What do I do in the first minute of an emergency — a fire at night, a tornado warning, a rip current, a call for help?

Seven pages in this library give steps for one of these moments. Close the bedroom door before you sleep is a house fire in the home you live in, and the door you shut at night. Go down and in when the tornado warning comes is the alert or the siren. The way out of a rip is sideways is the beach getting further away while you swim toward it. Say where you are first is the call for help itself. Find the second way out is a fire, smoke, an alarm or an attacker in a crowded place. Take a first-aid class before you need one is someone near you who has collapsed or is choking. If you get lost on a hike or walk, stop before you walk any further is the path that stopped looking right a while ago. Each page’s steps come first below, in its own words and order.

Close the bedroom doors before you go to sleep, and test your smoke alarm this week. Close the bedroom door before you sleep gives these steps. If there is a fire in your home: get out, stay out, and call for help once you are out — 911 in the United States, 999 or 112 in the UK, your local emergency number elsewhere. On the way, close doors behind you. Before you open a closed door, feel it and the handle with the back of your hand; if it is hot, or smoke is coming round it, keep it shut and use your other way out. Stay low, under the smoke. If you cannot get out, get into a room with a window, close the door, block the gap at the bottom with bedding or towels, open the window, and shout or wave a light-coloured cloth or a flashlight so you can be seen; if you can phone, tell them exactly which room you are in. Once you are out, do not go back in for belongings or pets; tell the firefighters who is still inside and where.

Many people on the page say the same thing about surviving a house fire, and it costs nothing: shut the door before you go to sleep. The fire services’ rule on going back in is no — once you are out, stay out; the London Fire Brigade puts it as never go back into the building. Some people explain why: going in blind makes you one more person for the firefighters to find, and some people, going on what firefighters say, call re-entry into a burning house suicide. The same people describe one exception, and it is theirs, not the fire services’: only if you can see the person clearly, and, one discussion adds, never into thick or black smoke. Without a clear sight of them, one person says, going in is fatal. What helps instead: bang on the doors and windows to wake people, call the emergency number, count everyone outside, and tell the firefighters the moment they arrive exactly who is missing and which room they sleep in.

When a tornado warning comes, go down and in: to the lowest floor, the room with the most walls between you and outside, away from windows, with your head covered. Go down and in when the tornado warning comes gives these steps. This is written for the United States, where tornado warnings are issued. When a warning covers where you are, act now rather than looking outside for it. Go to a basement, storm shelter or safe room if you have one; if not, the lowest floor, in a small room in the middle of the building with no windows — a closet, a bathroom, under the stairs, an inside hallway. Get under something sturdy or pull a mattress or blankets over you, and cover your head and neck with your arms. Do not open the windows. In a mobile home, leave for a sturdy building or shelter you picked in advance; a mobile home can turn over. In a car, drive to the nearest sturdy shelter if you can reach it; if you cannot, never stop under a bridge or overpass — either stay in the car with your seat belt on and your head down below the windows, or, if there is ground clearly lower than the road, get out and lie flat there with your head covered. Afterwards, keep away from fallen power lines, and if someone is hurt call 911 in the United States — 999 in the UK, your local emergency number elsewhere.

The pull when the alert goes off, the page says, is to go to the window and look for it, and then to work out which way to run; neither helps, and the second can kill you. On the window, the Storm Prediction Center’s words are that opening the windows is “absolutely useless, a waste of precious time, and can be very dangerous. Don’t do it.” A mobile home is the one home you leave, the page says, and the Storm Prediction Center’s advice is to get out even if it is tied down. Caught outside on foot, get into a ditch or any dip in the ground and lie flat, some people say, and the CDC gives the same advice; some people warn a ditch can flood fast in a storm, and one says do not lie under power lines.

If the water is carrying you away from the beach, do not swim straight back against it: swim sideways, along the shore, or float on your back and breathe until you can. The way out of a rip is sideways gives the short version before anything else. If the water is carrying you away from the beach, do not swim straight back against it. If you can still stand, wade out of it rather than swim. If you cannot, swim across the pull, along the line of the beach, and turn for the shore only when the pull has stopped. If you are tired or frightened, stop and float on your back first: head back, ears in the water, arms and legs spread, and breathe until your breathing settles. Then raise one arm and shout. A rip current carries you out; it does not pull you under. If you are on the sand and someone else is caught, do not swim out to them without something that floats: tell the lifeguard, throw them anything that floats, shout to them to float on their back, and call for help — 911 in the United States, 999 or 112 in the UK and ask for the Coastguard, and elsewhere your local emergency number.

