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Emergency numbers

Use at your own risk. For education and research only, not medical advice. Check the numbers and rules for the country you are in. They change. Before you rely on these cards, have a medical professional or a fire safety specialist review them.

Do this first

Dial 999. The call is free from any phone, including a locked one. 112 reaches the same operators.

Say where you are first. Give the street and number, the town, a landmark or the location your phone shows.
Say what happened in one sentence, such as a fall, a fire, a crash or chest pain.
Say how many people are hurt, and whether anyone is unconscious or not breathing.
Give your phone number. They will use it to call back if the line drops.
Stay on the line. The call handler will tell you when the call is over.
Follow their instructions exactly, including starting chest compressions if they tell you to.
Send someone out to the street to wave the ambulance in, and unlock any doors and gates.

Do not hang up until the call handler says you can.
Do not use 999 for problems that can wait. NHS 111 gives urgent medical advice, and 101 is for non-emergency police matters.
Do not assume someone else has already called. Ask out loud and make sure.

CPR and resuscitation

Use at your own risk. For education and research only, not medical advice. Check the numbers and rules for the country you are in. They change. Before you rely on these cards, have a medical professional or a fire safety specialist review them.

Do this first

Not breathing normally? Call 999, then push hard and fast on the centre of the chest, 100 to 120 times a minute.

Check for danger to yourself first: traffic, electricity, fire, gas.
Shout at the person and shake their shoulders. If there is no reaction, they are unresponsive.
Tilt the head back, lift the chin, then look and listen for normal breathing for no more than ten seconds.
Call 999, put the phone on speaker and send someone for the nearest defibrillator.
Put the heel of one hand on the centre of the chest and the other hand on top. Press five to six centimetres deep, 100 to 120 times a minute. Let the chest come fully back up between compressions.
If you are trained and willing, give two rescue breaths after every thirty compressions. Otherwise do compressions only.
Swap with someone else every two minutes if you can. Keep going until the crew takes over or the person wakes up.

Do not stop to search for a pulse. Untrained pulse checks waste time and are unreliable.
Do not hold back for fear of breaking ribs. Ribs heal.
Do not leave the person to look for a defibrillator if you are the only one there.

Choking

Use at your own risk. For education and research only, not medical advice. Check the numbers and rules for the country you are in. They change. Before you rely on these cards, have a medical professional or a fire safety specialist review them.

Do this first

Ask loudly: are you choking? If they cannot answer, give five hard back blows between the shoulder blades now.

Ask: are you choking? If they can speak or cough loudly, do nothing except encourage the coughing. A strong cough is the best help they can get.
If the cough is silent or they cannot breathe, stand to one side and slightly behind them. Support the chest with one hand and lean them forward.
Give up to five sharp blows between the shoulder blades with the heel of your hand. Check after each blow whether the object is out.
If that fails, stand behind them and put your fist just above the navel. Grip it with the other hand and pull sharply inwards and upwards, up to five times.
Keep alternating five back blows and five abdominal thrusts until the object comes out.
If the person goes limp, lower them to the ground, call 999 and start CPR at once. Compressions also push air against the object.
Anyone who has had abdominal thrusts must be checked by a doctor afterwards, even if they feel fine.

Do not sweep the mouth blindly with a finger. It pushes the object deeper. Remove only what you can clearly see and grip.
Do not use abdominal thrusts on a pregnant woman or a baby. Use chest thrusts for a pregnant woman, and back blows with chest thrusts for a baby.
Do not leave a choking person alone, even to get help.

Heart attack

Use at your own risk. For education and research only, not medical advice. Check the numbers and rules for the country you are in. They change. Before you rely on these cards, have a medical professional or a fire safety specialist review them.

Do this first

Call 999 now. Sit the person down, half upright, and keep them still.

Call 999 straight away and say chest pain, so the dispatcher sends the right team.
Sit the person down half upright, with their back supported and knees bent. Do not let them walk around.
Loosen tight clothing at the neck and waist, and open a window.
Ask whether they have prescribed nitrate spray or tablets, and help them take their own medication.
If the dispatcher advises it and the person is fully awake and not allergic, they can slowly chew one 300 mg aspirin tablet.
Stay with them, keep them calm and note the time the pain started.
If they lose consciousness and stop breathing normally, start CPR immediately.

Do not drive them to hospital yourself. An ambulance starts treatment on the way.
Do not give food or drink, apart from their own medication.
Do not let them walk to the car or climb stairs.

Stroke

Use at your own risk. For education and research only, not medical advice. Check the numbers and rules for the country you are in. They change. Before you rely on these cards, have a medical professional or a fire safety specialist review them.

