Safety and Emergency Procedures: Prevent, Protect, Respond
The safety mindset
Most safety questions are prevention questions: call light within reach, bed low and locked, floor clear, non-skid footwear, adequate lighting, uncluttered path to the bathroom, and frequent checks on high-fall-risk residents. Restraint-free care means finding the cause - pain, toileting, boredom, fear - and solving it.
Concepts to know cold
Fire response is RACE: Rescue those in immediate danger, Alarm, Contain the fire by closing doors, Extinguish or Evacuate. Fire extinguisher use is PASS: Pull, Aim, Squeeze, Sweep. CPR follows CAB - compressions first at 100-120 per minute, about 2 inches deep, 30 compressions to 2 breaths. Stroke recognition is FAST: Face, Arms, Speech, Time. For seizures: protect the head, do not restrain, put nothing in the mouth, time the event, turn the resident to the side afterward. Oxygen safety means no smoking, no open flame, no petroleum products.
Traps
- Restraining a seizing resident or inserting anything in the mouth.
- Trying to catch a falling resident. Guide the resident down to the floor while protecting the head.
- Fighting a fire before rescuing people in immediate danger.
- Attaching a restraint to side rails or leaving the knot out of reach.
- Writing opinions such as "resident was careless" on an incident report. Record only objective facts.
Rule of thumb
In any emergency: protect yourself first, call for help, then act within your training. You are not expected to do more than you were trained to do - but you are expected to summon help fast.