First Aid for Broken Bones
Preventing broken bones. Many accidents that cause broken bones occur in the home, on the playing field, and on the highway. Falls account for many accidental fractures in the home and on the playing field. Walking, automobile, and bicycle accidents account for many fractures on the highway.
You can prevent those kinds of accidents if you observe some safety rules for the home, the highway, and the playing field. When you are walking or riding along a roadway, you should observe the rules of the road. Walkers should walk on the left side of the highway. Bicycle riders should ride on the right side of the road.
Automobile drivers are never sure whether a bicycle rider will swerve out into traffic. For this reason you should be careful to ride close to the edge of the road. You should never swerve out into the roadway without giving the proper hand signal and looking both ways. Observing these highway rules can prevent an accident that could break your arm or leg and possibly cause even more severe injuries.
When you play sports such as hockey, basketball, baseball, and football, you should be careful to wear the proper clothing and use the proper equipment. If you wear the wrong kind of shoes or forget essential protective equipment, you could receive painful cuts or broken bones. It is also important that you play these rough sports in a supervised area. In that way, there will always be an adult nearby if an accident should occur.
The home may be the greatest "bone breaker" of all. Because everyone spends so much time at home, everyone has a great opportunity for severe falls. Older people in particular are likely to receive broken bones from falls in the home. An older person’s bones are brittle and break easily. He has to be particularly careful of the high hazard areas of the home.
The danger of falls may be greatly increased by loose stair treads, small rugs that are not fastened down, objects left on stairs, upturned carpet edges, and highly polished wood or tile floors. You can see that the cellar stairs, the kitchen, and hallways with small rugs would be high hazard areas for falls. If you can eliminate these hazards, you will be helping to prevent accidents that can cause broken bones.
Finding a fracture. More serious than a strain or a sprain is a fractured bone. It is not always easy to see whether an accident victim has a fracture. Sometimes a person may mistake a sprain for a break, and at other times he may not be able to feel any break at all. If he is unconscious, it may be very hard to find a fractured bone even though it might be a serious fracture.
Sometimes a victim will feel a bone break or recognize a fracture because he is unable to move a limb properly. In other cases, you must check for swelling, tenderness, an unnatural shape or position of a body part, or pain on motion. If the results of your investigation indicate that a bone may be broken, you should apply first-aid measures. No harm can be done by treating the victim if there is no break, and great harm may occur if you leave a fracture untreated.
Treatment of a fracture. Whether the break is a simple fracture or a compound fracture, the first-aid treatment is the same: keep the injured part of the body immobile. It is best to accomplish this without moving the victim., He should be made comfortable and warm, and kept cheerful until a doctor can be summoned.
If the victim is in immediate danger, or must be moved to a place where he can be given medical attention, other steps may be necessary. In this event, the broken part should be splinted with some stiffening device such as boards, rolled newspaper, cardboard, or sticks. These should be padded to prevent injury and additional pain. The illustrations on page 47 show some methods of applying splints.
In any case of a broken bone, you should not attempt to set the bone yourself. Only a doctor has the skill necessary to give proper treatment. In the case of a compound fracture, do not attempt to push the exposed bones back into the flesh. Cover the break with a sterile bandage or pad and let the doctor give the proper treatment.
Complications. In any case involving broken bones, there may be complications. You will remember from your study of general first-aid rules that shock is usually present in an accident of this sort. Severe bleeding, internal injuries, and sprains may be other complications. If you remember to keep calm and look for all injuries that require treatment, you will be able to give excellent first aid.
First Aid for Poisoning - Part 1
Poisons in the home. Poisons account for thousands of accidental deaths each year. Most of the victims are children who have swallowed substances that were never intended for their consumption. Household preparations such as ammonia and cleaning fluids account for many poisonings. But pesticides and overdoses of medicines such as aspirin account for the largest proportion.
