Home First Aid: What You Do in the First Minutes Makes the Real Difference

Choking: what to do and what never to do

Choking occurs when an object blocks the airway. The clearest signs are that the person cannot speak, cry, or cough effectively. They may instinctively grab their throat with both hands. Their face may turn dark red or blue. Silent choking, where no sound at all comes out, is the most dangerous because it is the most complete obstruction.

A 2024 cross-sectional study published in SAGE Open Medicine surveyed adults in Syria and found that a significant proportion incorrectly believed that reaching into the choking person's mouth was the right response. This is dangerous: fingers can push the object deeper. The correct sequence is five firm back blows between the shoulder blades with an open palm, then if those do not work, five abdominal thrusts using the Heimlich maneuver.

To deliver abdominal thrusts: stand behind the person and wrap your arms around their waist. Make a fist with one hand and place it thumb-side in against the abdomen, just above the navel and below the breastbone. Grasp the fist with your other hand and thrust sharply inward and upward. Repeat until the object is expelled or the person loses consciousness. If they become unconscious, lower them to the floor, call for emergency services, and begin CPR if you are trained.

Burns: why oil, toothpaste, and ice cause real harm

Applying oil, butter, toothpaste, ice, or flour to a burn is common practice across many parts of the Arab world. Every one of these remedies is harmful. Oil and butter trap heat inside the skin instead of drawing it out, making the burn deeper. Toothpaste contains chemicals that irritate already damaged skin. Ice causes a secondary frostbite injury on top of the burn. Flour sticks to the skin and complicates wound care.

The only correct first aid for a burn in the first minutes is cool running water. A systematic review published in Burns in 2022 reviewed the available evidence and concluded that cooling with cool running water for 20 continuous minutes reduces the final depth of the burn and the time to healing. A 2026 study in Annals of Emergency Medicine confirmed the effectiveness of this simple approach. Those 20 minutes need to be continuous, not two minutes on and off.

Remove any clothing or jewellery from the burned area before swelling sets in, but do not remove anything stuck to the skin. After cooling, cover the burn with a clean sterile dressing or a burns film if available. Do not break any blisters. Seek medical care if the burn is larger than the palm of the injured person's hand, or if it is on the face, hands, feet, or genitals, or if it appears white or black.

Bleeding: pressure is the answer, not changing the dressing

The most common mistake made with a bleeding wound is lifting the cloth to see whether the bleeding has stopped. This disrupts the clot that is forming and causes the bleeding to restart or worsen. Pressure must be firm and continuous for at least ten minutes without lifting the hand to look. A systematic review published in Prehospital Emergency Care in 2021 confirmed that sustained direct pressure is the most effective first-line control for severe external bleeding.

Place a clean cloth or sterile gauze directly over the wound and press steadily with your hand or guide the injured person to press on it themselves. If the cloth becomes soaked through, add another layer on top and do not remove the first one. Elevating the injured limb above the level of the heart helps slow bleeding. If the bleeding is from a limb and is life-threatening, a tourniquet can be life-saving if one is available and you know how to apply it correctly.

Go to the emergency department or call for an ambulance immediately if the bleeding does not slow after ten minutes of continuous pressure, or if the wound is deep or wide, or if it is near the neck, abdomen, or chest. Heavy blood loss causes shock, which shows as pallor, cold sweat, rapid heartbeat, and confusion. These are signs that the situation has become critical.

Fainting: why you must not give them water while they are down

Fainting is a brief loss of consciousness caused by a sudden drop in blood flow to the brain. Common triggers include prolonged standing in heat, hunger, severe emotional stress, or a sudden rise in temperature. It is usually preceded by dizziness, pallor, cold sweat, and ringing in the ears. Recognising these warning signs gives you a chance to act before the person falls.

If someone is about to faint, have them sit and place their head between their knees, or lay them on the floor and raise their legs slightly. This helps blood return to the brain quickly. If they have already fainted, place them on their side in the recovery position. This keeps the airway open and prevents them from inhaling vomit if they are sick. Do not put anything in their mouth and do not give them anything to drink while they are unconscious.

Most fainting episodes resolve within one to two minutes and the person recovers quickly without any intervention. Seek medical attention if unconsciousness lasts more than two minutes, if the person has no memory of what happened, if there was a head injury from the fall, or if they complained of chest pain or palpitations just before fainting. These features can point to a more serious cause.

