Hey all I just came across an emergency situation irl that I felt useless in because of how slowly I was thinking. Basically it was someone getting an epileptic seizure and I had the info in my head for what to do but I did end up freezing a bit before I did anything. Really didn’t like it. The person is fine now but if I had reacted faster, we might have been able to prevent a couple problems.
I’ve been in other emergencies before where I had to call the shots but I guess I want to think faster and keep it consistent at a higher level, and I want to improve on it for future scenarios, but what can I do to do that?
Edit: Just wanted to say thanks for everyone’s replies, I’ll be looking into a routine to acclimate myself with these kinds of situations
The majority of effort for emergency preparedness is repetition so you don’t have to think about it. Understanding is good too, but in a lot of cases you shouldn’t be taking action based on speed if you don’t know the right thing.
For example, it is generally better to just make sure someone having a seizure has room and isn’t going to fall off something. Things like sticking stuff in their mouth like in the movies is a terrible idea that makes the situation worse, so not acting is actually better than acting most of the time in the case of seizures.
As a counterexample choking requires immediate and correct actions. Some things will expel the object and others will get it stuck in a harder to expel location, so bboth time and foreknowledge is important.
All you can do is learn about the right things to do, such as taking a first aid class, and practicing them so you don’t need to think about what to do.