The US and UK lifesaving advice, the page says, agree on the direction and differ on where to start. The US National Weather Service: relax, because rip currents do not pull you under. Do not swim against the current. Swim out of it — following the shoreline — and then in to shore at an angle. If you cannot get out, float or tread water. If you need help, yell or wave. The UK’s RNLI: do not swim against it, or you will get exhausted. Stay with your board if you have one, or float if you do not: tip your head back with your ears in the water, try to breathe normally, use your hands and legs to help you stay up, and do not worry if your legs sink. If you can stand, wade, do not swim. If you can, wade or swim parallel to the shore until you are free of the rip, then head for shore. And always raise your hand and shout for help.

The people on the page have the same argument, one person against one — swim sideways the moment you feel it, or float first and swim later — and what decides which to use, they say, is how much energy you have and how strong the pull is. If you still have your breath and you swim well, swim across the pull now, at a pace you could keep up; one person warns that an all-out sprint sideways can exhaust you as surely as swimming for the beach. If you are tired, frightened, cold, or not a strong swimmer, float first, then swim across when you can. Go sideways until you no longer feel the pull, and only then angle in. If the water is cold, the first minute or so brings a gasp you cannot control; the RNLI says the first effects pass in less than a minute, so do not try to swim straight away: lean back, float, and control your breathing until it passes. If it is someone else in the water, the weather service says do not attempt a rescue on your own, and HM Coastguard tells people on the shore not to go into the water. Anyone who went under, or came out coughing or struggling to breathe, should see a doctor the same day, even if they feel fine.

When you call 911 or 999, say where you are first — and if you called by mistake, stay on the line and say so. Say where you are first gives these steps. If this is an emergency, call now: 911 in the United States, 999 in the UK, 112 from a mobile in the UK and across Europe, 000 in Australia, or your local emergency number elsewhere. Say where you are before anything else — the street and number, or the nearest crossroads or landmark, and the floor, flat or room. Then answer the questions in the order they are asked, and stay on the line until the call-taker tells you to hang up. If you cannot speak: in the United States, leave the line open and, where your area offers it, text 911; in the UK, on a mobile, speak if you can, even in a whisper; if not, cough or tap the keys when asked, and if you hear an automated police message, press 55 while it plays, because if you do not, the call is ended.

Many people on the page say give the address before the story, so help can be sent while the rest is being asked. In the UK, the first question on a 999 call is which service you need — police, fire, ambulance or coastguard — and then the location comes next; the page’s advice is to have the location ready as the first thing out of your mouth, and then answer what you are asked, in the order you are asked it. If you are alone and something is badly wrong — chest pain, a severe reaction, the feeling that you are going to faint — some people’s advice is to unlock the front door as you call, so the crew can get in. A paramedic there adds the limit: do not go out onto the steps or into the cold or heat to wait, because falling on the steps or lying out in the weather causes its own injuries. Unlock the door, then sit or lie down inside near it, not upstairs or in a far room. And if you called by mistake, stay on the line and say so: a call that hangs up looks, from the other end, like someone who was cut off — or stopped.

When you walk into a crowded place, find one exit that is not the door you came in by, and check that nothing is blocking it. Find the second way out gives these steps. If there is a fire, smoke or an alarm right now: leave by the nearest exit, which may not be the door you came in by. Leave your things, do not stop to film, and once you are out, stay out. Call 911 in the US or 999 in the UK — elsewhere, your local emergency number. If there is smoke, get low: US government fire guidance says to crawl under it to your exit. If the danger is an attacker, US and UK advice both begin with running if there is a safe way out: Run, Hide, Fight from the US agency CISA, which calls them options to weigh, and Run, Hide, Tell from UK counter-terrorism police. Call 911 or 999 when it is safe to.

On the page, many people make the same point: in a fire or a panic, a crowd heads for the way it came in, and the door jams. The US government investigated a nightclub fire in Rhode Island in 2003 in which 100 people died, and found that about two-thirds of the people inside tried to leave through the main entrance, and many could not. The building had other exits: doors by the stage, doors beside the bar, and a kitchen exit. In the moment, one person’s caution is not to simply follow the crowd, because it may be running into the jam or towards the danger.

