By: Cathy Dewberry-Green, 2010

If choking occurs in a salon, Do not panic. Encourage the person to cough. Get the person to lean forwards,

support their chest with one hand and with the other, give them up to five firm blows on the back, between the shoulder blades.

This well hopefully move the object.

Stand behind the person who is choking.

Put your arms around their stomach.

Make a fist and grab your fist with your other hand.

Position the fist on the abdomen, just above the navel.

Pull inwards and upwards up to five times. Check in the mouth to see if the object

has become dislodged. If the obstruction does not clear after

three cycles of back blows and abdominal thrusts, call for an ambulance.

If at any stage the person becomes unconscious, you must start CPR right).

If fainting occurs in a salon, one should be able to help the faint victim.

Position the person on his or her back. Elevate the legs above heart level — about 12 inches (30 centimeters), if possible.

Check the person's airway to be sure it's clear. Watch for vomiting.

Check for signs of circulation (breathing, coughing or movement). If absent, begin CPR. Call 911 or your local emergency number. Continue CPR until help arrives or the person responds and begins to breathe.

Help restore blood flow. If the person is breathing, restore blood flow to the brain by raising the person's legs above the level of the head. Loosen belts, collars or other constrictive clothing. The person should revive quickly. If the person doesn't regain consciousness within one minute, dial 911 or call for emergency medical assistance.

Make sure the person can breathe easily. Check that their lungs and heart are working properly. Give the person room. Protect from further injury. Don’t put anything in the persons mouth. Try to talk o the person calm. Let the seizure run its course. Remove anything from the area that may cause injury

or could be a hazard to someone who is temporarily unaware of their location or actions.

Blood spills rarely happens in a salon. Blood is a bodily fluid so cleaning blood up it is

very important to have on the proper utensils. Secure the area of the blood spill. Put on latex gloves. Use some type of ammonia Put the bloody towels in a biohazards bag. Minor Cuts and Burns

The first step in performing CPR is to open the airway of the person. Put your palm on the forehead and carefully tilt the head back. Gently lift the chin forward with your other hand and feel the person’s breath. Look if there is any chest movement.

If the person is not breathing properly, pinch the nostrils and seal the mouth with yours. Now, you can give a mouth-to-mouth breathing for one second. Check for any rise of the chest, if so, let the chest fall and repeat the procedure once more.

If the chest doesn’t rise, repeat the step of clearing the airway (head-tilt, chin-rise) position and do mouth-to-mouth breathing again. If the mouth is injured, one can give mouth-to-nose breathing. Proceed with chest compressions in order to restore blood circulation. To do so, kneel at the side of the person and place the heel of your hand in the middle of the chest. You have to put your other hand on the top of the hand placed on the chest. Make sure your elbows are straight and the shoulders are directly above the hand.

Gently compress the chest of the victim about 2 inches. When giving compressions, push hard and fast at a rate of about 2 per second. Repeat the compression 30 times. After that, open the airway as mentioned in the first step. Give two rescue breaths and check if the chest rises. This is the completion of the first cycle.

Repeat the steps with five cycles of 30 compressions and two rescue breaths, i.e. for about 2 minutes and check if the person starts breathing. In case the person is not breathing, repeat the procedure again until help arrives. If a person is not trained enough to do CPR, he/she can perform hands-only CPR, which means giving uninterrupted chest compressions. This will at least help to some extent. Knowing these simple first aid steps of CPR can certainly save people in case of a cardiac or respiratory arrest.

Sweep from side to side. Using a sweeping motion, move the fire extinguisher back and forth until the fire is completely out. Operate the extinguisher from a safe distance, several feet away, and then move towards the fire once it starts to diminish. Be sure to read the instructions on your fire extinguisher - different fire extinguishers recommend operating them from different distances. Remember: Aim at the base of the fire, not at the flames!

› Class A fires are ordinary materials like burning paper, lumber, cardboard, plastics etc.

› Class B fires involve flammable or combustible liquids such as gasoline, kerosene, and common organic solvents used in the laboratory.

› Class C fires involve energized electrical equipment, such as appliances, switches, panel boxes, power tools, hot plates and stirrers. Water can be a dangerous extinguishing medium for class C fires because of the risk of electrical shock unless a specialized water mist extinguisher is used.

› Class D fires involve combustible metals, such as magnesium, titanium, potassium and sodium as well as pyrophoric organ metallic reagents such as alkyllithiums, Grignards and diethyl zinc. These materials burn at high temperatures and will react violently with water, air, and/or other chemicals. Handle with care!!

› Class K fires are kitchen fires. This class was added to the NFPA portable extinguishers Standard 10 in 1998. Kitchen extinguishers installed before June 30, 1998 are "grandfathered" into the standard.

• Use only EPA-registered disinfectants that kill both tuberculosis (TB) and polio I. “TB is a very resistant bacterium and polio I is a very resistant virus. Both of these are extremely difficult to kill with a disinfectant, so if the product claims to kill these, you know you are using a strong disinfectant. Just because a product says ‘hospital-grade’ doesn’t mean it’s very strong—TB and polio I are the indicators,” explains Boniface.

• If you are using anything disposable, throw it away after one use. It can’t be disinfected.

• Never double-dip when waxing—no exceptions.

• Clean all work surfaces between each client and at the end of the day.

• Follow the directions on all disinfectant products.

Without sanitation and sterilization of manicure and pedicure tools, you run the risk of receiving a bacterial and (or) fungal infection, because of bacteria and other micro-organisms. All tools should be clean of dirt, debris, rust, etc. and sterilized often. Even if you wash your tools with soap and water, you still need to sterilized often to kill germs that may have been left behind after washing. Only sterilize all metal tools in the way listed below, do not attempt to sterilize plastic or non-metal.

Sterilization of metal pedicure tools/equipment requires that the tools either be steamed under pressure for at least 3 minutes at 134oC, dry heated for over 6 minutes at 190 oC, or submerged completely in very high level disinfectants for over 10 hours. Some nail salons are able to do this as they have enough pedicure tools/equipment to spare, however it would be safe to say that most nail salons do not.

Unfortunately most nail salons can’t afford to sterilize their tools and only subject their pedicure tools to varying levels of disinfection. Note that proper use of disinfectants provides reasonable assurance that the tools/equipments are free from pathogens. The longer the tools/equipments are subjected to disinfectants the greater the level of assurance provided. Examples of high level disinfectants used by pedicure salons include Glutaraldehyde or more common household names for it such as Cidex, Coldspor, Sonacide.