Then, too, where there are any boys along a ball and bat of the baseball sort will not be lacking and quite a bit of sport and exercise may be had by the campers in the evenings from this source.
If there is water near, swimming will give a lot of recreation and contribute to the health of the campers. [[127]]
In fact, a little ingenuity will discover many games and exercises that will contribute to the interest and enjoyment of the evening camp.
The municipal motor camps often have entertainments arranged for those using these camp sites. Often music, usually band music, will be provided. In some places the camp managers get the campers together of evenings for all sorts of amusement, and in other cases the campers get together for acquaintance and entertainment spontaneously on their own initiative.
First Aid
Another thing that the motor camper should not forget is provision for emergencies. He should know how to render first aid in case of injury, how to resuscitate those who have been drowning, how to treat various forms of common poisoning with a knowledge of the antidotes for these poisons. This subject cannot be gone into fully in this book. There are books entirely devoted to the promotion of safety and assistance to the injured when the emergency arises. As for drowning, many people who have been in a condition of suspended animation owing to submersion in the water have been allowed to die who might have been resuscitated had those present known how. And it is not necessary to have appliances, such as a pulmotor, at hand. In fact, the best method of resuscitating the drowned is the prone-pressure method in which no apparatus [[128]]whatever is employed. The old method of rolling the drowned person over a barrel, or the later method of sending for a pulmotor was mistaken. Both have been abandoned by progressive physicians and the Red Cross Life-saving Department.
The motor camper is quite unlikely to have a physician anywhere near by who can be summoned, and so should know what to do in an emergency, particularly when one of the party has apparently been drowned. For that matter, sending for a physician in case of drowning is usually entirely futile, for it is seldom that a physician can be brought until it is too late to succeed with resuscitation. The prone-pressure method, which we are about to describe, has succeeded where animation has been suspended until after more than two hours of effort. There have been many cases where it would most likely have saved life, where life was lost, because, instead of promptly applying this treatment, a physician and pulmotor were sent for and neither could be procured until the lapse of considerable vital time.
The Prone-pressure Method of Resuscitation
1. Lay the patient on his stomach on a flat surface. Draw the arms above the head. Bring the right wrist under the forehead so that it will support the head and turn the head slightly to the left. Be sure that the nose and mouth do not touch the ground. [[129]]