Do this first

Call 999 the moment you suspect a stroke. Say the word stroke and say when the symptoms started.

Do the FAST check. Face: ask them to smile, and one side droops. Arms: ask them to raise both, and one drifts down. Speech: ask them to say a simple sentence, and it comes out slurred or wrong. Time: if you see any one sign, call 999 now.
Tell the dispatcher it is a stroke and give the exact time the symptoms started, or the last time the person was seen well. Hospitals base treatment on that time.
Sit or lay the person down with head and shoulders slightly raised, and keep them still and calm.
Loosen anything tight around the neck. Take out loose dentures.
Give nothing to eat, drink or swallow. A stroke often paralyses swallowing, and anything in the mouth can end up in the lungs.
If they become unresponsive but are breathing normally, put them in the recovery position with the weak side down, and watch their breathing.
If the symptoms fade after a few minutes, call anyway. A passing episode is often a warning that a full stroke is coming.

Do not give aspirin. It makes a stroke caused by bleeding worse.
Do not wait to see whether it passes, and do not let them talk you into lying down for a nap first.
Do not let them drive themselves, and do not drive them yourself. The ambulance alerts the stroke unit on the way.

Severe bleeding

Use at your own risk. For education and research only, not medical advice. Check the numbers and rules for the country you are in. They change. Before you rely on these cards, have a medical professional or a fire safety specialist review them.

Do this first

Press hard on the wound with both hands and keep pressing. Do not release the pressure.

Put on gloves or use a plastic bag if one is within reach, but do not delay pressure to find them.
Press directly on the wound with a clean cloth, a shirt or your bare hand. Push hard.
Call 999, or ask someone else to call while you keep pressing.
Lay the person down and raise their legs if they look pale, cold or faint.
If blood soaks through, add more material on top and keep pressing. Do not remove the first layer.
If a limb keeps bleeding heavily, put a tourniquet high and tight above the wound. Tighten it until the bleeding stops, and write down the time.
Keep the person warm with a coat or blanket, and keep talking to them.

Do not pull out an object stuck in a wound. Pad around it and press beside it.
Do not loosen a tourniquet once it is on. Only medical staff should release it.
Do not use thin cord or wire as a tourniquet. It cuts into the limb and does not stop arterial flow.

Unconsciousness

Use at your own risk. For education and research only, not medical advice. Check the numbers and rules for the country you are in. They change. Before you rely on these cards, have a medical professional or a fire safety specialist review them.

Do this first

Shake and shout. No response? Tilt the head back and check breathing. If they breathe normally, use the recovery position. If they do not, start CPR.

Check for danger, then shout at them and shake their shoulders firmly.
If there is no response, tilt the head back, lift the chin and check for normal breathing for up to ten seconds.
If they are breathing normally, call 999, then roll them onto their side into the recovery position.
Kneel beside them. Place the near arm at a right angle with the palm up, bring the far hand against their near cheek, bend the far knee, and roll them towards you by that knee.
Tilt the head back again once they are on their side, so the airway stays open and anything in the mouth can drain out.
Check their breathing every minute. If it stops or becomes gasping, roll them onto their back and start CPR.
Cover them with a coat or blanket. If they must stay in position for over thirty minutes, roll them onto the other side.

Do not put anything under the head of an unconscious person lying flat, and do not give them anything to drink. Both close the airway.
Do not assume a drunk person is sleeping it off. Anyone who cannot be woken needs the same care, and vomiting while lying on the back can kill.
Do not move someone who is unconscious after a fall from height or a crash, unless they vomit or stop breathing. Then the airway comes before the spine.

Burns

Use at your own risk. For education and research only, not medical advice. Check the numbers and rules for the country you are in. They change. Before you rely on these cards, have a medical professional or a fire safety specialist review them.

Do this first

Hold the burn under cool running water for a full twenty minutes. Start immediately.

Get the person away from the heat. Put out burning clothing by having them stop, drop and roll, or by smothering the flames with a blanket.
Hold the burn under cool running water, around 15 to 25 degrees, for a full twenty minutes. Do not use ice or iced water.
While cooling, remove rings, watches and loose clothing near the burn before it swells. Leave anything stuck to the skin where it is.
After cooling, cover the burn loosely with cling film laid on flat, not wrapped tight, or with a clean non-fluffy cloth.
Keep the rest of the person warm. Cooling a large burn cools the whole body, and children chill fast.
Call 999 for any large or deep burn, and give the person small sips of water while you wait.
Treat every electrical and chemical burn as serious. For chemicals, keep rinsing well beyond twenty minutes.

