A four year in a classroom setting brings to school with him some small portions of hard round candy. The teacher notices that the child continues to go in his pockets for something, but she is not clear about what it is. She ask the child to come to her and checks to see what it is. She notices the small candy and takes it from the child. She also puts the candy in a ziplock bag and saves it until the parents arrive to explain to them as well as the child the importance of not bringing things from home as well as the safety of the hard candy. She then explains to him, that first he can't have candy while in school and second that the candy is too small for him to chew on his own so he needs an adult around while eating this type of candy. The teacher goes on with the production of the class. She never thinks to look in the child's backpack to see if he has more candy in his bag. Nevertheless, the child does. The child goes into the backpack when the teacher doesn't notice him there and takes out another piece of candy and this time puts it in his mouth. He then goes back to his area and starts to play and have conversations with the other children there. The child begins to choke from the candy. The teacher notices that the child is not breathing. The teacher goes over to the child and grabs him. She notices the candy just below the tonsils. The teacher appoints the aid in her class to call 9-1-1. She then kneels down behind the child and wraps her arms around his waist. She then makes a fist with one hand and wraps the other hand over the fist just below the breastbone. She then makes a upward motion with her hands into the belly of the child. This is to make the candy move and open up an airway for breathing. After two pumps the candy pops out the child's mouth. The safety precautions that the teacher used on the child is called the Heimlich Maneuver. He instantly began to cry. The teacher comforts him calls the parents to let them know what had happened and he could be picked up for the day for more support from the parents.
Planning for a child that is choking is very important because it helps to save a life. If the staff or teacher had not trained for this type of incident she might have panicked and the child would have died from lack of oxygen. Adults need to also know how to perform this type of rescue on adults, infants and children because it is different in each case. When performing The Heimlich Maneuver on a infant that is choking you would hold the infant face down and give up to five slap on the back with the heel of the hand.
A scenario of CPR is a child in your class is on the playground and is allergic to grass the parents never tell yo that the child suffers from these type of allergies. You allow the child to play freely with his peers. You notice as the child is running around the track he seems to have shortness of breathe. You continue to watch him because the child keeps holding his chest. He never comes to you and say nothing is wrong. The child passes out. The teacher instantly rushes over to the child. She shakes the child to see if he is responding. The child is not. She then appoints someone to call 9-1-1. The teacher then positions the child on his back, making sure to protect the neck, spine, and head. She then opens up the mouth of the child and looks for any objects that might be in the airway. She notices nothing and pinches his nose, while securing the head back. She then gives two long breathes into the child's mouth. Then she positions her hands overlapping on the child's chest and leans forward so that her shoulders are over the head. The teacher then pushes downward on the chest using her weight and compresses on the child's chest for five times in three seconds. She then gives another breath and compresses on the chest five more times. She then checks for a pulse and breathing. The child begins to breathe.
Advance planning is the best way to prevent this type of situation from happening. It helps yo to know what to do when a child stops breathing or has shortness of breathe. It is also important that the teachers stress to the families how important it is to let them know if anything is wrong with the child. This allows the teacher to know what to do with the child when they go outside or other places that have grass. At home the families need to look for signs in children that indicate they maybe allergic to certain things, because in some cases the parents don't know that there children have allergies from a lot of different types of things.
Resources
http://firstaid.webmd.com/tc/choking-rescue-procedure-heimlich-maneuver-adult-or-child-older-than-1-year
http://www.ehow.com/how_7150_perform-cpr-child.html
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