- Insulate to prevent further heat loss through evaporation and exposure to wind.
- Avoid unnecessary manhandling – enclose in blankets and/or plastic, including head (but not face), neck, hands and feet.
- Move to a warm, sheltered location.
- Lay down in a semi-horizontal or half-sitting position (unless dizziness develops, when a horizontal attitude would be best).
- Oxygen should be given if available.
- If water was inhaled, encourage deep breathing and coughing.
- Monitor and record breathing and heart rate (neck/carotid pulse) at 5-minute intervals for the first 15 minutes and then, if no change, at 15-minute intervals. (An increasing breathing and/or heart rate may indicate the onset of drowning complications – and remember that in a severely hypothermic person cardiac arrest can occur at any time.)
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