Do not put butter, oil, toothpaste, ice or any cream on a fresh burn. Anything except water makes the damage worse and harder to assess.
Do not burst blisters. They are the sterile dressing your body has already made.
Do not pull off clothing stuck to a burn. Cut around it and leave the rest to the hospital.

Fractures

Use at your own risk. For education and research only, not medical advice. Check the numbers and rules for the country you are in. They change. Before you rely on these cards, have a medical professional or a fire safety specialist review them.

Do this first

Keep the limb still, exactly as you found it, and support it in that position.

Stop the person moving and calm them. Sit or lie them in the most comfortable position.
Support the injured limb by hand, or with rolled clothing packed on both sides.
Call 999 for a leg, hip, spine, pelvis or open fracture, or for any injury the person cannot support themselves.
Cover an open wound with a clean dressing and press gently beside the bone, never on it.
Hold something cold wrapped in cloth against the injury for up to twenty minutes to limit swelling. Never put ice on bare skin.
Check the fingers or toes beyond the injury. If they are cold, blue, numb or without a pulse, tell the dispatcher, because this is urgent.
Give nothing to eat or drink, in case an anaesthetic is needed.

Do not push a bone back or straighten a deformed limb.
Do not let the person walk on a suspected leg, hip or pelvis fracture.
Do not move anyone with a suspected spine or neck injury unless they are in immediate danger.

Hypothermia

Use at your own risk. For education and research only, not medical advice. Check the numbers and rules for the country you are in. They change. Before you rely on these cards, have a medical professional or a fire safety specialist review them.

Do this first

Get the person out of the cold and wind, off the cold ground and out of wet clothes. Put them in dry layers, with the head covered.

Move the person somewhere dry and out of the wind, and put insulation between them and the ground. Cold ground steals heat faster than cold air.
Take off wet clothing, cut it off if needed, and wrap them in dry layers, blankets or a foil blanket, with head and neck covered.
Call 999 for anyone who has stopped shivering or is confused, clumsy or drowsy. That is moderate hypothermia and it does not fix itself.
Give warm sweet drinks only if they are fully awake and can swallow. Give no alcohol, because it opens the blood vessels in the skin and drains heat from the core.
Warm the trunk first: chest, back, armpits and groin. Use warm packs wrapped in cloth, body-to-body contact under blankets and a warm room.
Handle a badly chilled person gently and keep them lying flat. Rough movement can trigger a fatal heart rhythm in a cold heart.
If they become unresponsive, check breathing for up to a minute, because it can be very slow. Start CPR only if there is none, and keep going. Cold bodies survive long resuscitations.

Never give alcohol, and never rub or massage the limbs. Both push cold blood from the outer layer into the core and can stop the heart.
Never put a badly chilled person into a hot bath or against direct heat. Rewarming must be gentle and from the middle outwards.
Never declare a cold person dead. Nobody is dead until they are warm and dead, and that decision belongs to a hospital.

Heat exhaustion and heatstroke

Use at your own risk. For education and research only, not medical advice. Check the numbers and rules for the country you are in. They change. Before you rely on these cards, have a medical professional or a fire safety specialist review them.

Do this first

Get the person out of the heat and lay them down. Cool them with water and moving air, and give sips of water if they are fully awake.

Move them to shade or a cool room, lay them down and raise the legs slightly.
Remove excess clothing and cool the skin. Spray or sponge with water and fan them, and put cold packs wrapped in cloth on the neck, armpits and groin.
If they are fully awake, give water or a sports drink in steady sips, not litres at once.
Reassess after thirty minutes. Heat exhaustion should clearly improve. If it does not, treat it as heatstroke and call 999.
For heatstroke, meaning hot skin with confusion, staggering, seizure or fading consciousness, call 999 immediately and say heatstroke.
Cool hard while you wait, using the fastest safe method you have. For a fit young person that is immersion in cool water up to the neck. For everyone else it is continuous water and fanning.
If they become unresponsive but breathe normally, put them in the recovery position, keep cooling and monitor their breathing.

Never give a drink to someone who is confused or drowsy. It can go into the lungs instead of the stomach.
Never give fever medicines such as paracetamol or ibuprofen for heatstroke. It is not a fever, they do not help, and they load the liver and kidneys.
Never leave anyone, child, adult or animal, in a parked car. Never assume someone with heatstroke can rest it off.

Bites and stings

Use at your own risk. For education and research only, not medical advice. Check the numbers and rules for the country you are in. They change. Before you rely on these cards, have a medical professional or a fire safety specialist review them.

Do this first

After any sting or bite, watch the mouth and breathing for the first minutes. Swelling of the face or tongue, wheezing or faintness means call 999 now.

