What is the relationship between poisoning and accidental first aid?

In essence, poisoning is the core coverage scenario of accidental first aid. The two are not only the relationship between inclusion and being included, but also the iteration of the handling of poisoning incidents, and have been pushing back the refinement and upgrading of the entire accidental first aid system.

I have been working at a grassroots first aid station for nearly 6 years. Among the daily medical cases, poisoning accidents account for about 14%, which is higher than the number of scattered traffic collisions and falls from high altitudes. It ranges from children accidentally taking adults' antihypertensive drugs and eating undercooked green beans to leaks in chemical industry parks and mass poisonous mushroom poisoning. They are all poisoning first aid tasks that we encounter every day. In the past, many people thought that emergency first aid was about dealing with trauma and performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation. In fact, the particularity of poisoning has filled many loopholes in the entire first aid system that were not noticed before. Let’s take the dispatch pre-guidance process that we changed in the past two years. In the past, after receiving the call at 120, they only asked about the location and symptoms before dispatching a car. Now, as long as poisoning is suspected, the dispatcher will immediately ask what the accidental ingestion is and whether it is there. If there is vomiting or loss of consciousness, qualified family members will be instructed on the spot to initiate vomiting. This adjustment was the result of previous losses: Four years ago, a villager in our area mistakenly took organophosphorus pesticides. His home was 22 kilometers away from the first aid station. By the time we arrived, most of the pesticide had been absorbed, and the person was ultimately unable to be rescued. If the family members could have induced vomiting first under the guidance of dispatch, there might have been a turn for the better.

However, it has to be mentioned that the industry has not yet fully agreed on the on-site first aid treatment of poisoning: one group believes that ordinary people do not have the ability to make professional judgments. For example, if they mistakenly take strong acid and alkali toilet cleaners, inducing vomiting will repeatedly burn the esophagus and throat. It is better to wait for medical staff to arrive and use neutralizers to deal with it. Indiscriminate operation will only cause chaos.； The other group believes that the first aid radius in many counties in China is more than 20 minutes. For poisonings such as organophosphorus and poisonous mushrooms that are quickly absorbed and have a high fatality rate, the golden treatment period has long been missed by medical staff. It is better for trained dispatchers to provide remote guidance for preliminary treatment.

In fact, the two are now supporting each other and moving forward. In the past two years, more science has been done on accidental first aid. Many people will not feed mung bean soup or soapy water to induce vomiting when they encounter poisoning. They call 120 first. We have counted oral poisoning cases in the past three years, and the success rate of treatment is 11.7% higher than five years ago.； On the other hand, many new poisoning cases that have emerged in the past two years, such as new poisonous mushrooms and illegal weight-loss drug poisoning purchased online, have also been supplementing our first aid treatment manual. In the 2024 version of the pre-hospital first aid guide just updated last month, there are 7 new poisoning treatment entries alone, which is more than the trauma category. As an aside, if you encounter an unexpected poisoning situation, taking the remaining poison or packaging with you to the hospital is more effective than any other folk remedies. Last time, a little girl was poisoned after taking Sanwu diet pills. Our roommate brought the remaining pills over. We used antagonistic drugs as appropriate without waiting for the test, and she recovered in half a day.