Burns

Description:

Burn — the damage of body tissues caused by action of high temperature or effect of some chemicals (alkalis, acids, salts of heavy metals, etc.).

Symptoms of Burns:

Distinguish 4 degrees of a burn:

  1. erubescence,
  2. formation of bubbles,
  3. necrosis of all thickness of skin,
  4. carbonization of fabrics.

Weight of a burn is defined by the size of the area and depth of damage of fabrics. The more the area also is deeper damage of fabrics, the course of a burn injury is heavier. First aid at burns consists in the termination of influence of external factors and processing of a wound.

Reasons of Burns:

It is possible to allocate thermal, corrosive, electric and radiation burns.

Treatment of Burns:

An important role is played by rendering most and mutual assistance. Its main objective is cancellation of the striking factor on the victim. So, for example, at a thermal burn it is necessary to eliminate contact of the burn which was injured with a source and to cool the struck surface (under cool flowing water, not less than 15 — 20 minutes (only if integrity of an integument is not broken); urgent no later than 2 hours after receiving a burn), at electric defeat — to interrupt contact with a current source, at corrosive burns — to wash away or neutralize active agent, etc.
At this stage it is impossible to apply oil ointments and other fat-containing products. Very much a popular belief that the burn should be greased with something fat — for example, sour cream or vegetable oil. Similar is inadmissible, such action will only aggravate weight of defeat, and the personnel in hospital should delete an oil film, inflicting additional suffering on the patient. It is not recommended to delete independently from the victim fragments of the burned-down clothes: this manipulation can lead to peeling of big sites of skin, bleeding, and afterwards and to infection of a wound.

Without having skills and necessary equipment and at a possibility of receiving the first medical assistance within an hour, it is not necessary to conduct preprocessing of a wound independently. Without anesthesia this process will inflict additional suffering on the patient and can lead to shock or aggravate it. Also, when processing a wound inevitably there will be bleeding and the risk of infection will increase if processing is carried out in field conditions.