In case of burns, what substances should not be washed with water?

The following degrees of burns are distinguished:

1. I degree – redness of the skin, accompanied by burning and pain;
2. Stage II - the formation of blisters with liquid, the blisters can sometimes burst and the liquid leak out;
3. III degree - coagulation of proteins with tissue damage and necrosis of the skin;
4. IV degree - deeper damage to tissues - skin, subcutaneous fat, muscles, and bones up to charring.

The severity of the burn also directly depends on the area of ​​skin and tissue damage. A burn always causes severe pain, and in the most severe cases the victim experiences shock. A burn can be aggravated by infection, penetration of toxins into the blood, metabolic disorders and many other pathological processes.

Burns from boiling water or steam

What can you do

1. It is necessary to immediately eliminate the damaging factor (boiling water or steam);

Cool the affected area with running water;

Cover with a damp bandage;

What not to do

1. Do not apply ointments, creams, butter, sour cream, etc. This may facilitate the entry of infection;

Tear off stuck clothing (in case of severe burns);

Chemical burn

What can you do

1. Place the affected area of ​​skin under running cold water and rinse for 20 minutes;

Chemicals must be neutralized. However, different chemicals are neutralized differently. In case of an acid burn, the affected area should be sprinkled with soda or washed with soapy water; in case of an alkali burn, it is better to rinse the affected area with diluted acetic acid;

What not to do

1. Chemicals penetrate deep into the skin, and even after they are removed they can continue to act, so it is better not to touch the affected area so as not to increase the area of ​​the burn;

Sunburn

What can you do

First aid can be provided independently, since sunburns are not severe and, according to the degree of damage, they are classified as I or II degrees.

1. It is necessary to immediately leave the sun and go to a cool place, for example, in the shade;

Apply a wet, cold bandage to the affected areas to cool and relieve burning and pain;

You can take a cold shower or lie in cool water;

What not to do

1. Do not treat your skin with ice cubes. This can cause the skin to die, which can lead to scarring. Do not wash damaged skin with soap, rub with a washcloth or clean with scrubs. This will increase the inflammatory response.

Do not apply alcohol or alcohol solutions to damaged areas. Alcohol contributes to additional dehydration of the skin;

Do not treat your skin with petroleum jelly or various fats. These products clog pores and prevent the skin from breathing;

Hogweed burn

Hogweed is a very common plant in mid-latitudes. The inflorescence of these plants resembles dill, and the leaves resemble burdock or thistle. Sosnowski's hogweed, named after the scientist who discovered it, is especially famous for its poisonous properties. It is distinguished by its gigantic size and during the flowering period in July-August it can reach 5-6 m in height. Hogweed produces a special phototoxic sap, and when it comes into contact with the skin, the effect of sunlight increases several times. This action can be compared to a magnifying glass collecting the sun's rays, which leads to skin burns or ignition of dry objects, such as paper. Even one drop of hogweed can cause a skin burn, especially if it is exposed to the sun.

Symptoms of a hogweed burn include redness, itching and burning of the skin. And if you don’t wash your skin in time and stay in the sun, you can get a severe burn. At the site of redness, blisters with liquid later appear.

What can you do

1. First of all, you need to wash off the hogweed juice with soap and water and treat the skin with baking soda;

Apply a bandage to the affected area of ​​skin with syntomycin ointment, ointment with dexpanthenol;

What is an acid?

From a chemical point of view, an acid is a substance that contains hydrogen atoms (which can be replaced by metal atoms) and an acidic residue.

Acetic acid, malic acid, citric acid, ascorbic acid (vitamin C), oxalic acid and some other acids are familiar to us in everyday life. This is the so-called organic acids, that is, synthesized by living organisms.

In the chemical industry there are inorganic acidic compounds, for example, the well-known sulfuric (H2SO4) or hydrochloric (HC1) acid.

All acids have an irritating effect (to one degree or another) on the human body.

What types of acid burns are there?

1st degree burn: moderate redness appears, the affected area burns and hurts.

2nd degree burn: more intense redness, swelling, severe pain, blisters may appear on the skin.

3rd degree burn: skin necrosis, burn areas change color (may become completely white, or vice versa, darken), tissue around the burn turns red, severe pain.