Insect sting: scrape a visible bee stinger out sideways with a fingernail or card, wash with soap and water, and cool it through cloth. For a sting in the mouth or throat, give ice to suck and call 999.
Watch for allergy for thirty minutes: spreading hives, swelling of the lips or eyes, tight chest, wheezing, vomiting or faintness. Any of these means call 999, and the person's own adrenaline pen goes in first, into the outer thigh.
Tick: grasp it with fine tweezers right at the skin and pull steadily straight out. Wash the area, note the date, and see a doctor about a growing red ring or fever in the following weeks.
Animal or human bite: wash thoroughly with soap under running water for several minutes, cover it and see a doctor the same day. Bites can infect deeply, and rabies and tetanus need checking.
European viper bite: call 999, keep the person still and calm, immobilise the limb at heart level, take off rings and watches, and mark the edge of the swelling with a pen and the time.
Jellyfish: rinse with sea water, not fresh water. Lift off any tentacle pieces with tweezers or a card edge, then use hot water for the pain if you have it.
Cool swellings through cloth. Give the person's usual antihistamine for itching if they are fully awake. Photograph the animal only if it is safe and easy.

Never cut, suck or tie a tourniquet on a snakebite, and never chase the snake to kill it. All of this makes things worse, and the hospital does not need the snake.
Never squeeze a bee stinger with fingers or tweezers, because that injects the rest of the venom. Scrape it out.
Never burn a tick, smother it with oil or twist it with your fingers. A stressed tick can vomit into the wound.

Drowning

Use at your own risk. For education and research only, not medical advice. Check the numbers and rules for the country you are in. They change. Before you rely on these cards, have a medical professional or a fire safety specialist review them.

Do this first

Do not jump in after them. Reach with a pole or branch, throw something that floats, and call 999.

Shout to others, call 999, and keep your eyes locked on the person. On open water, note a fixed point on the far shore in line with them.
Reach from firm ground with a pole, branch, towel or paddle, lying down so you cannot be pulled in.
If reaching fails, throw a lifebuoy, a rope, a cooler, an empty canister or anything else that floats, and tell them to hold on and kick.
Enter the water only as a last resort, and only if you are a strong swimmer. Take a float with you and approach from behind.
Once they are out, check response and breathing. If they are not breathing normally, give five rescue breaths first, then thirty compressions to two breaths. In drowning the breaths matter.
If they are breathing but unresponsive, put them in the recovery position so water can drain, remove wet clothes and cover them to keep warm.
Everyone pulled from the water goes to a doctor, even if they feel fine. Inhaled water can inflame the lungs hours later.

Never swim to a panicking person without a float between you. A drowning person will push you under to climb up.
Never press on the belly or hang the person upside down to empty out water. It wastes time and makes them vomit into the lungs.
Never dive into unknown or shallow water, and never chase a person swept away along the bank alone without calling first.

Electric shock

Use at your own risk. For education and research only, not medical advice. Check the numbers and rules for the country you are in. They change. Before you rely on these cards, have a medical professional or a fire safety specialist review them.

Do this first

Switch the power off at the breaker or pull the plug. Do not touch the person while the current is on.

Switch off the circuit breaker, pull the plug or have the supply cut. This comes first.
For high voltage or overhead lines, stay at least twenty metres away and wait for the utility company. Voltage arcs and travels through the ground.
Once you are sure the power is off, check whether the person responds and is breathing normally.
Call 999 and say electric shock, so they check for heart rhythm problems.
If breathing is not normal, start CPR and use a defibrillator as soon as one arrives.
Cool burns under cool running water for twenty minutes, then cover them loosely with a clean non-fluffy dressing or cling film.
Look for a second burn where the current left the body, usually on a hand or a foot.

Do not touch the person, or anything they are touching, until the power is off.
Do not use water on or near a live circuit.
Do not let anyone go home unchecked after a shock that passed through the body. The heart rhythm can fail hours later.

Fire safety

Use at your own risk. For education and research only, not medical advice. Check the numbers and rules for the country you are in. They change. Before you rely on these cards, have a medical professional or a fire safety specialist review them.

Do this first

Alert everyone and get out. Call only once you are outside and safe.

Shout to raise the alarm and press the fire alarm call point if there is one.
Get everyone out along the marked escape route, and help anyone who needs it.
Stay low. The clearer, cooler air is near the floor.
Close doors behind you. A closed door buys many minutes.
Use the stairs, never the lift.
Call 999 from outside. Give the address, what is burning, and whether anyone is still inside.
Go to the assembly point and stay there, so that nobody is reported missing.

