According to the statistics of injuries received both at home and at work, getting burns is in the first positions. Hot liquids, steam, chemicals, electricity, fire surround a person everywhere. Careless handling, malfunctioning equipment and a tragic accident lead to severe injuries - burns.
The consequences of such lesions are difficult to predict, so the forecasts largely depend on the actions of those people who were nearby. Knowing everything about the provision of first aid for burns and skillfully applying this knowledge in practice, you can help the victim to maintain health and even life.
What is a burn?
This is an injury to the skin and tissues of varying severity. A burn can be caused by:
- electricity - electric;
- physical effect of heat - thermal;
- caustic chemicals - chemical;
- light, sun, radiation - radiation.
First aid for burns is provided taking into account the causes and degree of damage.
The degree of burns and their differences
Before treating an injury, you need to determine its degree. There are four of them. The differences are in the depth of damage to the skin and underlying tissues.
- First degree. Only the topmost (integumentary) layer of the skin is affected - the epidermis. There is redness and soreness. The skin area is dry to the touch. The victim feels a burning sensation.
- Second degree. The defeat of the deep layers of the skin. Bubbles appear with a clear yellowish content. Strong pain occurs. The injured area of the skin becomes inflamed.
- Third degree. The death of the skin with the formation of a scab. There is tissue edema surrounding the lesion site.
- Fourth degree. Affected skin and underlying tissues (muscles, tendons, etc.) are dead or charred.
The provision of first aid for burns should take into account the degree of injury. The most important thing to do is to call an emergency ambulance.
Mistakes
First of all, it is worth listing what it is strictly forbidden to do during first aid for burns.
- Violate the integrity of the bubbles that occur in the affected area.
- Apply fatty products, lactic acid products to treat the surface of the burn.
- Apply as a dressing directly to the damaged area of cotton wool, a patch and so on.
What happens during a burn? The skin loses its upper layer, which protects it and underlying tissues from infection, injury, drying, etc. Thus, when providing assistance, it is important to consider factors that can contribute to infection of the affected area. It, in turn, can lead to sepsis.
First and second degree burns
These are the most common household injuries. For example, in the kitchen, when sprinkling fat from a frying pan or pouring steam from boiling water in a pan. Or in the garage, in the country, in nature. With such injuries, doctors are not often visited. Usually people prefer to treat minor injuries on their own.
How can I help the victim? To cool the burn surface, you can use a stream of water, pour it with the burn several times (three to six) for three to five minutes.
For the same purpose, special complex medicines are used. For example, Panthenol.
When the pain begins to subside, the injured area is covered with a gauze bandage or any clean cotton cloth.
If the victim notes pain, give something anesthetic - a tablet of dipyrone or ibuprofen. If the damage is minor and the pain has passed, the affected area is treated with special healing agents, ointments, gels, etc. For example:
- Panthenol;
- "Rescuer";
- Eplan;
- furacilin ointment,
- "Bepanten";
- "Actovegin";
- "Dermazin" and other analogues.
If the treatment helps, the wound heals, then you can not go to the doctor. But in cases where the healing is delayed for a long time, the pain syndrome does not pass, the surface of the wound increases, you need to immediately contact a specialist - a surgeon or a dermatologist.
Third and fourth degree injury
First aid for thermal burns will require maximum concentration and calm. The most important thing is not to panic. As a rule, such injuries get in serious extreme situations. The health, and possibly the life of the victim, may depend on timely and competent assistance.
First of all, it is necessary to eliminate the traumatic factor, put out the fire on the victim, remove from the burning room to fresh air. The choice of event depends on the situation and location.
You can extinguish burning clothes with a thick cloth, snow, water. It is necessary to remove clothing from a charred one carefully, without aggravating the damage, do not tear it.
Painful shock
Think about how you can relieve pain. It so happens that a person dies not from injuries and their consequences, but from pain shock. Its danger lies in the fact that, in addition to strong sensations of pain, the victim's blood pressure drops sharply, and the central nervous system suffers. It can cause sudden death. The ideal option is an injection of a pain reliever. For example, drugs such as Analgin, Ketanov, Diclofenac. Any painkiller will help.
But the main thing remains the speedy hospitalization of the victim. It is necessary to use all possible options for the delivery of a person who received third or fourth degree burns to a specialized institution.
Rinsing with water - the first stage of assistance for chemical burns
There are chemicals that, when hit on the surface of the skin, can injure it like a burn. There are many such means, and they surround a person everywhere: at work, at home, on vacation. The substances contained in these products react chemically with skin components. Therefore, the first first aid for chemical burns must be started with a long (at least thirty minutes) rinsing of the affected area of the skin with running water. The goal is to flush as much irritant as possible.
On the production sites where chemistry is used in large volumes, special sites were created for rendering first aid for burns with acids and alkalis - the “soul of salvation”. They are equipped with devices for convenient washing of any part of the body.
Chemical burns are dangerous in that you may not notice the continuation of the reaction. It can not always be accompanied by pain. Therefore, an appeal to specialists and a call for ambulance are required. Especially dangerous is the contact of chemistry in the eyes and mucous membranes.
What to do in case of burns with caustic chemicals before the ambulance arrives?
After thorough washing with water, first aid for burns with acids or alkalis is to neutralize the residues in the affected area. If the active substance is acid, then it is destroyed using a solution of baking soda. In one glass of water, one teaspoon of soda is bred. A cotton-gauze dressing is moistened with it, applied to the injured area. If the burn is alkaline, use a 1% solution of boric acid.
After the affected area was well washed with running water and neutralized the residues, proceed to further assistance. The activities are the same as when assisting with thermal burns. If it is necessary to relieve pain, give an anesthetic. For wound healing, ointments used for chemical burns can be used: Eplan, Levomekol, Rescuer, Solcoseryl, Bepanten.
To summarize
If we talk about the provision of first aid for burns briefly, then proceed in the following order:
- Call an ambulance or do everything possible to transport the injured to the nearest medical facility.
- Assess the situation, eliminate the effects of traumatic factors.
- Determine the type and degree of damage.
- For chemical burns, rinse and then neutralize the chemicals that have fallen on the body.
- In case of thermal burns - rinse (if the degree of burn and the situation allows) the affected area. Assistance measures should be directed to reducing infection of the wound surface, symptomatic treatment of the victim.
As labor protection experts like to say, safety rules are written in blood. The provision of first aid in them is the most voluminous section. It is not known what can happen to each of us. Knowledge of the simple rules of first aid for wounds and burns will help to maintain the health of the victim or even save his life.