We're now going to look at heat emergencies.
Two main groups we're talking about here.
The first sign of a heat emergency can be heat exhaustion,
and the second one being heat strokes.
Let's look at the first one,
heat exhaustion.
This is where someone's body temperatures are starting to rise,
they're starting to get very restless,
they'll start sweating a lot,
and feeling very very uncomfortable,
and they may feel a little bit light headed, a little bit dizzy.
So with heat exhaustion, we need to move them to a cooler place, we need to move them into the shade,
we need to sit them down.
Maybe just get them a glass of water,
get them to sip water, not just drink loads and loads.
Could also get a bucket of water, and a wet flannel, just to cool them down gently,
maybe remove clothing,
definitely undo any tight clothing.
Just try and relax them as much as possible.
Use of fans, things like this, this is fine, just to cool them down.
Once you've actually got their body temperature down to a reasonable level,
what we can do then is just rest them.
You don't want them to go back out into the sun or into the heat again.
The more serious version would be heat stroke.
Heat stroke is a serious medical condition and will require emergency medical treatment from paramedics.
The problem here is the whole thermostat structure of the body has packed up.
The person's temperature is rising, and they have no way of actually controlling their temperature.
The main thermostat in the brain will start to try and find ways of controlling itself,
and it's just not working right.
What it will do is it starts cutting down blood supply to non-vital organs like the skin,
and the person stops sweating.
What will basically happen then, is because they're not sweating, they're not letting the heat out.
They'll become unconscious very quickly, and their temperature rises very rapidly.
Someone with heat stroke, we must rapidly cool them down.
We can use spray mist, we can use towels, wet towels, or hoses,
to actually keep their temperature as low as possible.
Can take fifteen, twenty minutes, to actually cool someone down with heat stroke.
Most important thing here, we must have activated emergency medical services,
because this person can go into cardiac arrest, they can have severe problems,
and we need to get help as soon as possible.
We're now going to look at cold emergencies.
Another name for this is hypothermia.
And hypothermia can start when the body's temperature drops just two degrees below it's normal.
A common place for it to happen is when someone's been immersed in water.
If someone's been immersed in water, the heat from their body is taken out 20 to 25 times faster than in air.
But it's not just in outdoor type settings where this can be a problem.
It can also be a problem in the home.
It's quite common for the elderly who are only heating one room,
or maybe trying not to spend money on their heating bills,
to actually end up with hypothermia, even within the home setting.
Somebody with hypothermia, we need to also make sure the scene is safe, and everything's all secure.
In this example here, maybe we've pulled somebody out of water.
Now one thing worth remembering with all of these things,
is never quickly heat the person up.
If we heat them up too quickly, we can cause them problems.
Maybe taking them from a totally wet environment and putting them in an extremely hot car,
then this can cause illness as well, and possible cardiac arrest.
The other thing is, because water is drawing heat away from the body really really quickly,
then if possible maybe remove any wet clothing.
The example here may be just in a snow type environment, a frost environment,
where he's got himself very very cold.
He's conscious, if he's conscious we can still talk to him.
If he's not conscious, we need to do a lot more, we need to make sure that the breathing is fine.
There are different ways of actually keeping people warm.
You can use normal blankets, or it's quite common for people to have the foil type blankets.
These are very small, easy to carry around in a first aid kit,
and they open up to be a reflective barrier, and actually reflect the heat back into his body.
So if you've got somebody in this situation here, he's very very cold,
you want to communicate with him, we need to get the blanket underneath.
Now remember, a lot of the temperature is lost through the floor as well, it's not just up high,
so we really need to get just as much underneath his body as over the top.
So we've laid the blanket out on the far side, we can just cross his legs over.
"I'm just gonna roll you towards here, and then tuck the blanket underneath."
Just roll him toward you a little bit.
We can then lay the blanket underneath.
Important to get the blanket underneath him because it'll be a barrier between any of the moisture,
and also keep him warmer.
"I'm just gonna roll you back."
"That's fine, if you'll come back this way."
Once you've done that, you can just pull the blanket over.
Tuck it in on the other side.
If you put it underneath the head as well, that's good, and you can tuck it right around.
Once you've done that, you can use a conventional blanket.
Lay that over, and also tuck it as best you can on the far side.
And also close to you.
So what's happening now is, any of the heat in his body,
from either underneath or on top,
is being reflected in toward his body.
No new humidity is coming in, because the foil will act as a barrier.
The top blanket, here, is also there to keep the heat in.
If we can still communicate with him, talk to him.
If there's any way we can maybe put something over the top of his head as well,
any jumpers (hoodies) or anything like that,
just to keep his head warm, cause a lot of heat is lost through the head as well.
Final thing we'll just talk about with hypothermia,
if this is a result of something that's maybe snow or very cold temperatures,
just do a look at other things, that maybe he could be suffering from other things like,
frost nip or frostbite.
Frost nip is really where the skin starts to freeze, and there,
because he's in a blanket situation here, or if you just have it on your fingers,
you can just pop your hands underneath your armpits,
and that will just keep your fingers warmer.
Frostbite is where the whole of the body's tissues freeze right away through.
If it was an instance where someone had frostbite, we want to try and keep them...
if you have to walk them, say, with frostbitten feet,
well you have to do that until they get to a place of safety.
We don't want to rapidly rewarm those either.
In any case, with frostbite, with hypothermia, always an ambulance is needed to take them on to a hospital.