Do not go back inside for belongings, a phone or a pet.
Do not put water on burning oil or on live electrical equipment.
Do not open a door that feels hot to the back of your hand. Find another way out and signal from a window.

Fire extinguishers

Use at your own risk. For education and research only, not medical advice. Check the numbers and rules for the country you are in. They change. Before you rely on these cards, have a medical professional or a fire safety specialist review them.

Do this first

Fight a fire only while it is smaller than you, your exit is clear behind you and the extinguisher matches what is burning.

Read the class letters before you ever need them. A is solids such as wood and fabric, B is liquids, C is gases, D is metals and F is cooking oils and fats.
Match the agent to the fire. Water takes only A. Foam takes A and B. Powder takes A, B and C, and covers most household fires. CO2 takes B and electrical equipment. Wet chemical takes F, the burning pan.
Pull the pin and test with a short burst before you approach.
Aim at the base of the flames, where fuel meets air. Do not aim at the smoke.
Squeeze and sweep side to side across the base, moving in slowly. Keep your exit behind your back the whole time.
When the flames are out, watch the spot. Embers can reignite, so be ready to repeat. Ventilate the room after using powder or CO2.
If the extinguisher runs empty and anything still burns, close the door on it, get out and call 999. You have had your one attempt.

Never use water or foam on live electrical equipment, and never use water on burning oil or fat. The first can electrocute you, and the second throws up a fireball.
Never hold the metal horn of a CO2 extinguisher. It drops to minus seventy degrees and freezes skin on contact.
Never turn your back on a fire you have just put out, and never let the fire get between you and the door.

Gas leak and carbon monoxide

Use at your own risk. For education and research only, not medical advice. Check the numbers and rules for the country you are in. They change. Before you rely on these cards, have a medical professional or a fire safety specialist review them.

Do this first

If you smell gas, do not touch any switch or flame. Open windows and doors on your way out, close the gas valve if it is on your path, and call from outside.

Gas smell: stop and touch nothing electrical. No light switches, no doorbell, no lift button, no phone call inside the flat.
Open windows and doors as you move towards the exit, so the gas thins instead of gathering.
Close the main gas valve if it sits on your escape route, at the meter or the cylinder.
Get everyone out and knock on neighbours' doors with your fist, not the bell. Call 999 and the gas emergency line from outside.
Carbon monoxide: suspect it when several people and pets in the same room feel sick at the same time, with headache, nausea, dizziness or confusion that eases outdoors.
Get everyone into fresh air at once, count heads and call 999. Say carbon monoxide, so the crew brings a meter.
Nobody goes back in until the fire service has measured and cleared the space. The boiler, heater or flue that caused it stays off until a technician approves it.

Never flip a switch, light a flame or start a car inside a space that smells of gas. Switching a light off sparks just as switching it on does.
Never sleep in a room with a running combustion heater, charcoal grill or generator, and never let an engine run in a closed garage.
Never silence a beeping CO detector because you feel fine. Get out first and doubt it later. Low doses can mislead you.

Chemical exposure

Use at your own risk. For education and research only, not medical advice. Check the numbers and rules for the country you are in. They change. Before you rely on these cards, have a medical professional or a fire safety specialist review them.

Do this first

Move upwind and away from the substance, then rinse the exposed skin or eye with plenty of water.

Move yourself and others upwind and uphill, out of the vapour, and stop anyone else from entering.
Call 999 and give the product name if you can read it from a safe distance.
Take off contaminated clothing. Cut it away rather than pulling it over the head.
Rinse affected skin under running water for at least twenty minutes.
Rinse a splashed eye from the inner corner outwards for at least twenty minutes, holding the eyelid open. Remove contact lenses if that takes only seconds.
If a substance was swallowed, rinse the mouth and give small sips of water only if the person is fully awake, then call the poison information centre.
Keep the label, the safety data sheet or a photo of the packaging, and hand it to the crew.

Do not make anyone vomit. Corrosives burn a second time on the way back up.
Do not try to neutralise an acid with a base, or a base with an acid.
Do not enter a confined space or a vapour cloud to rescue somebody without breathing apparatus.

Industrial accident

Use at your own risk. For education and research only, not medical advice. Check the numbers and rules for the country you are in. They change. Before you rely on these cards, have a medical professional or a fire safety specialist review them.

Do this first

Go into the nearest solid building, close windows and doors, switch off ventilation and turn on the official channel. Do not drive towards the smoke.

