CPR & First Aid Essentials

When someone collapses, chokes or bleeds badly, the first few minutes decide what happens next, and the person standing there is often you. This guide follows the 2025 American Heart Association (AHA) guidelines for CPR and the 2024 AHA and American Red Cross first aid guidelines. It prepares you to act, but reading does not replace practice. Certification requires a hands-on course with a skills check, and most employers want a current card, usually renewed every two years.

What You Will Be Able to Do

• Recognize cardiac arrest and start the chain of survival.
• Give high-quality CPR to an adult, a child and an infant.
• Use an AED, including in special situations.
• Help a choking adult, child or infant.
• Control severe bleeding and respond to burns, seizures, allergic reactions and other common emergencies.

Before You Touch Anyone

Check that the scene is safe from traffic, fire, electricity, chemicals or violence. If it is not safe, stay back and call 911. Put on gloves if you have them. If you work in a home or facility, follow your employer's emergency plan and check for a valid do-not-resuscitate order only if you know one exists. Never delay help to look for paperwork.

The Chain of Survival

The AHA's 2025 guidelines use one Chain of Survival for all cardiac arrests. Survival depends on each step happening quickly and in order: recognize the emergency and call 911, start high-quality CPR, use an AED, then advanced care from EMS and care after the arrest. You control the first three.

Recognizing Cardiac Arrest

Cardiac arrest means the heart has stopped pumping. A heart attack is different. It is a blockage of blood flow to part of the heart, and the person is usually awake, although it can lead to cardiac arrest.

Suspect cardiac arrest when someone is unresponsive and not breathing normally. Gasping, also called agonal breathing, is not normal breathing. Lay rescuers do not need to check for a pulse. Trained healthcare rescuers may check the carotid artery in the neck for no more than 10 seconds, and start compressions if they are not sure.

CPR for Adults

An adult is anyone past puberty.

1. Check for a response. Tap the shoulders and shout.
2. Call for help. Point at one person and say, "You, call 911 and get the AED." If you are alone, call 911 on speaker and start.
3. Position. Lay the person on their back on a firm, flat surface.
4. Compress. Put the heel of one hand on the center of the chest, on the lower half of the breastbone, and the other hand on top. Keep your arms straight and your shoulders over your hands.
   • Depth: at least 2 inches (5 cm), but not more than 2.4 inches.
   • Rate: 100 to 120 per minute.
   • Let the chest come fully back up after each compression.
   • Keep any pause under 10 seconds.
5. Open the airway. After 30 compressions, use the head-tilt, chin-lift. Put one hand on the forehead and two fingers under the bony part of the chin, then tilt the head back.
6. Give 2 breaths. Pinch the nose, seal your mouth or a barrier device over the mouth and breathe for 1 second each, watching the chest rise.
7. Continue at 30 compressions to 2 breaths. Switch rescuers about every 2 minutes, because compressions get shallow as you tire.

Keep going until the AED tells you to stop, trained help takes over, the person shows signs of life or you are physically unable to continue.

If you are untrained in breaths or unwilling to give them, give hands-only CPR: nonstop compressions at the same depth and rate. This applies to adults. Children and infants need breaths too, since their arrests usually start with a breathing problem.

CPR for Children and Infants

The 2025 guidelines no longer recommend the older two-finger method for infants, because it often fails to reach enough depth. Two rescuers use the two-thumb encircling method, with thumbs on the breastbone just below the nipple line and fingers supporting the back. If you cannot get your hands around the chest, use the heel of one hand.

For an infant, cover the mouth and nose with your mouth and give gentle breaths, just enough to make the chest rise.

If you are alone with a phone, call 911 on speaker and start. If you have no phone and did not see the collapse, give about 2 minutes of CPR first, then go call. If you saw a child suddenly collapse, get the AED and call first.

Using an AED

An AED (automated external defibrillator) reads the heart rhythm and shocks only if needed. Anyone can use one. It talks you through each step. If CPR is under way when the AED arrives, apply it as soon as possible.

1. Turn it on.
2. Bare the chest. Adjust or cut clothing so the pads touch skin.
3. Put one pad on the upper right chest below the collarbone, and the other on the lower left side below the armpit, as the pictures show.
4. Stand clear while it analyzes.
5. If a shock is advised, make sure no one is touching the person, say "Clear," and press the button.
6. Restart compressions right away and follow the prompts.

Choking

Someone who can cough or speak has a partial blockage, so encourage them to keep coughing. Act when they cannot cough, speak, cry or breathe, or they hold their throat.

Adult or Child

The 2025 AHA guidelines added back blows first.

1. Stand to the side and slightly behind. Support the chest with one arm and lean the person forward.
2. Give 5 firm back blows between the shoulder blades with the heel of your hand.
3. Stand behind them, make a fist above the navel and below the breastbone, grasp it and give 5 quick inward and upward abdominal thrusts (the Heimlich maneuver).
4. Keep alternating 5 and 5 until the object comes out or the person stops responding.

For a person who is pregnant or too large to reach around, use chest thrusts instead. Put your fist on the center of the breastbone and pull straight back.

