First aid for a spanking session

Very little in this activity needs a first aider. When something does, it is usually a faint or a graze, and the person dealing with it is the one who was holding the hairbrush a minute earlier. This is what to have ready and what to do, to read before you need it.

Consenting adults only. Everything on this page is about adults over 18 who have freely agreed to it.

Written from first-hand experience or extensive research by the editor.

Everything here is between consenting adults over 18. Spanking within the safe area is low risk, which is the argument on is it safe to be spanked. Low is not none, and most of what does go wrong happens at the end of a session, when somebody stands up too fast in a warm room on an empty stomach.

A small kit, in the room

In the room, not in a cabinet down the hall, and put out with the implements before anybody undresses.

• Disposable gloves, sterile non-fluffy dressings, plasters and medical tape. No cotton wool, which sheds fibres into a wound.
• Clean water for rinsing. Tap water is fine.
• A cold pack or frozen peas in the freezer, and a tea towel to wrap them in.
• Paracetamol, and blunt-ended safety shears if anything is tied or buckled.
• A blanket, a pint of water and something sugary.
• Any medication either of you relies on, such as an inhaler, in sight.
• A charged phone and the full address with postcode. In a hotel or somebody else's flat you may not know it, and a 999 call starts with it.

Food, warmth and towels are on the first session checklist.

Fainting

The likeliest thing on this page. It comes from a stack of small causes: the head low for twenty minutes, standing up quickly, adrenaline draining away, a warm room, no food since lunch, sometimes the pain itself. More on health conditions and medication. It often gives warning: grey skin, sweating, yawning, nausea, and a quiet "I feel a bit odd". That is the moment to act.

• Flat on their back, legs raised on cushions, a chair or your shoulders.
• Off with anything tight or restraining: cuffs, a corset, a binder. Open a window if the room is hot.
• Most people come round quickly, shaky and embarrassed. Leave them lying there a while.
• Then up in stages, sitting for a few minutes before standing with a hand on an arm.

If they do not come round, speak loudly and gently shake their shoulders. No response: tilt the head back, lift the chin, and check for normal breathing for ten seconds. Breathing but still out means the recovery position and a 999 call. Not breathing normally means 999 at once, and the call handler will talk you through what to do.

The NHS fainting page also wants 999 for chest pain or an irregular heartbeat, a fit, a serious injury from the fall, not fully recovering, or fainting while already lying down. Any other faint is still worth mentioning to a GP. Standing straight after impact is when it happens most, which is why corner time needs soft knees.

Broken skin

Stop the scene and say so out loud. Gloves on or hands washed. Firm pressure with a clean pad on anything bleeding, for several minutes without lifting it to look. Rinse gently with clean water and cover with a non-fluffy dressing, with nothing alcoholic and no neat antiseptic in the wound. Over the following days, spreading redness, heat, worsening swelling, pus or feeling feverish means an urgent GP appointment or a call to 111. The full version is on when the skin breaks.

Bruising

Cold on the night, always wrapped: a cold pack or frozen peas in a tea towel for ten to twenty minutes at a time, never ice straight onto skin. Paracetamol is the safer painkiller, since aspirin can make bruising worse. A bruise still growing after two days, an area gone hard and tight, or blood in the urine after anything landed near the lower back needs a doctor, the last of them the same day. See marks and bruising.

A panic attack

Occasionally a scene sets off panic: a racing heart, fast breathing, shaking, tingling hands, a sense of choking or of something terrible about to happen. It is frightening to have and to watch, and it passes.

• End the scene completely, role and voice included. Lights on, restraints off.
• Sit them up, supported, and cover them if they want covering.
• Slow your own voice and breathe out audibly so they have a rhythm to copy. See breathing through a spanking.
• No paper bag, which St John Ambulance advises against. Ask before touching.

Do not assume it is panic. Chest pain that does not settle, breathing that stays difficult, or lips going blue is a 999 call, because from outside nobody can reliably tell panic from something else. The days after are on when it goes wrong.

Getting cold, shaky or shocky

Shivering afterwards is common. Adrenaline drops, the room cools, somebody has been half-dressed for an hour, and the body shakes. Blanket, water, something sugary, and company. It should ease as they warm up, and it is part of what aftercare is for.

Shock in the medical sense is an emergency. Pale, cold, clammy skin, fast shallow breathing, a fast pulse, grey lips, and getting worse under the blanket rather than better. After a session, the reason to think of it is a stroke that landed over the kidneys. St John Ambulance says lie them down and raise their legs (not if a leg or hip might be broken), loosen anything tight, keep them warm, and call 999 saying you think it is shock.

A fall

Falls happen on the way up: off a knee too quickly, out of a deep bend, or on a wet bathroom floor afterwards. Most are a bump. Do not haul anyone straight up. Let them stay put and say what hurts, and if a hip, wrist, neck or back might be damaged, keep them still and get help.

After a blow to the head, NHS advice is 999 for someone knocked out who has not woken, a fit, or trouble speaking, understanding, walking or seeing, and 111 for vomiting, dizziness, blood thinners or a fall after drinking. Somebody stays with them for the first 24 hours, which rules out a taxi home alone.

111 or 999

111 is free at any hour. In England it also works online at 111.nhs.uk, Wales uses the same number, and in Scotland 111 reaches NHS 24. In Northern Ireland, use your GP out-of-hours service.

Whoever you speak to needs what happened to the body rather than the story: where the impact was, with what, how long ago, and anything either of you has taken. If you are worried about the legal side, read if the law gets involved afterwards, never instead.