Abstract
This section on prehospital treatment starts with a description of the large variety of pathophysiological mechanisms related to drowning. The differences depend, most of all, on the circumstances of the incident and the response of the drowning victim to the potentially life-threatening situation. The overview in the first part helps to demonstrate that there are large differences between drowning mechanisms and that drowning-dedicated Basic Life Support (BLS) and Advanced Life Support (ALS) are different from the support that is provided in more common primary cardiac arrest situations. The second part describes these different, and often more complex, aspects in relation to the prehospital resuscitation setting. The section ends with information on the organisational, educational and cultural aspects of drowning-related prehospital treatment around the world. A chapter on future research is included at the end. The subject of the chapters in this section is the submersion victim, whose head is underwater and who immediately becomes asphyxic. The treatment of an immersion victim, who becomes gradually hypothermic, is described in Part 8.