Ouch!

"Slap a choking person on the back."

Yeah, not really working.

"After getting stabbed,

take out the sharp object from the body."

This is from movies.

This is stupid. Don't do this.

Hi, my name is Randy Li.

I'm a paramedic here in New York City,

and I've been working EMS for 11 years.

Hi, my name is Lorena Concepcion-Martinez.

I am a paramedic here in New York City also,

with Randy, for the past 19 years.

And today we'll be debunking myths about first aid.

Concepcion-Martinez: Ready? Li: Let's go.

"If someone gets a concussion, keep them awake."

This is a old wives' tale.

They associated someone having a concussion

and going into a coma and not being able to wake up.

So that's why they used to say to keep everybody awake.

Now, we have figured out that

the sleeping does not cause the coma.

When someone has a concussion,

it is considered a type of TBI, traumatic brain injury.

You do want to monitor them, though.

You want to make sure there's no deficit, no changes.

So things you're going to be looking out for would be

slurred speech, vomiting, unsteady gait,

which means you're, like, wobbly when you walk.

A little dizzy.

Yeah. You don't want any of that.

So if you think that's a problem

and it's not self-resolving,

then, yeah, take them to the hospital.

Let them do a CAT scan, let them make sure

that the patient's not having

an internal bleed in their brain.

"You should put something into the mouth

of someone having a seizure."

Negative.

This is a major no-no.

This is another old wives' tale

of people thinking that the patient having the seizure

was going to swallow their tongue.

It's more muscle spasms and clenching of the jaw.

So you don't really have to worry about the patient

swallowing the tongue or anything along those lines.

That whole time you were talking,

I tried to swallow my tongue. I couldn't do it.

So it's not true.

When someone's having a seizure,

they're having these fasciculations,

this tightening of the muscles.

What'll happen is they'll clench their jaw.

And if you put something in their mouth,

they'll break their teeth, they'll break their jaw.

Bite your finger off.

Yeah, don't do it.

You also want to let the seizure pass.

You want to make sure once they've stopped,

you can roll them on their side

and just kind of be supportive

until EMS arrives to help.

Most seizures will resolve themselves

after, say, 30 seconds to a minute.

But if you have something called status epilepticus --

The patient will end up having continuous seizures,

which will affect their breathing.

That point is where you need that advanced medical care,

advanced life support,

paramedics like Randy and I,

to come in and give medications

to actually try to subside the seizures

and transport the patient to the hospital

as quickly as possible.

"Slap a choking person on the back."

This myth does come from how you treat

an infant or a child that is choking,

because we do backslaps, as we call them,

in an infant or a child.

But an adult, you want to emphasize the Heimlich maneuver.

Wait, hold on. I have a thing for this.

So, imagine this guy's choking.

We're gonna try the backslap thing.

Yeah, not really working.

If you come across a person choking,

try to encourage them to keep coughing.

So, Randy here is going to show you

the universal choking sign, which is?

But you wouldn't be smiling, clearly.

But, you know, they'd be like this.

That's the universal choking sign.

Do not -- I stress, do not -- give them anything to drink.

You want them to keep coughing until they clear that airway.

And if it becomes completely obstructed

that they can't get any air movement,

they can't speak, and they start turning blue,

it's time for the Heimlich and definitely 911.

Li: Depending on who you follow,

the protocol for treating choking is a little bit different.

The American Red Cross recommends five back blows

followed by five abdominal thrusts and repeat.

But Lorena and I follow

the American Heart Association protocols,

so we go straight to the abdominal thrusts.

When you're doing the abdominal thrust,

like the old name of the Heimlich maneuver,

you're going to make a fist.

So this goes right to the navel, just slightly above.

You're going to do a pulling-up motion, like a J.

And you're going to squeeze with a lot of force.

So, unlike the movies and stuff,

this actually takes a lot of effort.

You can't just do it in one shot.

You're going to be really tired doing this,

and it's probably going to hurt the person as well,

but it's better than them choking to death.

Oh, God. [pants]

There you go.

When you do this,

please make sure to keep your head to the side.

'Cause if not,

the patient will bang you on your nose,

and you might end up with a bloody nose.

Boom.

"Always suck the venom out of a snakebite."

