First aid basics everyone should know

Before anything: the three things that always come first

1. Make sure the scene is safe. You are no use as a second casualty, and rescuers becoming victims is a recognised pattern in traffic, water and electrical incidents.
2. Call emergency services, or tell a specific person to call. "Someone call an ambulance" gets ignored; "you, in the blue jacket, call 999 and come back and tell me" does not.
3. Stay on the line. Dispatchers are trained to talk you through what to do, in real time, while help is on the way. They are a better resource than anything on your phone.

Severe bleeding

Catastrophic bleeding kills faster than almost anything else, and it is one of the most treatable things a bystander can address.

The principle is direct, firm, sustained pressure on the wound — harder and for longer than feels comfortable. Use whatever is available; a clean dressing is better but clothing works. If blood soaks through, add more on top rather than removing what is there.

Tourniquets have a real role in limb bleeding that pressure cannot control, and modern guidance is far more supportive of them than it once was — but applying one correctly is a trained skill, and this is precisely the kind of thing a course teaches and an article cannot.

Someone who is unresponsive

The critical distinction is whether they are breathing normally.

If they are unresponsive but breathing normally, the recovery position protects their airway while you wait. If they are unresponsive and not breathing normally — including occasional gasping, which is not normal breathing — that is cardiac arrest and CPR is needed immediately.

Bystander CPR roughly doubles or triples survival odds in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, and the most common failure is hesitation rather than poor technique. Compressions performed imperfectly are enormously better than none.

Defibrillators are increasingly available in public places and are designed for untrained use — they give spoken instructions and will not shock someone who does not need it. Send someone else to fetch one while you start compressions.

Choking

If they can cough forcefully, encourage coughing — it is more effective than anything you can do. Intervene when the cough becomes silent or ineffective, or they cannot breathe.

Standard adult guidance alternates back blows and abdominal thrusts. Technique differs importantly for infants, and for pregnant or larger adults where chest thrusts replace abdominal ones. These variations are exactly why a course beats an article.

Anaphylaxis

A severe allergic reaction can progress in minutes. Signs include swelling of the face, lips or throat, difficulty breathing, a widespread rash, and a sudden feeling that something is very wrong.

If the person carries an adrenaline auto-injector, it should be used without delay — hesitation is far more dangerous than an unnecessary dose. Call emergency services regardless, because symptoms can return after an initial improvement.

This is one of the strongest arguments for storing allergy information somewhere findable. A responder who knows about a known anaphylaxis risk reaches a conclusion much faster.

Take a course

A basic first aid course typically runs a few hours to a day and costs very little. Providers include the Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, St John Ambulance, and national resuscitation councils, and many offer free or subsidised community sessions.

What you get from it that no article provides: the physical experience of how hard compressions actually are, correction of your technique by someone watching, and the confidence to begin rather than freeze. The freezing is the real problem — most bystanders who do nothing do so because they are not sure they will do it right.