If you hear an alarm or blast, or smell something strange spreading, go inside the nearest solid building at once. Sheltering beats running through a cloud.
Close windows and doors, switch off ventilation, air conditioning and forced heating, and tape big gaps. Gather in an inner room upstairs, since most heavy gases hug the ground.
Turn on the official channel, such as national radio, a warning app or your municipality, and do exactly what it says. Sirens use different signals, so learn your local ones.
Call 999 only for injuries or immediate danger. During a big event those lines must stay free.
If a cloud catches you outdoors, move across the wind, not with it or against it. Cover your mouth and nose with a wet cloth and get behind walls.
If chemicals are on your skin, take the outer clothes off outside the room where you shelter, seal them in a bag and rinse the skin thoroughly.
Leave your shelter or evacuate only when the authorities say so, and by the route they name, never by a shortcut past the plant.

Never drive or walk towards smoke, vapour or the accident site for a look or a video. The second explosion and the drifting cloud take the spectators.
Never use lifts during the alarm, and never light flames or smoke if the release could be flammable.
Never call schools and relatives non-stop. Schools shelter children themselves, and one short message does more than a jammed network.

Road accident

Use at your own risk. For education and research only, not medical advice. Check the numbers and rules for the country you are in. They change. Before you rely on these cards, have a medical professional or a fire safety specialist review them.

Do this first

Stop safely past the scene with your hazard lights on. Put on a high-visibility vest before you step out, and set a warning triangle well back.

Park behind the scene if possible, with hazards on, and put on a vest before leaving the car. Place the triangle far back, on a motorway around 100 metres or more, before a bend or crest.
Look before you act: leaking fuel, smoke, traffic, a live cable, a loose load. Switch off the ignition of crashed cars if you can reach it.
Call 999 with the location, the number of vehicles, the number of injured, and whether anyone is trapped or unconscious or the road is blocked.
Speak to every casualty. Anyone who answers, breathes and is not bleeding heavily can wait. Anyone who does not answer needs you first.
An unconscious person in a car: tilt the head back carefully where they sit to open the airway. Move them out only if they are not breathing or there is fire or water, then start CPR on the ground.
Stop heavy bleeding with direct pressure, cover wounds and keep casualties warm and still. A conscious motorcyclist keeps the helmet on.
Nobody walks around. Keep the uninjured behind the barrier or off the road, and send someone to wave the emergency services in.

Never pull people out of vehicles just because it looks wrong. Extraction is for absent breathing, fire or sinking. Otherwise the spine waits for professionals.
Never remove a motorcyclist's helmet if they are conscious. If you must remove it for CPR, it is a careful job for two people.
Never stand between two vehicles or on the traffic side of the wreck, and never let anyone smoke near spilt fuel.

Floods

Use at your own risk. For education and research only, not medical advice. Check the numbers and rules for the country you are in. They change. Before you rely on these cards, have a medical professional or a fire safety specialist review them.

Do this first

Get to higher ground now, and keep out of moving water.

Move upstairs or to higher ground as soon as a warning is issued. Do not wait for the water to arrive.
Switch off electricity, gas and water at the mains if you can reach them dry and safely.
Take documents, medication, a charged phone, a power bank and drinking water with you.
Follow official alerts from the civil protection service and the local authority rather than social media.
If you are driving and the road ahead is flooded, turn round and find another route.
If water is rising inside a building, go up. Do not go into a windowless attic with no way out to the roof.
Do not go home until the authorities confirm that the building and the electricity are safe.

Do not drive or walk through moving water, however shallow it looks.
Do not touch switches or appliances with wet hands or while standing in water.
Do not drink tap water after a flood until the authorities confirm it is safe.

Storm and high wind

Use at your own risk. For education and research only, not medical advice. Check the numbers and rules for the country you are in. They change. Before you rely on these cards, have a medical professional or a fire safety specialist review them.

Do this first

Get indoors before the storm arrives. Stay away from windows, and keep out from under trees, scaffolding and loose roofs.

When a warning comes, bring in or tie down everything loose, such as furniture, trampolines and bins. Park the car away from trees.
Charge phones and power banks, and know where your torch is before the lights go out.
During the storm stay inside, away from windows, ideally in an inner room. Keep children and pets in.
If you hear thunder outdoors, get into a building or a hard-topped car. With no shelter, crouch low in a hollow with your feet together, away from lone trees, poles, fences and water.
Postpone driving. If the storm catches you, slow right down, keep a firm grip on the wheel for the gusts, and never stop under trees or power lines.
After the front passes, wait. Most trees and tiles fall in the gusts that follow. Treat every downed cable as live and stay twenty metres away.
Report damage without injury to the fire service line once the network calms. Report injuries and immediate danger to 999 now.

