04.05.2021

Basic life support and automated external defibrillation (AED)

Photo: Samuli Raappana / Suomen Punainen Risti

Defibrillator is a resuscitation device used to correct dangerous arrhythmia in the heart.

The success of resuscitation depends primarily on the time between the heart stopping to starting the resuscitation.

How to resuscitate someone with a defibrillator (two bystanders)

  1. First check whether you can wake the collapsed person up by shaking him and by talking to him.

  2. If the person does not wake up, call 112. Put your phone on speaker. The other helper can pick up the defibrillator. 

  3. Put the patient on their back and check if the patient is breathing normally. Open the airways by lifting the chin upwards and tilting the head back. Check if the person's chest is rising. Feel and listen the air stream from the mouth and the nose.

  4. If the person does not breathe normally, start chest compressions, press 30 times. Place the heel of one hand on the middle of the breastbone and the heel of the other hand on the on top of the first one. Press the breastbone 30 times with your arms straight.

  5. Begin to give mouth-to-mouth ventilation with two blows of air. Close the patient's nose by pinching the nostrils with your thumb and index finger. Place your lips tightly around the patient's mouth and blow air in his lungs 2 times. Check whether your blows make his chest rise. Continue CPR by alternating 30 compressions and 2 ventilations.

  6. As soon as the AED arrives, switch on the AED and attach pads and follow the spoken and visual directions. Don’t interrupt CPR while attaching the pads. Follow directions: ”stand clear” and ”deliver shock”. Continue CPR until the person shows signs of recovery or professional help arrives

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Basic life support and automated external defibrillation (AED). Video: Samuli Raappana / Finnish Red Cross

Call the general emergency number 112 in an emergency.

Follow these instructions when making the emergency call

First aid instructions: removing a foreign object