IvanD
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Hey all,
I hope this isn't a stupid question but I'm curious as I had a debate with my instructor about this the other day. To give you a background I'm a W/MFR and I was taking the exam for ARC Lifeguarding. One of the questions asked were:
You arrive on scene and find a child having difficulty breathing, you determine that it is asthma. However he does not have an inhaler with him, you should:
(I don't remember all the answers but I narrowed it down to two)
a) Use the inhaler provided by a stander by.
b) Call EMS and help child sit in the most comfortable position to help breathing.
I put a) however, what I was thinking was I'd choose A and then bring him to a hospital. I also thought it depends on how bad of a condition the child is in, if he's hypoxic to the point he's cyanotic, then I would not hesitate using someone else's inhaler.
However, ARC's model answer is B and my instructor argued against using someone else's prescription. He also said at "this level of training" we should just call EMS.
My question is, which one would you have chosen? I understand that when I was taught this in my WFR class I was told to use someone else's inhaler, however that's possibly due to the factor of longer exposure and the remoteness of location. In a pool which should be easily accessed by EMS, should the provider (lifeguard) just have sat there and waited for EMS while the child is struggling the breath? Would this still be the case if the child was becoming cyanotic?
I hope this isn't a stupid question but I'm curious as I had a debate with my instructor about this the other day. To give you a background I'm a W/MFR and I was taking the exam for ARC Lifeguarding. One of the questions asked were:
You arrive on scene and find a child having difficulty breathing, you determine that it is asthma. However he does not have an inhaler with him, you should:
(I don't remember all the answers but I narrowed it down to two)
a) Use the inhaler provided by a stander by.
b) Call EMS and help child sit in the most comfortable position to help breathing.
I put a) however, what I was thinking was I'd choose A and then bring him to a hospital. I also thought it depends on how bad of a condition the child is in, if he's hypoxic to the point he's cyanotic, then I would not hesitate using someone else's inhaler.
However, ARC's model answer is B and my instructor argued against using someone else's prescription. He also said at "this level of training" we should just call EMS.
My question is, which one would you have chosen? I understand that when I was taught this in my WFR class I was told to use someone else's inhaler, however that's possibly due to the factor of longer exposure and the remoteness of location. In a pool which should be easily accessed by EMS, should the provider (lifeguard) just have sat there and waited for EMS while the child is struggling the breath? Would this still be the case if the child was becoming cyanotic?