Never shelter under a tree in a thunderstorm, and never keep the golf round, the harvest or the roof job going for one more minute.
Never touch downed lines or anything they touch, such as wires, fences and puddles.
Never go to look at the sea or the riverbank in a storm. Waves take people from piers every year.

Earthquake

Use at your own risk. For education and research only, not medical advice. Check the numbers and rules for the country you are in. They change. Before you rely on these cards, have a medical professional or a fire safety specialist review them.

Do this first

Drop to your knees, cover your head and neck under a sturdy table, and hold on until the shaking stops.

Indoors: drop, cover under a solid table or against an inner wall, and hold on. Stay away from windows, mirrors, shelves and anything tall.
In bed: stay there, face down, with a pillow over your head and neck. Running barefoot through broken glass in the dark is worse.
Outdoors: move to open ground away from buildings, walls, poles and lines, and stay there. In a car, stop away from bridges and buildings and remain inside.
When the shaking stops, count heads, check for injuries and put on solid shoes. Glass is everywhere.
Check for gas by smell, and check water and electricity. If you smell gas, turn off the main valve, open windows, get out and touch no switches. Leave the rest off until it has been checked.
Expect aftershocks. They topple what the first quake loosened. Leave a damaged building by the stairs and do not re-enter for anything.
Follow the official channel and use SMS instead of calls. In coastal areas after a long or strong quake, move uphill at once without waiting for a tsunami warning.

Never run outside during the shaking, and never use lifts during or after.
Never stand in a doorway. That is an old myth. Modern doorframes protect nothing, and the door itself can batter you.
Never light flames or flip switches after the quake until you know there is no gas leak.

Natural disasters

Use at your own risk. For education and research only, not medical advice. Check the numbers and rules for the country you are in. They change. Before you rely on these cards, have a medical professional or a fire safety specialist review them.

Do this first

Get indoors, away from windows, and switch on the official alert channel.

Know how official warnings reach you. The UK sends Emergency Alerts straight to mobile phones, with a loud siren-like tone and instructions on the screen.
Keep a 72 hour bag ready with water, food, medication, a torch, a power bank, a radio, documents, cash and warm clothes.
Agree a family meeting point and one contact outside the area whom everyone can call or message.
In an earthquake, drop, cover and hold on under a solid table until the shaking stops, then leave calmly and keep away from buildings.
In a windstorm, close shutters, keep away from windows, and avoid trees, scaffolding and coastal roads.
In a heatwave, stay indoors during the hottest hours, drink before you feel thirsty and check on older neighbours.
Follow the official civil protection channel and keep calls short, so the network stays open for emergency traffic.

Do not use lifts during an earthquake, a fire or a power warning.
Do not go outside to film the event.
Do not ignore an evacuation order because your house has never flooded or burned before.

Emergency kit

Use at your own risk. For education and research only, not medical advice. Check the numbers and rules for the country you are in. They change. Before you rely on these cards, have a medical professional or a fire safety specialist review them.

Do this first

Today, pack one bag per household that will keep you going for 72 hours without shops, power or tap water.

Water first: three litres per person per day for drinking and basic hygiene, for at least three days. Store it, and add a way to make more drinkable, such as tablets or a filter.
Food that needs no cooking: canned goods with a can opener, nuts, bars, dried fruit, baby food if needed, and a bowl for the pet.
Light and information: a torch per person, spare batteries, a power bank, and a battery or wind-up radio. The phone network goes down before FM does.
Medicines for a week for every regular medication in the house, plus a first aid kit, spare glasses and copies of prescriptions.
Papers and money: copies of IDs, insurance, deeds and key phone numbers in a waterproof pouch, and cash in small notes, because card terminals die with the power.
Warmth and hygiene: a change of clothes, a rain layer, foil blankets, soap, toothbrushes, toilet paper, wet wipes, bin bags and menstrual supplies.
Keep it where you can grab it in one minute, tell everyone in the household where it is, and check dates and batteries every spring and autumn.

Never let the kit depend on electricity alone. Every powered item needs a battery or hand-crank alternative.
Never pack it and forget it. Expired water tastes bad, and expired medicines and dead batteries fail you at the worst hour.
Never plan around a car you might not reach, fuel you might not buy or a lift that will not run.

Evacuation

Use at your own risk. For education and research only, not medical advice. Check the numbers and rules for the country you are in. They change. Before you rely on these cards, have a medical professional or a fire safety specialist review them.

Do this first

Leave immediately by the nearest marked exit and go to the assembly point.

