9.3 — The Skills to Rehearse

Equipment fails, gets lost, or is somewhere else.

Skills do not.

And the specific finding from 1.1 is that under stress you execute what you have practised rather than what you have read — which means rehearsal, however brief, is what converts this volume from information into capability.

The five that matter most

In order.

1. CPR

The single highest-value skill in this book (3.2).

Learn: the position, the depth, the rate, and that gasping is not breathing.

**Practise: hands on a cushion, arms straight, body weight, ninety seconds. Do it once now.

And do a hands-on course if you can. A few hours, frequently free, and the physical practice is what reading cannot supply.

Refresh yearly.

2. Severe bleeding control

Press hard, directly, do not lift to check, add on top (3.4).

**Practise: on your own leg, through clothing, hard enough to be uncomfortable. Ten seconds, and it calibrates how much pressure is actually required — which is considerably more than people apply.

3. The recovery position

Thirty seconds to learn (3.1).

Practise: on a family member, once, tonight.

It is the correct action for anybody unconscious and breathing, which is a very common situation.

4. Choking response

Five back blows, five abdominal thrusts, alternate (3.4).

And the infant version is different — no abdominal thrusts.

**Practise: the positions, on a willing adult, without force. Knowing where your hands go is most of it.

5. Turning off your own utilities

Water, gas, electricity (1.4, 9.1).

Practise: find all three, operate the water stopcock once so you know it turns, and show everybody in the household.

Fifteen minutes and almost nobody has done it.

The drills

From 5.12, and they take a few minutes each.

Evacuation. **Pick up the bags and walk out, timed. **Once a year. You will find a problem every time.

Drop, cover, hold on (5.2). One minute, everybody, if you are in an earthquake zone.

Fire escape. Walk both routes out, including in the dark, and practise the meeting point (6.1).

And the walk. Your evacuation route, in daylight, timed (5.12). To high ground if you are coastal (5.3).

The knowledge worth memorising

Nine things, none of which require equipment.

112 and 108.

BE-FAST (3.3). **Balance, Eyes, Face, Arms, Speech, Time. One sign is enough.

Gasping is not breathing (3.2).

The rule of threes (1.2). Three minutes, three hours, three days, three weeks.

Fifteen centimetres of moving water knocks you over; thirty floats a car (5.4).

Wind goes down, water goes up (5.1).

Nuclear: inside. Chemical: outside and upwind (8.1).

Three of anything is the distress signal (7.3).

And point, name, task, confirmation — the delegation sentence (1.1). You, in the blue shirt, call an ambulance, then come back and tell me.

The habits

Which are not skills and which do more than any of them.

Tell somebody your route and your return time (7.1). The single most valuable habit in this volume.

Look up (6.6).

Act on the feeling before you justify it.

Decide the trigger in advance (5.1).

Do not go back for anything (1.3).

And know three neighbours (1.4).

Teaching the household

Because a skill held by one person fails when that person is the casualty.

Children can learn, earlier than people assume: the emergency number, their address, how to get out, where to meet, and to stay put and shout at strangers if lost (7.1).

Teenagers can learn CPR properly.

And everybody should know where the kit is, where the shut-offs are, and who the out-of-area contact is.

Do it as a fifteen-minute conversation rather than as a lecture, once a year.

What good preparation actually feels like

And this belongs at the end of a chapter about rehearsal.

It feels like nothing.

**A person with a fire escape plan does not think about fire. **A person who knows CPR does not think about cardiac arrest. A household with a one-page plan does not discuss disasters.

The whole point of the work is that it removes the thing from your attention (1.4).

Which means: if preparedness is occupying your thoughts, you have either not finished it or you have overdone it, and both are correctable.

The honest minimum

If you do nothing else from this volume.

Learn CPR.

Fit a smoke alarm and a carbon monoxide alarm.

Fill in the one-page plan (9.1).

Tell somebody where you are going.

And know three neighbours.

That is perhaps three hours of your life, total, and it covers a very large proportion of everything in these nine Parts.

What to do with this page

Practise CPR position on a cushion tonight. Ninety seconds.

Do the recovery position on somebody, once.

Find and operate your water stopcock.

Memorise the nine facts. None need equipment and all of them decide outcomes.

And teach the household in a fifteen-minute conversation. A skill one person holds fails when that person is the casualty.

Next: 9.4 — the close.