Infant

Never use abdominal thrusts on an infant. Hold the baby face down along your forearm with the head lower than the chest and give 5 back blows. Turn the baby face up and give 5 chest thrusts on the breastbone with the heel of one hand. Keep alternating.

If They Stop Responding

Lower them to the ground, call 911 if no one has and start CPR. Each time you open the airway, look in the mouth. Remove an object only if you can see it. Never do a blind finger sweep.

Severe Bleeding

1. Call 911 for bleeding that spurts, pools or will not stop.
2. Put on gloves if you have them. Do not delay for them.
3. Press directly on the wound with a clean cloth or gauze, hard, and do not lift it to check.
4. If blood soaks through, add more material on top and keep pressing.

If bleeding from an arm or leg is life-threatening and pressure is not controlling it, use a tourniquet. Place it 2 to 3 inches above the wound, between the wound and the heart, and not over a joint. Tighten it until the bleeding stops and write down the time. It will hurt. Do not loosen it, and leave removal to medical staff. For a deep wound where a tourniquet cannot go, such as the groin or armpit, pack gauze firmly into the wound and hold pressure.

Leave any embedded object in place. Pulling it out can make bleeding worse. Stabilize it with bulky dressings on both sides and get emergency care.

Burns

Remove the person from the source of heat. Take off jewelry and loose clothing near the burn, but leave anything stuck to it. Then cool the burn with cool running water for 10 to 20 minutes. Do not use ice, butter or ointment. Cover it loosely with a clean, dry, non-stick dressing.

For electrical or chemical burns, make sure the source is safe first. Flush chemical burns with plenty of running water.

Seizures

1. Clear hard objects away and protect the head.
2. Note the time.
3. Do not hold the person down, and do not put anything in their mouth.
4. When the jerking stops, roll them onto their side.

Call 911 if it is a first seizure, lasts more than 5 minutes, repeats without recovery, happens in water, causes injury or breathing trouble, happens in someone pregnant or an infant under 6 months, or if the person does not return to normal within 5 to 10 minutes.

Other Emergencies

Heart attack. Signs include chest pressure, pain spreading to the arm, jaw or back, shortness of breath, sweating and nausea. Women, older adults and people with diabetes may have subtler signs. Call 911 and keep the person resting. If they are alert and not allergic, the 911 dispatcher may advise chewing aspirin. If you work in care, follow your employer's protocol about medicines.

Stroke. Look for a drooping face, arm weakness and slurred speech, and note the time symptoms began. Call 911 at once.

Severe allergic reaction (anaphylaxis). Signs include swelling of the throat or tongue, trouble breathing and hives. Help the person use their prescribed epinephrine auto-injector on the outer mid-thigh, through clothing if needed, and hold it for the time on the device. Call 911, even if they improve.

Low blood sugar. Signs include shakiness, sweating and confusion. If the person is awake and can swallow, give 15 grams of fast sugar, such as 4 ounces of juice or glucose tablets, and recheck in 15 minutes. If they cannot swallow safely, give nothing by mouth and call 911.

Opioid overdose. Signs include slow or no breathing, pinpoint pupils and blue lips. Call 911, give naloxone if available and start CPR if they are not breathing normally.

Shock. Pale, cool, clammy skin, a fast weak pulse and confusion mean the organs are not getting enough blood. Call 911, have the person lie flat, keep them warm and give nothing by mouth. Treat the cause, such as bleeding.

Broken bones. Keep the limb still in the position you found it, and do not try to straighten it. Apply a cold pack wrapped in cloth. Call 911 for bone through the skin, a suspected head, neck or back injury, or a limb that is cold or numb.

Legal Protection

Every state has a Good Samaritan law that offers some protection to people who help in an emergency in good faith and within their training. The details vary by state, and someone with a duty to respond at work may have different obligations.

Common Mistakes

Check Your Understanding

1. A coworker collapses and is gasping. Two people are nearby. What do you do?

Treat the gasping as cardiac arrest. Point at one person to call 911 and the other to bring the AED, then start compressions.

2. A coworker is choking at lunch and cannot cough or speak. What sequence do you use?

Give 5 back blows, then 5 abdominal thrusts, and keep alternating until the object comes out or they stop responding. If they stop responding, start CPR.

3. A 6-month-old stops breathing and you are alone with a cell phone. What do you do?

Call 911 on speaker and start CPR at 30 compressions to 2 breaths, using the heel of one hand or two thumbs, about 1.5 inches deep.

4. Blood soaks through the towel you are holding on a deep leg wound. What next?

Add more material on top and press harder. If the bleeding is still life-threatening, apply a tourniquet 2 to 3 inches above the wound and note the time.

Key Takeaways

• Unresponsive and not breathing normally means start CPR and get an AED.
• Push at least 2 inches deep at 100 to 120 per minute for adults, and let the chest recoil.
• Choking now means 5 back blows, then thrusts, and infants never get abdominal thrusts.
• Press hard on bleeding, and use a tourniquet when pressure fails on a limb.
• Cool burns with running water for 10 to 20 minutes.
• Reading this guide does not certify you. Take a hands-on course.