A child falls off the zip line at camp. A Pathfinder faints in the middle of the breakfast line. A cyclist crashes on the sidewalk right in front of the Club. In the first few seconds, almost everyone either freezes or does the same thing: they run to the casualty and try to help without thinking. That impulse, however generous, sometimes creates a second casualty.
First responders all over the world follow the same order every time, drilled until it becomes reflex. It does not depend on you knowing how to treat a fracture or a burn. It is the assessment that comes before any specific first aid, and it fits into two acronyms: PAS and DR-ABC. Keeping them in mind is like carrying a map in your pocket when the trail disappears.
This text teaches you how to read the scene and the casualty in those first minutes. It is about awareness, and it does not replace an in-person first aid course or professional care. In any real emergency, the phone comes before the dressing: call your local emergency number (in Brazil, SAMU 192, or 193 for the Fire Brigade).
PAS and DR-ABC: the map for the first minutes
Every emergency starts in chaos. People shouting, someone on the ground, and the feeling that everything needs to happen at once. Calm comes from having an order ready in your head, rehearsed in advance. That is why two short acronyms exist, taught in any serious first aid course.
PAS sums up the essentials in three moves: Protect the scene and yourself, Alert the emergency services and only then Assist the casualty. DR-ABC breaks down the examination of the body in the right sequence: Danger, Response, Airway, Breathing and Circulation. The two fit together. PAS tells you what to do about the situation, DR-ABC tells you what to look for in the person.
The order is not decoration. It exists because each step depends on the one before it. There is no point in starting a flawless resuscitation if the car that hit the casualty is still coming toward you. First the scene becomes safe, then you touch whoever needs help. Keeping that sequence in mind is what separates help that solves things from haste that gets in the way.
Protect the scene: a living rescuer is the only one who can help
Before taking a single step toward the casualty, stop for two seconds and look around. Notice what could hurt you: traffic, downed wires, fire, smoke, deep water, an aggressive dog, a branch about to give way. The first D of DR-ABC, for danger, is exactly this quick sweep. Whoever walks into a scene without looking becomes the next incident, and now the emergency services have two people to attend to.
At camp, the hazards are usually predictable. A lit campfire near someone who has fallen, a stretch of river with a strong current, insects around an allergic casualty, the steep ground itself. Your job is to remove the risk, or to move the casualty away from it only when there is no other way. If the scene cannot be made safe, you step back and call those who have the equipment for it, such as the Fire Brigade.
Protecting also means taking care of yourself. If there is blood, use gloves, a clean plastic bag, any barrier between your skin and the casualty's. Ask someone to signal traffic with a flashlight or a piece of brightly colored clothing. This step lasts only a few seconds, and it is what makes sure someone is still standing to give first aid.
Assessing whether the casualty is conscious
With the scene safe, approach and find out whether the person is conscious. The test is simple and has a name: verbal and tactile stimulus. Get close to the shoulder, tap firmly (without shaking the head or neck) and speak loudly: "Can you hear me? Can you open your eyes?". A Pathfinder who answers, groans or moves is conscious, and that changes everything that comes next.
If the person responds, good. They can protect their own airway, and you have time to talk, understand what happened and observe. Ask their name, where it hurts, whether they remember the fall. Keep them warm and still while help is on the way. Never offer water, food or medicine to someone who has suffered a trauma or is drowsy, because it can cause choking.
If there is no response at all to your call and touch, the casualty is unconscious. This is the point where the minutes start to matter a great deal. An unconscious person cannot control their own tongue or breathing, and the immediate priority becomes calling for help and checking whether they are breathing. Note the approximate time you found them, because that information helps the emergency team.
Read alsoChoking and the Heimlich maneuver at the clubCalling for help: how to delegate without wasting time
Faced with an unconscious casualty, the next action is to call for professional help. And here lies a classic mistake: shouting "someone call an ambulance!" to the crowd. When the request goes to everyone, nobody takes it on, because each person assumes someone else has already called. The solution is to look one specific person in the eye and delegate in a clear voice: "You, in the blue shirt, call emergency services and come back to tell me what they said".