4th degree burn: necrosis of the skin, subcutaneous tissue, muscles, severe pain.

How to provide first aid if acid gets on your skin?

1. First of all, it is recommended to thoroughly rinse the burned area with running water (for 15-20 minutes) to reduce the concentration of the chemical. After this, you should wash the affected area again with soapy water or a solution of baking soda (a teaspoon of baking soda per glass of water).

2. Try not to touch the burned area with your hands, this may cause acid residue to get on you and cause pain to the victim. In general, it is better to carry out all manipulations with thick gloves.

3. Free the burned surface of the skin from clothing; if you cannot remove it, cut it off with scissors. However, do not peel the fabric from the surface of the skin unless it is removable.

4. If a person is in shock (he turns pale, breathing quickens, the pulse is barely palpable), the victim should be given 15-20 drops of valerian tincture.

5. After providing first aid, you must consult a doctor.

What burns cannot be washed with water?

Remember that rinsing is contraindicated for burns caused by quicklime or organic aluminum compounds, which become much more active when in contact with water. The area affected by lime should be treated with vegetable oil, with which to remove the chemical compound from the surface of the skin, and then make a lotion from a 5% solution of citric or acetic acid. Aluminum compounds should be treated with kerosene or unleaded gasoline. If phenol gets on your skin, use a 40% solution of ethyl alcohol; if you get phosphoric acid, first remove particles of phosphorus from the skin, and then wash it with a 5% solution of copper sulfate or a solution of potassium permanganate.

What if acid gets into your eyes or mouth?

The acid can enter the mouth or eyes as a liquid, vapor, or gas. In this case, it is necessary to rinse them with plenty of water, and then with a solution of baking soda at the rate of half a teaspoon per glass of water or a weak solution of potassium permanganate. Open the victim's eyelids over a sink and gently spray the eyeball with a small stream.

If acid enters the esophagus, the first step is to call a doctor. The victim should be laid down and wrapped warmly, mucus and saliva from the mouth should be removed as they occur. If the victim is nauseous, you can give him water to dilute the concentrated acid that has entered the body, but no more than three glasses. Causing nausea is dangerous, since when the acid moves back down the esophagus, it can again injure the mucous membrane.

If signs of suffocation appear, the victim must be given mouth-to-nose artificial respiration, since the larynx has been burned by the acid.

What not to do?

1. Burned areas should not be lubricated with fats, ointments or sprinkled with starch.

2. Do not open blisters if they are formed from a burn on the surface of the skin.

3. Do not use tampons, towels or napkins to remove acid from the victim - this will only rub them into the skin.

4. If you are not sure what kind of acid you have suffered from, you should not try to neutralize it yourself! Simply wash the damaged area with water and a baking soda solution.

5. Under no circumstances leave the victim without professional medical assistance. The first aid you provide does not cancel calling an ambulance.

According to WHO, burns are the third most common injury among the population.

Serious burns are a terrible injury, a terrible sight. If the first degree of burn is still relatively mild, then already with the second degree the victims experience severe debilitating pain - there are nerve endings in the damaged middle layer of the skin.

Everyone remembers the terrible tragedy that happened to little Matvey...

In the United States, a larger number of cases are children scalded by boiling water, in Southeast Asia - cases associated with the national tradition of preparing home-cooked food.

Timely and competent provision of first aid to victims, as well as a set of appropriate measures in medical institutions, significantly reduce the percentage of unfavorable outcomes.

To reduce the suffering of burn patients, medications are administered to artificially induce sleep. When treating burns, a special dressing material is used that does not stick to the wound, film dressings. Special beds used:

Photos from the site www.medtechmarket.ru

Dead tissue is gradually removed, and wound healing is carefully monitored. Skin grafting operations are often performed, or synthetic plastic materials are used to cover the wound and stimulate skin regeneration.

How to determine the burn percentage? The area of ​​the victim's palm is 1%. There is the so-called “rule of nine” - the area of ​​​​some parts of the body is equal to 9%:

1. head and neck - 9%;
2. hand - 9%;
3. leg - two nines (thigh 9% + lower leg with foot 9%);
4. front, back surfaces of the body - 2 nines each;

perineum and genitals - 1%.

When more than 15% of the body surface is burned, there is a real threat to human life.

