physical holds – HELP training

Today I learned how to get out of someone choking me from either front or back, how to get out of someone grabbing me by my arms on either side, or both hands, how to get away/block someone hitting/kicking/coming at me, how to get past a patient to the door, how to come up behind a patient, restrain them with crossed arms, then take them down to the floor, etc. We used HELP – human empowerment and learning principles, or something. It focuses on trying to verbally de-escalate a crisis situation, but if that doesn't work, using physical holds that put you out of harm's way while also not doing damage to the patient.

It was really cool. We heard some crazy stories about a code that involved a man smeared in feces (they had to take him down regardless and all got covered in poo), stuff like that. Overall it was awesome…considering we were in training 730am to 415pm, it went pretty fast.

We were checked off on everything – we all took turns being both patients/staff in all of the holds, so we all took each other down. Pretty cool. The holds work around maximum leverage more so than strength. It was good basic self-defense stuff to learn although it was “clean” – ie no fighting back, just getting out of the way and calming/restraining patient safely.

Tomorrow I probably hold two groups and then do evals, etc. Almost end of week 2, 10 weeks to go. It was a beautiful, beautiful thing to have two days without worries about group…only 100 groups to go…2 a day, 5 days a week, x 10!!!!!!! :O