The call is answered free of charge, from any phone, with no credit. Your local emergency number handles clinical emergencies such as fainting, chest pain, seizures and drownings. In Brazil, that is SAMU on 192; the Fire Brigade, on 193, handles accidents, rescues at height, fires and drownings too. When in doubt between the two, call either one: the dispatch center redirects. Whoever answers will ask for the exact address, what happened and how many casualties there are, so speak calmly and do not hang up before the operator tells you to.
If you are alone with an adult who is not breathing, call first and put the phone on speaker, then begin resuscitation. With a child or baby who is not breathing, the guidance changes: give about two minutes of first aid before calling, if there is no one to delegate to. Learning to call for help and to delegate firmly is half the rescue, and it fits well with what every Counselor already practices when organizing the Unit.
Airway and breathing: the move that decides
We reach the heart of the primary assessment, the A and B of DR-ABC. In an unconscious person lying on their back, the tongue relaxes and can close off the passage of air. The move that fixes this is the head-tilt, chin-lift maneuver: one of your hands on the forehead, tilting the head slightly back, and two fingers of the other hand lifting the chin. This opens the airway in most cases.
With the airway open, check the breathing using the responders' technique, known as look, listen and feel. Bring your face close to the casualty's mouth, look at their chest and count for about ten seconds. Do you see the chest rise and fall, hear the air coming out and feel the breath on your cheek? Rare, noisy or isolated gasping breaths (the so-called agonal gasp) do not count as normal breathing.
The result of those ten seconds defines the next step. If the casualty is breathing normally, you move on to the recovery position. If they are not breathing, or only give those agonal gasps, the path is to start cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Neither of these two paths should be guessed at in a panic: they come after you have really looked, listened and felt.
The recovery position and when NOT to move
Picture the unconscious casualty who is breathing well, with no sign of serious trauma. The recovery position is your ally. You carefully turn them onto their side, with the head slightly tilted, so the tongue does not block the throat and any vomit drains out instead of going into the lungs. It is the position that keeps someone who has fainted breathing until the emergency services arrive.
There is, however, an important brake. Whenever there is a suspected injury to the spine, neck or head (a fall from height, a dive into shallow water, a motorcycle accident, a hard fall from the zip line), moving the casualty can turn an injury into paralysis. In those cases the rule is do not move. Keep the head aligned with the trunk, holding it with both hands, and wait for the team with a cervical collar and a backboard.
The exception exists, and it is a hard one: you move someone with a suspected spinal injury only if their life is in immediate danger right there, such as approaching fire, the risk of drowning or the need to resuscitate. In that case, move the body as one unit, trying to keep the head, neck and trunk in a straight line, ideally with more people helping. Otherwise, staying still beside the casualty, protecting the neck, is the bravest thing you can do.
When to start CPR and why you stop to help
If the ten-second check showed that the casualty is not breathing, the heart has probably stopped, and cardiopulmonary resuscitation needs to begin right away. These are firm, fast compressions in the center of the chest, pushing deep and letting the chest come back up, without stopping, until help arrives or the person reacts. Every minute without compressions greatly reduces the chance of survival, which makes this the most urgent action of all. You will find the detailed step by step for compressions in the CPR guide, and the ideal is to practice it in an in-person course with a manikin.
Notice how the whole sequence brought you here logically. Protecting the scene avoided a second casualty. Assessing consciousness defined the severity. Calling for help put the clock in your favor. Opening the airway and counting ten seconds revealed what the eyes alone cannot see. Each stage prepared the next, and that is why responders trust the order more than luck.
There is a deeper reason for a Pathfinder to learn all of this. When Jesus told the story of the good Samaritan, the hero of the story was precisely the one who stopped to help. "But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him" (Luke 10:33, NIV). Proverbs 24:11 is even more direct: "Rescue those being led away to death" (NIV). And James closes without mincing words: "If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn't do it, it is sin for them" (James 4:17, NIV). Learning to help is a concrete way of loving your neighbor, and the Club is a good place to start that training.