1.3 — The First Sixty Seconds: A Protocol for Anything

One sequence, six steps, and it works for a collapse in the street, a fire alarm, a flood, an accident, a crowd surge and a medical emergency in your own house.

Learn it once. It is the backbone of every other chapter in this volume.

The sequence

1. Stop and say what you see

Two seconds, out loud, in plain words.

There is smoke coming under the door. He has collapsed and is not moving. The water is above the step.

This breaks the normalcy interpretation (1.1) and it is the step almost everybody skips.

2. Am I safe here?

Before anything else, and every single time.

The specific hazards that catch bystanders: live electricity, moving traffic, smoke and hot gases, water — including still water that is deeper or faster than it looks — unstable structures, gas, and crowds.

If the answer is no, move first and then help. A second casualty halves the help available and doubles the problem.

3. Get help coming

Now, not after you have assessed everything. Help takes time to arrive and the clock starts when the call is made.

In India: 112 reaches the unified emergency response, and 108 is the ambulance number in most states. 101 is fire, 100 is police.

And if other people are present, delegate it specifically (1.1): point at a person, name them by something visible, give them the task, and ask them to come back and confirm.

What to say, in this order: where you are, what has happened, how many people are affected, and whether anybody is unconscious or not breathing. Location first, because if the call drops they can still come.

4. Deal with the fastest thing

The rule of threes (1.2).

Not breathing? That is the entire problem (3.2).

Bleeding heavily? Press on it (3.4).

Getting cold and wet? Insulation and out of the wind.

Fire or water rising? Move, immediately, and take nothing.

5. Do the next single action

Not the plan. The next thing your hands do.

And then look up and reassess, because the situation has changed.

6. Reassess every thirty seconds

Out loud if there are other people. Right — he is breathing now. Ambulance is coming. Somebody get a blanket.

Emergencies change fast and the biggest error after the initial delay is continuing to execute a plan that has been overtaken.

The three universal actions

And underneath the sequence, three moves that are correct in a very large proportion of emergencies.

Move away from the hazard, immediately, with nothing

Fire, smoke, water, gas, structural collapse, crowd pressure.

And the thing that kills people is going back. For a phone, for documents, for a pet, for a laptop. This is one of the most consistent findings in fire and flood fatality reviews.

Decide now, calmly, that you will not go back. You will not decide it correctly in the moment.

Get low or get high, depending

Smoke: get low. Heat and toxic gases rise, and the air near the floor is survivable for considerably longer (6.1).

Water: get high — but not into a sealed roof space you cannot get out of (5.4).

Shaking: get low, under something solid, and cover your head (5.2).

Crowd pressure: get to the side, out of the flow, and stay upright (6.4).

Press on it

Bleeding. Hard, directly on the wound, and keep pressing. Do not lift to check.

It works for almost all external bleeding and it requires no equipment (3.4).

What to say to the person

Because it matters more than people think, and it is free.

Tell them what is happening and what you are doing. I am here. Help is on the way. I am going to press on your leg because it is bleeding.

Use their name if you know it.

Do not promise it will be fine. Say something true instead: I am not leaving you. The ambulance has been called and they are coming.

And keep talking even if they do not appear to be responding. Hearing frequently persists when other responses have gone, and people who have recovered from serious injury and illness routinely report having heard things they were not thought to be aware of.

What to do if you are alone and it is you

A short version, because this volume assumes a bystander and sometimes there is not one.

Get help coming first. **Before you try to fix anything. If you have chest pain, if you have stroke symptoms, if you are bleeding badly — call before you do anything else, because you may lose the ability to.

Unlock the door. A genuinely important small detail: emergency services frequently arrive at a locked door with an unresponsive person behind it. If you are alone and something is seriously wrong, open the door, then sit down near it.

Do not drive yourself. The most common and most dangerous instinct.

And put yourself somewhere you can be found. Not the bathroom, not upstairs.

The version to remember

If nothing else from this chapter stays, keep this.

Say what you see. Check you are safe. Get help coming. Fix the fastest thing. Do the next action. Look up again.

Six steps, about sixty seconds, and it is correct for almost anything.

What to do with this page

Learn the six steps. Say them once, now, so the sequence is familiar.

Know your numbers. 112 unified emergency, 108 ambulance in most Indian states. Put them where somebody else in your house can find them.

Decide now that you will not go back for anything.

And practise the pointing instruction from 1.1. It is the single most useful sentence in an emergency and nobody produces it without having rehearsed it.

Next: 1.4 — preparedness that is proportionate, and how to do it in one afternoon without becoming the person who thinks about disasters.