Burns involving 40-50% of the body are incompatible with life, although there are exceptions - there are cases of surviving victims with 70-80% burns. Little Matvey also survived.

The most important criterion is the depth of the burn. The outcome is determined precisely by the area of ​​deep burns, where the skin is necrotic throughout its entire thickness.

A little about the tragic outcome of the incidents. Burnt corpses are characterized by the so-called boxer pose. “When a corpse is burned, moisture evaporates and protein coagulates. The muscles thicken and shorten—thermal rigor sets in. Since the flexors are more developed than the extensors, the corpse takes on a peculiar shape in which the upper and lower limbs are bent - a boxer's pose. This phenomenon is exclusively of posthumous origin:

Photo from the website www.medical-enc.ru. Post-mortem action of flame (boxer pose).”

But let's get back to the living. For serious burns, do not remove clothing - carefully cut and remove.

I-II degree burns with a lesion area of ​​no more than 10% are treated on an outpatient basis. Victims with all other injuries must be hospitalized. Second degree burns in the face, scalp, groin and perineum are recommended to be treated in a hospital.

So, what to do before the ambulance arrives if you happen to be a witness:

Thermal burn

1. If there are no open wounds and minor damage to the skin, rinse the burn area with cold water (maybe with ice). This significantly shortens the period of post-burn tissue overheating, and as a result, the depth of necrotic lesions decreases.
2. If the degree of burn is greater than the second (the bubble has burst, and the depth of the damage has affected the subcutaneous layer), then you can apply any frozen product, wrapped in film, to the burn site.
3. Assess the burn area and location. The victim's ability to move independently.
4. If it is impossible to transport yourself, call brigade 03 with the reason “THERMAL BURN” indicating the affected area. [1]

Remember about pain relief - Everyone has their own pain sensitivity threshold. For small and even deep burns you can use lotions with analgin, paracetamol, phenacetin. These drugs are anti-inflammatory analgesics; they can also relieve pain locally.

It’s great if there are special ones at home proto-burn aerosols such as panthenol, olazole. For small areas of damage, Traumeel S ointment or Boro Plus and Bepanten Plus creams can help. Something from this arsenal is a must-have in your home medicine cabinet.[1]

After cleansing the surface of the burn wound, it is necessary to cover it with one or two layers of sterile bandage or cotton rags (it can first be moistened with an antiseptic solution or as a last resort - warm urine - if you do not have any medications). It is very important not to get infected!

If for some reason hospitalization is not possible, you can prepare a mixture of two ointments at the pharmacy: mix ketoprofen or ortofen with gentamicin or lincomycin ointment in a 1:1 ratio - and make these dressings with this mixture twice a day.[1]

So, let’s remember the steps (don’t pour water on an open wound!):

Chemical burns

washed with plenty of cold running water. If possible, immerse the entire area of ​​skin affected by the chemical in water.

IMPORTANT! Exception - do not rinse with water if the burn is caused by:

1. concentrated sulfuric acid,
2. aluminum and its organic compounds,
3. quicklime.

When in contact with water, these substances react to produce heat, which makes the situation worse.

After washing with water (except for the cases described above), it is necessary to neutralize the remaining substances that have penetrated into the tissue using:

1. acid burn - 2-5% sodium bicarbonate solution;
2. alkali burn - 1% acetic acid solution;
3. burn with organic aluminum compounds - gasoline or kerosene (bandages or lotions);
4. white phosphorus burn - 5% copper sulfate solution;
5. burn with burning sulfur - calcium gluconate solution.

In conclusion, I will give a recipe from the herbalist M.B. Fadeev:

A few words about another thermal injury - about frostbite.

The main mistake of many is to warm up a frostbitten limb from the outside. Everything is exactly the opposite. It is necessary to carefully wrap the frozen area, not allowing it to warm up from external heat, so that the tissues are restored - warming should come from warm blood - from the inside. This will save the muscles and skin from necrosis - death.[1]

Remember this information. Perhaps you will save someone's life.

Health to you and your loved ones,

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Literature

“I don’t like audiobooks. My inner voice gets mad when it’s not him who reads books...”

1. “While the ambulance is on its way.” Stories that can save your life." Andrey Zvonkov, ed. Eksmo, Moscow, 2015

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