can’t get these diseases by doing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation or from exposure to their saliva, sputum, nasal secretions, or vomit. To be safe, though, you should cover any cuts or sores you have that could result in an exchange of blood through the break in your skin. This is good practice, even if you aren’t rendering first aid. If you have significant contact with the bodily secretions or blood of another person, especially if it is someone you do not know, change your clothing and take a shower to clean your body. While you can’t really get HIV disease or hepatitis B if there is no contact with your blood, there is still contact with possibly infected fluids causing other diseases. The best way to avoid a hepatitis B infection is to get immunized if it didn’t happen when you were little.
APPROACH TO THE VICTIM There is a saying that the first thing you should do when approaching a person who is unconscious and not breathing is to take your own pulse. This means you first need to collect yourself and calm down or you won’t be of help to anyone. This is especially the case when the victim is one of your family members or when the person is seriously sick or injured. This doesn’t mean you need to act slowly; you just need to think about what you’re doing and try not to be emotionally overcome—at least not until the emergency is over. Once you have calmed down, your initial approach to a victim is to get an overall impression of what’s going on. Do they look sick? Are they talking and do they make sense? Is their skin a normal pink or skin-color or do they look blue in the extremities or around their mouth? Are they struggling to catch their breath? The person who is talking and not struggling to breathe probably doesn’t need overzealous treatment. On the other hand, the individual who can’t complete a sentence because they are short of breath or who isn’t making sense needs urgent treatment. If the victim is a child, the fact that they are crying is usually a good sign. Crying children have the respiratory (lung) reserves to allow them to cry. The child who cannot cry because they are too busy breathing is probably sicker than the crying child. Listening for abnormal breathing
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