Seizures: patience and safety, nothing else

A seizure looks frightening and demands a calm, specific response. The most widespread harmful myth is that you must put something in the person's mouth to stop them from swallowing their tongue. This is wrong on two counts: a person cannot swallow their tongue during a seizure, and inserting anything into their mouth risks breaking their teeth, injuring your fingers, or causing choking.

What you should do: move hard objects away from around them. Place something soft under their head if possible. Gently roll them onto their side if you can, to help breathing and to prevent aspiration if they vomit. Do not restrain their limbs and do not try to hold them still. Stay with them, time the seizure, and keep them safe. Call for an ambulance if it is their first seizure, or if it lasts more than five minutes.

After the seizure ends, the person will be confused and exhausted. This is normal and is called the postictal phase. Stay with them, speak calmly, and give them time to recover. Do not offer food or drink until they are fully conscious and able to swallow safely. Tell their doctor the details: how long it lasted, what the movements looked like, and whether they were conscious beforehand.

The most common childhood accidents at home

Young children in the crawling and walking stage swallow small objects, often with no obvious symptoms. If your child has swallowed something and appears well, is not choking, and is not crying in an unusual way, call their doctor or a poisons helpline for advice. Small rounded objects like coins usually pass on their own. Disc batteries are a genuine emergency: they cause severe chemical burns to the oesophagus within hours of being swallowed and require immediate emergency care.

A fall from even a modest height like a bed or sofa warrants a careful check. Signs that require immediate medical attention include any period of unconsciousness however brief, persistent unusual crying, repeated vomiting, or the child refusing to use a limb. Do not assume a child is fine because they are not showing an obvious external injury after a head impact.

Burns in children are more serious because their skin is thinner and a smaller burn covers a greater proportion of their body surface. Any burn larger than the child's own palm requires emergency care after the 20-minute water cooling. Do not apply any cream or medication to a child's burn without medical guidance.

What should your home first aid kit contain?

A basic home first aid kit does not need to be expensive. Essential contents include: sterile gauze pads and adhesive bandages in several sizes, cotton wool, an antiseptic solution such as povidone-iodine for cleaning small wounds, medical scissors, tweezers, a compression bandage, a basic pain reliever and fever reducer, and a written list of local emergency phone numbers.

Keep the kit in a fixed location that every adult in the home knows, out of reach of young children but quickly accessible for adults. Check its contents every six months and replace anything past its expiry date. Expired medicines may have reduced effectiveness and in some cases can be harmful.

Learning basic cardiopulmonary resuscitation is one of the most valuable skills an ordinary person can acquire. It is not confined to medical professionals. Courses are offered by many hospitals, health centres, and Red Crescent chapters across the region. Knowing what to do in the first two minutes of a cardiac emergency dramatically improves survival odds, and the knowledge costs nothing to carry.

When to call an ambulance versus driving to the emergency department

Call an ambulance and do not attempt to move the person yourself in these situations: unconsciousness, difficulty breathing, severe chest pain, a forceful impact to the head or spine, or severe bleeding that is not slowing. In these cases, moving someone without the right equipment and training can worsen the injury, particularly if the spine is involved.

You can drive the person yourself to the nearest emergency department for less severe situations: a wound that needs stitches but where bleeding is under control, a limited burn after proper cooling, or a suspected fracture in a limb that has been stabilised. In these cases, phone the emergency department while you are on the way so they can prepare.

In many parts of Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen, ambulance services may be slow or unavailable. In those settings, knowing first aid is not a safety enhancement, it is the only available response. Learning these skills and teaching them to family members is one of the most practical things a household can do.

Sources

• Singletary EM, Zideman DA, Bendall JC et al: 2020 International Consensus on First Aid Science With Treatment Recommendations, Circulation, 2020
• Holbert MD, Singer Y, Palmieri T et al: Cool Running Water as a First Aid Treatment for Burn Injuries, Annals of emergency medicine, 2026
• Djorv T, Douma M, Palmieri T et al: Duration of cooling with water for thermal burns as a first aid intervention: A systematic review, Burns: journal of the International Society for Burn Injuries, 2022
• Ranjous Y, Al Balkhi A, Alnader I et al: Knowledge and misconceptions of choking and first-aid procedures among Syrian adults: A cross-sectional study, SAGE open medicine, 2024
• Charlton NP, Swain JM, Brozek JL et al: Control of Severe, Life-Threatening External Bleeding in the Out-of-Hospital Setting: A Systematic Review, Prehospital emergency care, 2021
• Pek JH: Guidelines for Bystander First Aid 2016, Singapore medical journal, 2017