Ready Kids › Home Alone Ready › Badge 7 › Lesson 7.2
All courses›Home Alone Ready›Badge 7
Bleeding
Press hard on a bleed with a clean cloth, keep pressing, add on top, and never lift it to look.
1Watch
It looks worse than it is
It looks worse than it is
A cut hand held over a white sink, blood running. The kid reaches for the tea towel on the oven door. The film ends with the towel in her other hand.
15 secondsThe sink makes it look like a lot. It is usually a little. Watch what she does with the towel.
2The idea
The simplest one
Bleeding looks the worst and is the simplest to help. The job is pressure. Press. Hard. With a clean cloth, right on the cut. And do not lift it to look.
Every time you lift it, you undo the minute you just did. Ten minutes of pressure before you even think about looking. Sit down while you do it. If the cut is on a hand or an arm, holding it up a bit does no harm, but the pressing is the thing.
3The idea
Add on top, never take off
If the cloth soaks through, put another one on top and keep pressing. The first cloth is doing a job under there, and taking it off pulls the job off with it.
Call 911, still pressing, if: it is spurting; it will not slow after ten minutes of hard pressure; it is deep, or on the head, neck, chest or belly; something is stuck in it (do not pull it out, press around it). Small cut: press, wash, plaster. Big, or will not stop: press and call, and keep pressing.
4The idea
Dan, and the tea towel
The knife slipped. Clean tea towel from the drawer, folded, hard on the finger. He sits on the kitchen floor. Phone on speaker: Cut my finger, pressing on it, it’s bleeding a fair bit. Mum: Keep pressing. Ten minutes away.
At three minutes he wants to look. He does not. The towel soaks through; second towel on top. By the time Mum is in the door it is slowing. The hardest part was not looking. That is the whole skill.
5Try it
Sixty seconds of pressure
Hold it
Press and hold on the screen for a full sixty seconds. The timer runs while you hold. Lift your finger and it resets to zero, with no comment.
Sixty seconds is a sixth of the real thing. Notice how long it feels.
6Decide
You have been pressing for two minutes. The cloth is soaked through.
Pick one to carry on.
7Say it
Three lines, for the pressing
Say it slowly, like you are counting
“Press. Don't look. Add on top.”
Say it every time you want to peek. That will be about every thirty seconds.
8Find them
Which of these mean call 911, still pressing?
Tap the ones that count.
Find all 4.
9Do it
Before you leave this page
Hold a folded cloth pressed on your own forearm for a full minute, by the clock, without lifting it once. Notice when you wanted to.
Tick it when you have done it.
Lesson done.
Press. Hard. Do not lift it to look. Add on top, never take off.
Next lesson: Burns and bumps