If someone near you has collapsed and is not breathing normally, do not wait for a class: call, and press. Take a first-aid class before you need one is mainly about learning this before the moment, and says that if someone has collapsed right now, its safety box is the part to read. Call 911 in the US, or 999 or 112 in the UK (your local emergency number elsewhere). Before you go to them, check it is safe to approach. If you are on your own, put the phone on speaker and start pressing hard and fast on the centre of the chest while the call-taker talks to you; keep going until the ambulance crew take over, someone else takes over, or you cannot carry on. If someone else is with you, send them for a defibrillator; do not leave the person to look for one yourself. For an adult, St John Ambulance in the UK gives the depth as about 5 to 6 centimetres and the pace as 100 to 120 presses a minute, and the British Heart Foundation says a cracked rib can happen and you should keep going. Babies and children need different steps, which the British Heart Foundation says a class teaches and this page does not. Someone pulled from water is different too: St John Ambulance says to start with five rescue breaths before the presses, and that anyone who nearly drowned should get medical advice even if they seem well. If someone is choking and can still cough, speak or breathe, encourage them to cough. If an adult cannot, St John Ambulance says to give five sharp back blows between the shoulder blades, then up to five abdominal thrusts, and to call 999 (911 in the US) if the blockage has not cleared, repeating the back blows and thrusts until help arrives. Babies under one and children need different choking steps, which a class teaches and this page does not. These steps are from the UK; a class near you teaches the local version.

If you freeze, or half remember, some people point out that the emergency call-taker can talk you through each step by phone, and that doing CPR imperfectly beats doing nothing. The page asks you to book a short first-aid or CPR class that also covers a defibrillator, before you feel ready: some people say having done a course is what stops you freezing, because you already know the first thing to do. The US National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute says defibrillators are made so that untrained bystanders can use them, and that they give step-by-step instructions; in the UK, the British Heart Foundation runs a finder where you can look up the nearest one by postcode. In the UK the British Heart Foundation offers free interactive CPR training that takes about 15 minutes at home with a cushion and a phone or tablet; the page could not check whether it gives a certificate. People disagree on a helmet: some say that if the person is not breathing it must come off so CPR can start, others say never to take it off alone because it can damage the neck. The page cannot settle that, and in the moment the emergency call-taker is who to ask. It does not cover the law on helping where you live, and a class improves your chance of acting; it does not promise that a life will be saved.

If you get lost, stop where you are, walk back the way you came only if you are sure of it and it is safe, and if you are not sure, call 911 (US) or 999 (UK) and stay put until help finds you. If you get lost on a hike or walk, stop before you walk any further is for someone on foot who is not hurt, and its safety box comes first. If someone is hurt, or you are lost and cannot walk back with confidence, call 911 in the US or 999 in the UK now, and say where you started, where you last knew where you were, what you can see, and what you are wearing. In England, Wales and Scotland, on a hill or moor, Mountain Rescue England and Wales and Scottish Mountain Rescue say to ask for Police, then Mountain Rescue. Stay where you are until help finds you, unless there is an immediate threat to your life where you are. If you or anyone with you is shivering, confused, or hot and confused, say so on the call, because cold and heat can become emergencies. If the call will not connect, the page If you can change your voicemail, you can call for help has what to try with a weak signal. For chest pain, difficulty breathing or a major injury such as major bleeding or broken bones, the US National Park Service (NPS) says to call 911, stay put and minimise movement, control bleeding by applying direct pressure to the wound, and keep warm by adding layers; if you have no cell reception, you can flag someone down and ask them to travel back to where there is reception and call 911, and if someone in your group is injured, send two or more people to alert the authorities while the rest of the group stays with the injured person.

