CPR and the Recovery Position
What to do when someone is unresponsive: check breathing, call for help and a defibrillator, start chest compressions at the right depth and rate, and use the recovery position when they are breathing. Includes why bystanders hesitate and what removes the hesitation.
What a learner can do afterwards
- Check responsiveness and breathing in the right order and say what each check rules out
- Give chest compressions on a manikin at roughly the right depth and rate for two minutes
- Put a breathing casualty into the recovery position and say what it protects against
- Name what a defibrillator does and why using one does not require training
1 · Read
Shake the shoulders and shout to check response. Then watch for normal breathing for no more than ten seconds. Gasping or snoring noises do not count as normal breathing. If you cannot wake them, treat it as an emergency.
No response plus no normal breathing means act at once. Call emergency services, send someone for a defibrillator, and push hard and fast in the centre of the chest. Go about 5 to 6 cm deep at 100 to 120 pushes a minute, and do not stop until help arrives.
An unresponsive person who is breathing normally needs the recovery position instead. Lay them on their side with the airway open. Vomit then drains out instead of choking them.
The defibrillator reads the heart itself and only shocks rhythms a shock can help, so you cannot shock by mistake. It talks you through every step. For a small child use one hand at about a third of the chest depth.
Check response, check breathing, compress fast and deep or roll them sideways, and let the talking box guide the shock.
2 · Watch
Take it off screen
Where it sits
This opens up
Nothing builds on it yet.
Where this leads
Jobs that lean on this skill. Follow one to see everything it is built on.
8 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.