Go the moment the alarm sounds. Do not finish what you were doing.
Take the nearest marked exit, which is often not the way you came in.
Help anyone who needs assistance, and tell a warden about anyone who cannot leave.
Close doors and windows behind you, but only if it is safe and takes seconds.
Use the stairs, never the lift.
Go to the assembly point, stay there and report to the person doing the headcount.
Do not go back in for any reason until the fire service or the responsible person declares it clear.

Do not go back for belongings, a car or a colleague you assume is inside. Tell the crew instead.
Do not park or stand where emergency vehicles need to get in.
Do not treat a drill as a joke. It is how your feet learn the way before you need it.

Workplace safety

Use at your own risk. For education and research only, not medical advice. Check the numbers and rules for the country you are in. They change. Before you rely on these cards, have a medical professional or a fire safety specialist review them.

Do this first

Stop the work, make the area safe and report it. An unsafe job does not become safe by finishing it.

Read the risk assessment for your job. If you cannot find it, ask for it. With five or more employees it has to be written down.
Know who the trained first aiders and fire wardens are, and where the first aid kit and the defibrillator are kept.
Use the protective equipment provided, and report it when it is damaged, missing or the wrong size. It must not cost you anything.
Report near misses in writing. They show a problem before a serious accident does.
If the danger is serious and imminent, stop the work, warn colleagues, move to safety and inform your supervisor.
After any accident, secure the scene, give first aid and record it in the accident book. Deaths, specified injuries and dangerous occurrences go to the HSE under RIDDOR.
Attend the safety training the employer must provide, which must be during working hours and at no cost to you.

Do not bypass a guard, an interlock or an alarm because it slows the job down.
Do not work at height, in a confined space or on live electrical equipment without the required training and permit.
Do not sign a training record for training you never received.

Armed conflict

Use at your own risk. For education and research only, not medical advice. Check the numbers and rules for the country you are in. They change. Before you rely on these cards, have a medical professional or a fire safety specialist review them.

Do this first

At the air raid warning, move immediately to the deepest shelter you can reach: a cellar, a metro station or an inner room with no windows.

Learn the warning signals and the location of the nearest shelter today, and keep the emergency kit and documents ready by the door.
At the siren, go down at once: cellar, underground garage or metro. With no basement, use an inner room, corridor or bathroom on the lowest floor, with no windows and two walls to the outside.
In the shelter, sit away from the entrance and keep the kit, water and radio with you. Stay until the all clear, not until it merely sounds quiet.
If you are caught in the open during strikes, lie flat in any depression or ditch or behind a low wall, with mouth open and hands over your head, away from vehicles and glass fronts.
Never touch unexploded munitions, dropped weapons or unusual objects, however small or toy-like. Mark the place from a distance and report it.
Keep one contact outside the area whom everyone messages, agree family meeting points, and send short texts so the network can carry the emergency traffic.
Follow only official instructions on evacuation corridors and curfews, and carry documents and medicines on your body, not in a bag you might drop.

Never film or photograph military positions, checkpoints or defence works, and never share their locations online. It endangers you and everyone near them.
Never approach cluster remnants, mines or tripwires, and never let children play in rubble or abandoned vehicles.
Never stand at the window to watch. The glass and the pressure wave arrive faster than the sound.

Civil unrest

Use at your own risk. For education and research only, not medical advice. Check the numbers and rules for the country you are in. They change. Before you rely on these cards, have a medical professional or a fire safety specialist review them.

Do this first

Leave the area at the first signs, moving sideways out of the crowd's direction, calmly and close to building walls.

Follow local news before you go out, and route around gatherings, transport hubs and symbolic squares on tense days.
If you are caught at the edge, leave immediately, diagonally with the flow and gradually sideways, never against the stream. Walk, do not run.
If you are caught in a dense crowd, stay on your feet at all costs. Hold your arms up like a boxer to protect your chest, move with the mass and work towards the edge.
If you fall and cannot rise, curl up on your left side, protect your head and neck with your arms, and get up the first instant the pressure eases.
Tear gas: do not rub your eyes. Blink hard, move upwind and uphill, and rinse the eyes with water or saline from the inner corner outwards. Take out contact lenses as soon as possible.
Keep away from police lines, barricades and anyone throwing things, do not argue with anyone, and comply calmly at checkpoints.
Fix a meeting point with your group in advance in case you are separated, and message someone outside to say where you are.

Never watch from the middle of the crowd, from overpasses above it or from your parked car in its path. Spectators make up a large share of the injured.
Never pick up thrown objects or gas canisters, and never film confrontations from arm's length. The camera makes you a participant in the eyes of both sides.
Never use the metro or underpasses to cross a rioting area. Being trapped below ground with a panicking crowd is the worst position there is.