Preventing poisonings. There are a number of things you should do to "poisonproof" your home. First, obtain your parents’ cooperation and aid in your attempt to reduce the hazards of poisonings. Second, place everything poisonous in cabinets and on shelves that cannot be reached by young children. Third, throw away all unlabeled medicines, out-of-date prescriptions, old bottles of iodine and other antiseptics, and old cough medicines. Finally, label all medicines and place them in a locked cabinet.
Detecting poisonings. If you saw an unconscious person being pulled out of the water by two lifeguards, you would assume that the person had had a drowning accident. It would be easy to decide on the proper first-aid treatment.
If the unconscious person were a little girl in your back yard, you would not be so sure of the cause. You might think she had fainted, had fallen from a tree, had been shocked, or had been poisoned. In this case, the only first aid you could give would be to send for a doctor. You would not be sure what had happened to her.
If the accident victim were conscious, or some sign of a poisoning were present, you would be able to do more. In this case you could proceed with the five first-aid measures that follow.
Treating poisonings. When you arrive on the scene and a victim is still conscious, there are several things you can do.
1. Give the person as many glasses of water or milk as he can drink, even if it promotes vomiting. This step should be taken immediately. The water will dilute the poison and reduce its action. The water may produce vomiting, which is a helpful reaction.
2. Find out what poison he has taken and the antidote that will counteract the poison. The antidote is often listed on the container. Give the antidote if it is readily available.
3. Call a doctor and give him as much information as possible.
4. Induce vomiting right away unless the poison is a corrosive acid, an alkali, or a petroleum product. This can be done by giving milk of magnesia or a solution of baking soda.
5. Keep the person lying down and warm.
These first-aid measures will be of great value if performed soon after the poisoning has occurred. The water or milk helps slow the absorption of the poison and dilutes it. The vomiting gets rid of at least part of the poison in the stomach. Getting rid of the poison is extremely important.
Many times the victim of a poisoning can tell you what poison he has swallowed. In other cases, a telltale container or an acid or alkali burn on the victim’s mouth may indicate that he was poisoned.
When you have evidence of a poisoning, you can proceed to administer first aid without delay. Any delay increases the chance of injury.
First Aid for Asphyxiation - Part 2
Back-pressure arm-lift method. (Holger-Nielsen method) Another method of artificial respiration is the back-pressure arm-lift method. When using this method, lay the victim on his stomach. Than bend his elbows and place one of his hands on the other so that both are lying under his head. Turn the victim’s head to one side and quickly wipe out any foreign matter that might be in his mouth. Make sure that his throat is clear.
Rescuer’s position. Kneel on one or both knees at the victim’s head, facing him. Open your hands and spread them across the victim’s back so that your thumbs are almost touching and the palms are just below an imaginary line connecting the armpits.
Compression. Rock forward slowly, so that the weight of your upper body presses on your hands. Increase the pressure until your arms are vertical. The pressure of your weight forees the air out of the victim’s lungs.
Expansion. Release the pressure on the victim’s back. Then slide your hands to his arms, just above the elbows. Grasp the upper arms and rock backward slowly, forcing the victim’s arms up and out. Continue until you feel the strain in his shoulders; then lower his arms.
This procedure forces air into a victim’s lungs by expanding his chest and arching his back. The steps in this method are repeated twelve times a minute for an adult victim and twenty times a minute for a child.
Think for Yourself
Can you think of a situation in which the back-pressure arm-lift method would be harmful to a patient?
Alternating rescuers. Because either method of artificial respiration may take a long time to help the victim to breathe by himself once again, one person may not be able to maintain the resuscitation by himself. In that case, it may be necessary to alternate rescuers. The move should be completely planned. It should be executed only when the two rescuers are certain they can complete the shift without missing any breaths.
If you have a chance to enroll in a Junior Red Cross course or one like it, you can learn about and practice many
methods of artificial respiration.
Try This
From your local fire department find out what equipment is used for victims of asphyxiation. It may also be possible to arrange for a demonstration of these kinds of equipment.
