First Aid for Fighters: Fainting

Recently a student passed out after a particularly difficult class. After class, everyone was lined up for promotions when suddenly she keeled over like a Douglas fir. Suddenly it was chaos. People were panicking, picking up her legs, pouring water over her, yelling into her face from inches away, yelling to call 911. You’d a thunk terrorists were at the door. She woke up and after a bit she was fine.

Well what should you do?

First off, prevention is the key. Water breaks and lots of them should be mandatory.

Secondly, you should eat some food an hour or two before class. You can’t fire up the ole engine without some fuel.

Third, after a really hard class, the instructor should have everyone sit down for a short time and discuss the class. This allows for everyone’s heart rates to decrease without pooling blood in your legs.

Think of your body as a water tower. Blood is pumped all over and while you are moving and the need is high, your heart beats fast and gets blood into all of the nooks and crannies. If you stop suddenly, and line up at attention, your heart rate slows, but your need for oxygenated blood is still high. Blood pools in your legs because you are no longer moving, your muscles in your calves are no longer helping to push blood towards your noggin’ and just like a well done carotid restraint, your brain no longer gets enough blood to keep the lights on. So TIMBERRRRRR, you go down. With luck you miss hitting anything sharp and hard on the way down and before you know it, you have no idea how you got down here and why some chick is inches from your face yelling at you asking if you are ok.

Now if someone does keel over, Make sure they aren’t seizing. That’s pretty obvious. Big jerking motions of their whole body, teeth gnashing, sometimes scary sounds. Think gran mal seizure. If that is happening protect them from hitting anything and call 911 pronto. Luckily that is a rarity. If they are lying there looking pale, elevate their legs. Help that blood get where it’s needed, their head!! DO NOT give them water while groggy or unconscious. You wanna drown them? Wait until they wake up and ask them if they feel ok. Keep your face outta theirs, unless of course you want to get puked on. If you know how, take their pulse and make sure it’s regular. If they are dry, and hot get them some water, and ice their neck, armpits or abdomen. They may be suffering from heat exhaustion and if they aren’t better quickly they need to go to the hospital for IV fluids. If not it may progress to heat stroke which can be fatal.

Most of the time it’ll be simple fainting or a syncopal episode (technical term). But sometimes it can be serious. So once someone faints, watch them closely, make sure they drinks some fluids and keep it down, have a little food and keep it down and continue to improve. If they upchuck, stay unconscious or pass out again while sitting there, seize or start convulsing, you have a medical emergency and need to call 911 quickly.

Above all if you are a panicker get the hell outta there and find someone more competent then you.

Also let’s use a little science, not pseudoscience, and drink some water during your workouts.

First Aid for fighters is an occasional feature that will look at common conditions and situations that you may find yourself in. Please note that in case of injury, or suspected injury you should seek competent medical attention, i.e. not something you read on the internet. For entertainment purposes only.