What is the relationship between poisoning and accidental first aid?

The core relationship is that poisoning itself is one of the most common accidental first aid treatment scenarios. At the same time, the handling experience of poisoning incidents is also an important driving force for the iteration of the entire modern accidental first aid system.

In the early years, there were debates in the first aid circle. Many colleagues felt that poisoning was either due to occupational exposure or accidental ingestion and contact, and many of them involved public health traceability. They should be separately dealt with for special response, and should not be included in the daily training of ordinary accidental first aid. This view even prevailed at industry seminars until the handling of several emergencies taught everyone a good lesson.

When I was rotating at the city emergency center in 2019, I encountered an incident of collective food poisoning in a primary school in the area. The first person to arrive was the team responsible for daily first aid in the area. At that time, we had just incorporated food poisoning treatment into quarterly drills. After arriving at the scene, we immediately classified the severity of symptoms according to the standards. The patient, collected vomit samples, and simultaneously submitted first-hand data to the public health department that subsequently arrived at the scene. The entire treatment was nearly 40 minutes faster than expected in the previous plan. During the review afterwards, the old director who had previously opposed the situation relented, saying that poisoning and ordinary accidental first aid should not be separated.

If you have been exposed to front-line emergency services, you will know that there are quite a lot of poisoning incidents when you receive police reports on a daily basis. It can range from a three-year-old child accidentally drinking half a bottle of 84 mixed with water, to a young man suffering from acute alcohol poisoning due to a drinking battle, to poisonous gas poisoning caused by a leak in a chemical plant, or a family eating wild food. Poisonous mushrooms picked outside cause liver and kidney damage. In the final analysis, these warnings are sudden and unintentional accidents. The handling logic is completely the same as that of conventional emergency first aid such as car accidents and sudden myocardial infarction. They all need to seize the golden time and avoid secondary injuries before rescuing people.

In turn, these bizarre poisoning cases have been pushing forward the standards of accidental first aid. For example, activated charcoal packs and emergency neti pots, which are now standard in every first aid kit, were not available four or five years ago. It was because there were more cases of accidentally ingesting corrosives and inhaling toxic smoke. Everyone gradually concluded that simple treatment before sending to the hospital can greatly reduce the probability of subsequent organ damage, so they were gradually added to the standard equipment. It's like driving an ambulance. You drive on smooth municipal roads every day, but you must be able to walk on steep slopes on dirt roads. Poisoning treatment is like the ability to walk on steep slopes. You may not need to use it a few times, but if you do encounter it, it will easily lead to serious accidents.

Until now, there are still a few people who think that ordinary first responders do not need to master in-depth poisoning knowledge and can just wait for the specialized treatment team to arrive. But after you have been on the front line for a long time, you will understand that no one can predict when the accident will happen. The more skills you have, you can give the patient more hope of survival.