I'm sorry. [laughs]

I don't know how to answer this properly.

It's ill-advised to ever have a answer in our life

where sucking something out is, like, your go-to thing.

If you drop food coloring into a cup of water,

it's very difficult to get it back together.

It's impossible to get it all out.

So the same applies for venom on a snakebite.

Once it's in, it's in the bloodstream,

it's going to circulate.

So it's really not going to do much.

The other thing is,

stay away from putting any kind of tourniquet.

It's going to create more damage

than what it's going to help.

If someone's going to be bit by a venomous snake,

sucking on the wound,

you're going to get such a minimal amount out

that it's not going to do anything.

And then you leave them exposed to infection,

because your mouth is probably dirty.

Concepcion-Martinez: If you encounter someone who's had

a venomous -- key word, venomous -- snake bite,

you definitely want to call 911 as soon as possible

and get that patient to the hospital.

You want to go to a venom center or a bite center.

And it's particularly a hospital

that has all kinds of antivenoms,

antidotes for this kind of incident.

"CPR requires mouth-to-mouth."

CPR does not require mouth-to-mouth.

There are procedures of just doing chest compressions

that allow you to make sure

that blood's circulating through the whole body

to get oxygenated blood to the brain.

That's the goal.

It buys you time for us, paramedics, to show up.

A couple years back, CPR was required mouth-to-mouth.

But do you really want to put your mouth

on a total, complete stranger?

The American Heart Association

and everyone else who teaches CPR

have been doing a strong emphasis on hands only.

It eliminates the transmissions

of any communicable diseases

or anything along those lines.

To do CPR properly,

you're going to want to expose the chest down,

so you have access to the bare chest.

Palm of your hand, center of the chest,

you're going to wrap your fingers around each other.

And then you're just going to push straight down.

For an adult, it's about 2 inches or so,

but basically, just going to keep that going on

for 100 beats per minute.

There is a song that we utilize all the time.

Historically, we use "Stayin' Alive."

Ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin' alive, stayin' alive.

So, when you're doing CPR,

the main thing you want to just maintain

is that those compressions are going to be consistent.

Anytime you stop, that threshold goes down.

It causes a huge amount of detriments to the body.

You got to start doing it immediately.

You got, like, six minutes before you have

irreversible damage to the brain.

So start CPR quick.

Give them a good shot.

"After getting stabbed,

take out the sharp object from the body."

This is from movies.

This is stupid. Don't do this.

Do not remove it.

You will cause a lot more tissue damage

and cause a lot more bleeding.

So, please,

I stress this,

please do not remove it.

Leave it in place.

Li: You should stabilize it,

so it doesn't go wiggling around inside,

because any kind of movement to the foreign object --

Will create more damage.

It's great in movies though. It's hysterical.

Drama effect.

It's just like ... [makes sound effect]

[grunts]

Li: Why? Concepcion-Martinez: No.

I don't get it.

"You have to be medically trained to use a defibrillator."

It'll make you feel more confident, but you really don't.

What you see out there, they're not actually

defibrillators like you see in the movies,

paddles and all that craziness, they don't do that.

Well, let's show them.

OK.

So, this is an AED.

This is an automatic external defibrillator.

A defibrillator basically shocks the heart.

All municipal buildings have these in every location.

So the best thing about defibrillators is that

anyone can use them.

All you have to do is open it up

and press the power button,

and it will literally tell you,

step by step, what needs to be done.

Open it up.

[AED beeps]

AED: Adult mode. Remove all clothing from patient's chest.

Can you pull the red handle?

Sure.

AED: Look at pictures on pads.

Li: There are photos to show you exactly

where you're supposed to put these things on.

Concepcion-Martinez: You want to use this

as quickly as possible

once you know the person is in cardiac arrest.

If the person is unresponsive but you're not sure,

you still want to use this

and put it on the patient's chest.

If the patient's still alive,

it will tell you not to shock.

AED: Analyzing heart rhythm.

Provide chest compressions to the beat.

Concepcion-Martinez: And continue CPR.

Don't be afraid to ask someone

to go get the defibrillator or the AED.

"Put butter on a burn to heal it."

What are you, a piece of toast?

That would be a no.

You do not put butter on a burn.