The NPS’s Outdoor Emergency Plan, whose web page was last updated in June 2023, gives three steps: stop and breathe, work out where you are from your map, compass, handheld GPS or landmarks, and, if it is safe to do so, retrace your steps to your planned route; if you cannot, call 911 and stay put, because changing location makes it difficult for the authorities to find you, moving only if there is an immediate threat to your life; and if you have no phone or no reception, wait for help. The US Forest Service says to stop, stay calm and stay put as soon as you realise you may be lost, and says: “If you are not very, very confident in the route, then it’s always better to stay put,” and that if it is nightfall, you are injured or you are near exhaustion, you should stay in place. In England and Wales, Mountain Rescue England and Wales says that after you call you should stay where you are until the rescue team contacts you. Read together, they give one test: walk back only if you are sure of the way and it is safe; if you are not sure, stay and call. Some people say that staying where you are makes rescue likelier than searching for your own way out, because searchers start from the last place you were known to be, and one person warns that in forest or unfamiliar ground you can easily go round in circles or get hurt; one person says the advice is for someone who is lost, not for someone who knows exactly where they are. If you decide you must move, the Forest Service says that as a very last resort you can follow a drainage or stream downhill, which is often a difficult path, could lead to a trail or road, and could be very dangerous; some people say following a stream is often wrong, because streams can lead away from help.

On the call, the NPS says to give the GPS coordinates from your phone if you have them, the name of the trail or area where you started, your last known location before you became lost, what you can see around you, including landmarks, the types and colours of the clothing you are wearing, the equipment you are carrying, and any medical conditions you have. Mountain Rescue England and Wales says to make a note first of your location, with a grid reference if possible, the name, gender and age of anyone who is hurt, what is wrong, the number of people in your party, and your mobile phone number, then dial 999 or 112, ask for Police, then Mountain Rescue, and stay where you are until the rescue team contacts you. Scottish Mountain Rescue says the same: call 999, ask for Police and then ask for Mountain Rescue; in Northern Ireland the emergency number is also 999, and the page did not check its mountain rescue wording. If you have no phone or no signal, the NPS says to find shelter that protects you from the sun, rain or snow, check what you are carrying, and put on any extra layers if you feel cold; not to build a fire if there is a high fire risk or it is wildland fire season; to blow your whistle often rather than yelling, flash your flashlight in the SOS pattern (three times quickly, three times slowly, three times quickly) while remembering it drains the batteries, and flash a mirror to alert planes and helicopters; to make yourself visible from the air by laying out your shelter or using rocks to make a shape; and to wait patiently. On the whistle the two official sources differ: the NPS says to blow three times, take a break, then blow three times again, while Mountain Rescue England and Wales says six good long blasts in a minute, then stop for a minute, and repeat, and not to stop because you hear a reply, so use the pattern for the country you are in. The NPS says help can take hours or days, depending on your location, the weather and the resources available, and if you have called for help, ask the call-taker before you move.

On the cold: in England, the NHS says hypothermia is a dangerous drop in body temperature below 35C, and a medical emergency, with signs of shivering; pale, cold and dry skin, where the skin and lips may turn blue or grey (on black or brown skin this may be easier to see on the palms of the hands or the soles of the feet); slurred speech; slow breathing; and tiredness or confusion; for a baby, it says the signs may be being cold to touch, floppy, and unusually quiet and sleepy, with a refusal to feed. It says to go to A&E or call 999 if you think you or your child have hypothermia, and not to drive yourself. While you wait, it says to get to shelter, take off any wet clothing and wrap the person in a blanket, sleeping bag or dry towel with the head covered, give a warm non-alcoholic drink and sugary food if the person is fully awake, keep them awake by talking, and stay with them, and not to use a hot bath, hot water bottle or heat lamp to warm them, not to rub their arms, legs, feet or hands, and not to give alcohol. In the US, the CDC lists shivering, exhaustion, confusion, fumbling hands, memory loss, slurred speech and drowsiness as signs, says that babies with hypothermia have bright red, cold skin and very low energy, and says to get medical attention immediately; it says hypothermia can happen even above 40°F (about 4°C) if a person is chilled by rain, sweat or cold water, and that someone with severe hypothermia may be unconscious and seem to have no pulse or breathing, in which case it says to handle them gently, get emergency help at once (911 in the US, 999 in the UK), and do CPR even if they appear dead, while you keep warming them. On the heat: the NHS lists tiredness, dizziness, headache, feeling or being sick, heavy sweating with pale, clammy skin, cramps in the arms, legs and stomach, a high temperature, being very thirsty and feeling irritable as signs of heat exhaustion, and says to move the person to a cool place, remove unnecessary clothing such as a jacket or socks, give plenty of water to drink, cool their skin with cool water and fanning, and stay with them until they are better, which it says should start within 30 minutes; if you are struggling to treat it, get help from NHS 111. The NHS says to call 999 now for signs of heatstroke: a very high temperature; hot skin that is not sweating and might look red; a fast heartbeat; fast breathing or shortness of breath; confusion and lack of coordination; a seizure; loss of consciousness; or still being unwell after 30 minutes of resting in a cool place, being cooled and drinking fluids, and not to drive yourself to A&E; while you wait it says to wrap the person in a cool, wet sheet, or fan them or sponge them down with cold water, and if they lose consciousness, to put them in the recovery position, tell the ambulance service, check their breathing and pulse, and do CPR if they show no sign of life. The US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health lists confusion, altered mental state and slurred speech, loss of consciousness, hot dry skin or heavy sweating, seizures and a very high body temperature as signs of heat stroke, and says to call 911. The Forest Service says to avoid hiking between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. on hot days, and that if you are on a trail in those hours you should find a shady spot and stay there until it cools. The CDC says that drinking water straight from a clear mountain stream is generally not safe, and that if you are not sure water is safe to drink you should treat it, with boiling the best way.

