SIMPLE THINGS YOU CAN DO WHEN SOMEONE HAS A SEIZURE
READ. SHARE. REPOST.
SADLY, THESE THINGS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE TAUGHT AT PRIMARY SCHOOL LEVEL!
When the Body Shakes, Let Kindness Hold It: A Small Manifesto for Seizure First Aid
If a person is having a seizure, the first gift you give them is not medicine and not miracles, but calm, and calm is a language the body understands. Stay with them, and breathe as if your breath can lend theirs courage.
Panic is loud and clumsy, but presence is deliberate and kind. Gently move objects away, and if you can, guide them to the ground, because safety is sometimes nothing more than clearing a small space in a crowded world. Turn them onto their side and loosen what grips the neck too tightly, because even dignity needs air.
This position keeps the airway open and keeps fear from becoming choking. And then, quietly, begin to count, on your phone, on your fingers, on the soft metronome of your heart, because time, in seizures, is not an abstract thing; it is a decision-maker. It tells you when to wait and when to call for help.
Do not put anything in their mouth. Do not hold them down. Do not try to outmuscle the storm. And please do not offer food or water while the shaking is still speaking. Most seizures will end the way they began, suddenly, and without apology. What the body asks for in that moment is not interference, but space; not heroics, but safety.
When the seizure ends, remain.
Say gently, βYouβre safe. You had a seizure. Iβm here.β They may look at you as if waking from a strange country, tired and confused, and this is normal. Let them rest, because recovery is not dramatic, it is quiet, and it is human.
Call emergency services if the seizure lasts more than five minutes, or if it is their first, or if they are injured, or pregnant, or if another seizure arrives too quickly after the first. And share this, because knowledge is a form of love, and one day, in a bus or a church or a living room, you may be the calm person someone needs.
Apparently, Destiny Boy had been living with a seizure disorder for some time.
Rather than pursuing proper medical care, his family turned to a babalawo for treatment.
The depth of ignorance in that part of the world is absolutely staggering.