane
and pulled Patty Ralph Neeley to safety.
Her boat had capsized along the Des Moines River.
Her husband died, she was saved.
- You know, it's very possible
that you may be an individual who finds someone
who's recently drowned and they're unconscious.
In those situations,
you wanna start chest compressions right away.
It's ideal, actually.
And a lot of agencies do advise
to do two rescue breaths
before starting the chest compressions
in a drowning victim scenario.
Remember in most cases,
you're actually not gonna have that much water go
into the lungs.
The larynx can actually spasm, preventing a lot of water
from entering the lungs
and the small amount that could have gone
into the lungs, can actually get absorbed
into the bloodstream.
So it's really about getting that heart to pump
and it's pumping artificially
'cause you're physically pumping it
and circulating the blood
that's still potentially, having some oxygen in it.
And obviously, calling
for help is the number one thing to do.
- [Reporter] Little Mason Lindeman was playing
in his driveway with friends
when the pitbull escaped from a neighbor's home
and attacked, clamping his jaw down on the boy's head.
- That's so dangerous, so much bleeding can happen,
so much disfigurement.
- [Reporter] Suddenly, a hero comes to the rescue.
The teen who heard the boy's screams runs right
into the path of danger.
Watch as he deliberately diverts the pitbull's attention.
Now the dog goes after him,
giving the six-year-old kid a chance to run home.
The hero neighbor is also attacked
when he loses his sneaker and falls to the ground.
- In a situation like this, you gotta roll up
into a ball, protect your vital organs.
Remember if you get bitten
in the carotids, if you get bitten into the stomach,
that's where a lot of bleeding's gonna happen.
But if you roll up into a ball
and most importantly, make fists so
that your fingers can't get ripped off,
you decrease the likelihood of very severe injury.
If you are witnessing someone do this, the common thing
that's taught is the wheelbarrow technique
where you lift up the dog's back legs.
It's used more to break up dog fights
between dogs, not dogs attacking humans,
but that could be done as well, making loud noises,
shooting water, all these things are options.
Just make sure you don't put yourself in danger
and never put your hands or fingers
in between two dogs that are fighting
or a dog that's attacking someone else.
'Cause what's gonna happen is,
your fingers are gonna get very, very damaged
and that's dangerous.
Afterwards, for a child like this, you wanna make sure
that they're okay from a psychological perspective,
a circulatory perspective,
and that they're getting antibiotics, tetanus
and potentially rabies depending on what you know
about this dog.
- [Parent] He's got a bruise under here still.
And he's got a small scratch there.
- [Reporter] He also has staples in the back of his head.
- Staples are very common to be used in the scalp.
Scalp has a lot of bleeding as well
'cause it's highly vascular so folks get very afraid.
But usually, that area heals quite well.
- I'm glad you're okay.
- [Reporter] Grant suffered bite injuries
to his hand while fighting off the pitbull.
- The dog was right on top
of me so I tried to grab his throat and it bit me.
- That's why you gotta right away, curl up
into a ball or punches.
Fingers closed, 'cause otherwise you will get bit.
- [Reporter] The 28-year-old woman seen Friday
in this surveillance video inside the lobby
of the DeLand Animal Hospital says
after two days of being assaulted
by her boyfriend, 39-year-old, Jeremy Floyd,
she convinced him to bring her dog to the vet.
Then this note, handed off
to the vet staff, saying her boyfriend was threatening her
with a gun.
- [Survivor] I slipped her the note
and that's when I slid my glasses off
to show her I had a bruised eye
just so she would take me seriously.
- First of all, you have to give credit
to the survivor of this IPV
and I go past calling it domestic violence
'cause it's really intimate partner violence.
We've sort of changed the way we refer
to these things because domestic means you live
in the home and that could be a parent, a grandparent.
Intimate partner, is someone you could just go
on a date with.
And violence doesn't just mean physical violence.
It could be verbal violence as well.
- [Reporter] Then she saw an officer through the window.
First, a sigh of relief.
Officers safely taking Floyd
and his loaded handgun into custody.
The victim, thankful the employees got her
the help she needed.
- These are terrible situations
and so many factors go into them.
Just even a patient sharing that with you is really powerful
and there's evidence to show
that thanking a patient for sharing that
with with you, goes a really long way.
The way that I've sort of been trained to think
about this is an approach of empathy, validation
and then assistance.
You wanna be as empathetic as possible.
You wanna be understanding as possible.
Then, validating that the patient doesn't deserve this,
that this isn't their fault, because a lot
of times they've not necessarily been brainwashed,
but been misled to believe that this is happening
to them and it's their fault, it's their problem.
And then finally, offering assistance,
not forcing assistance because that can backfire
for a whole host of reasons.
And as medical providers, we're also trained
that if somehow the abuser is in the office,
in the exam room, et cetera, it's best not to confront them
and let the patient guide the situation
unless there's imminent danger, of course.
In that case, you're calling local authorities.
It's really all about making sure the patient has resources
and safety and a plan
of action if they feel their life is truly in danger.
And if you yourself are a victim of IPV,
I have links and resources down below to get yourself help.
Check out this video
where a patient actually filed a complaint against me.
I think it's worth watching
'cause it's a good learning experience.
And as always, stay happy and healthy.
(mellow music)