If someone in your group becomes lost, the NPS says to stop the activity, go to the last known place, call 911 if you have cell service, and go to a ranger station; in the UK, call 999 and ask for the police, and on a hill or moor in England, Wales or Scotland, for Police and then Mountain Rescue. For a child who gets lost, the NPS says they should hug a tree and stay put, keep warm and dry by adding layers, and make themselves big by using a whistle, waving their arms or flashing a flashlight, and it tells children that it is OK if they get lost and that their family and friends are not mad but worried and looking for them. Before you set out, the Forest Service says to tell one person who is not coming where you are going, the trail you plan to follow, when you will return, the vehicle you are driving and where you plan to park, and the number of people in your group, and not to go alone; Mountain Rescue England and Wales adds your start and finish points and your contact details, and says to charge your phone first and to carry spare clothing, a hat and gloves even in summer, ample food and water, a map and compass, a torch and head torch, and a whistle; the NPS lists 10 Essentials. That page is for someone on foot and not hurt; it does not cover avalanche terrain, snakes or large animals, desert or other kinds of terrain, or a car that has broken down on a busy road. If you are lost, or someone is hurt, right now, call 911 in the US or 999 in the UK.

Who these pages are not for. The fire page is for a house fire in the home you live in: in a block of flats or a high-rise, where the advice to leave or stay put depends on the building, follow your building’s fire plan and your local fire service; for wildfire or bushfire, your local fire authority’s plan, and one person stresses the part of it about leaving early; and anyone who breathed smoke or was burned needs medical care. If what you need is the fire in front of you right now, it says, stop reading and get out. If you live in a high-rise, or you or someone you care for cannot get to a lower floor quickly, the tornado page does not have your answer, and your local emergency management office is the place to ask what your building’s plan is. The page is not a substitute for your local warnings, drills and officials. Storm chasing, the people there say, is for trained professionals. The UK and Europe get tornadoes too, generally smaller, some people point out, and the indoor rule — low, inside, away from windows — does not change with the country. The rip page is for the swimmer; it is not a lifesaving course, and it does not teach rescue or first aid. It says that if you cannot swim well, “swim sideways” is not your plan: stay where you can stand, and if you are ever carried out anyway, the float and the raised hand are your whole job. In a river the rule is different: if you are swept into fast-moving water, the US National Park Service says do not try to stand up; lie on your back with your feet pointing downstream and your toes up at the surface, and use your feet to push off rocks, looking downstream. The call page does not replace your local emergency service’s own instructions, and it says that if it is not an emergency, this is the wrong number — in the UK, 101; in the United States, your police department’s non-emergency line, which some cities put on 311 — and the US association’s line is that if you are not sure whether it is an emergency, call 911 and let the call-taker decide. The exits page does not teach how to survive a crowd crush or a mosh pit, and it is written for people who never look; if you check every room and cannot stop, the habit may be part of the problem rather than the answer. One person warns that people who lean towards anxiety, or who find open or crowded places frightening, may find the practice harmful, and some people add that if the checking causes you distress or feels like something you have to do, it may be a sign of an anxiety disorder that treatment can help with.