A burn is the most difficult of all types of injuries. Heat damage to the skin is common (boiling water, hot devices or open flames), but there may be other prerequisites for their occurrence.
Classification of burns, first aid and a brief description - next.
Types of thermal injuries received
Any severe burn is a rather severe and complex damage to the human skin that requires urgent attention and qualified medical assistance. According to the type of factors causing wounds, burns are divided into:
- thermal, due to contact with hot objects, boiling water or ordinary flames;
- chemical, with contact with the skin and mucous membranes of chemicals, often with acids or alkalis;
- electric, caused by the action of current;
- radiation when the leading factor of damageis radiation (the sun, etc.).
Classification
There is another classification - according to the depth of tissue damage. This is critical for determining a strategy for treating painful manifestations and monitoring changes in its implementation. Before proceeding with the provision of first aid, a burn and its classification in terms of severity must be determined by a specialist. So allocate:
- I degree - burns, which are characterized by reddening of the skin.
- II - highlighting bubbles with transparent content.
- IIIA degree - with the appearance of blood impurities in the vesicles.
- IIIB - with the loss of all layers of the skin.
- IV degree (most dangerous) - burns that affect muscle tissue.
Medical support is needed for any degree of injury, such as a superficial injury or one that is associated with the most severe pain. In addition, even after the cessation of exposure to heat on the skin, the destructive processes in it can take place for quite a long time, aggravating the symptoms.
When hospitalization is needed
Naturally, not every thermal injury is a threat to life. But, in turn, underestimating their seriousness can lead to negative results. Urgent hospitalization should be in case:
- burns affected more than 20% of the surface (in children and the elderly - 10%);
- III degree damage covering 5% of the body;
- II degree andhigher, located in areas of important ligaments or organs (for example, lymph nodes or eyes);
- electric shock;
- combination of skin burns with damage to the respiratory tract;
- chemical damage.
If the casu alty has any level of skin involvement (based on the classification of burns), first aid should be provided immediately, as all of the above injuries are life-threatening.
Threat Assessment
The application of medical care depends on the cause of the burn, and it must be provided quickly. Any second affects the level of injury, increases the area of the wound, increases the complexity of treatment. First aid directly depends on the classification of thermal burns.
Exposure to high temperatures leads to coagulation of skin proteins, which leads to the death of its cells. Depending on the temperature and duration of exposure to a traumatic agent, the classification of thermal burns allows 4 degrees of complexity. For example, a long-term effect of heat at a lower temperature causes the same damage as a short-term one at the highest.
Burns can occur with prolonged contact of tissues with a thermal agent and at low temperatures. For example, it has been proven that exposure to a temperature of +42 ° C for 6 hours leads to skin necrosis. If the heating reaches +50 °C, then the same reaction will occur after 3 minutes. This heat is the threshold for the epidermis, leukocytes and osteoblasts die at a temperature of +44-46 °C. The characteristic of the burn depends on the area and depth of penetration.
To assess the threat of thermal exposure, you need to understand not only its depth, but also to study the affected area. The value is not only in the strength of the effect of temperature, but also in a relative indicator, expressed as a percentage, indicating the number of unaffected areas of the body and those affected. There are several ways to determine the area of the burn.
Some are based on the designation of the boundaries of individual affected areas, others indicate the area of the burn, which is recalculated relative to the area of the body area affected by the fire. Since the human skin covers from 16,000 to 21,000 cm2, special formulas have been proposed that allow you to calculate the area of the burn, taking into account the height and weight of the victim.
In order to minimize the effects of an injury, you need to understand how severe it is. For this purpose, a classification of thermal burns was developed, in accordance with which a set of first aid measures was created.
Basic rules
Regardless of the classification of burns by severity, first aid must be provided in compliance with all the rules. First of all you need:
- If a person is in the area of fire, get him airborne as soon as possible.
- Remove the victim from the heat source.
- If clothes caught fire, put out the flame by throwing a blanket, raincoat over the person, pouring water on him, throwing snow or sand on him.
- Free the victim from burnt clothing using a knife or scissors.
- Remove victim from hot steam.
It is necessary to remove all jewelry (watches, chains, etc.) from the burned person, if necessary, cut or break them.
Important: under no circumstances should you attempt to tear off material that has adhered to the skin, or worse, has dissolved and penetrated into the dermis layers, as is the case with some synthetic fabrics.
For cooling use running water (best) or plastic bags attached to the affected area or heating pads with snow, ice and cool water. Cold helps reduce pain, but also prevents deep tissue damage. The victim should be transported to a hospital or emergency room as soon as possible.
Do's and Don'ts for Thermal Injury
Not only taking into account the classification of thermal burns, first aid should be provided, but also with the awareness of what cannot be done. For example, it is strictly forbidden to open blisters that occur during thermal damage to the skin, no matter how terrible they may seem. As a rule, if the blisters are intact, the dermis itself prevents the infection from penetrating deep into the tissues. This is how the defense mechanisms inherent in the human body are arranged. If they are broken, microorganisms and infection will enter the wound, causing it to become infected, further aggravating the injury.
You can and should use sterile dressings that are heavily moistened with an antiseptic (not iodine-based)."Panthenol", for example, can help quite well if sprayed all over the affected area. If the first antiseptic is not available, dry dressings can be applied.
Never lubricate burns with fat, cream, yolk and other substances that people advise as a folk remedy. The result will be sad: fats form a film on the wounds, due to which the skin becomes hot, and the yolks tighten it. In addition, they exacerbate the flow of not only air into the tissues, but also medical preparations that a person will receive in the clinic. In the end, as a result of these actions, rough scars form.
Relieve pain
After first aid (burns and their classification must be established before it), it is necessary to relieve pain. Doctors use necrotic analgesics for this, but it is possible to get by with Analgin, Baralgin, Ketorol, Dexalgin. Each of them is quite a strong drug. Local anesthesia is also possible if there are special wipes soaked in an antiseptic and any analgesic.
Adjustment for water loss is then required. If the victim is conscious and does not vomit, give water, juice in the amount of 0.5-1 l. Including, if he does not want to drink, it is worth convincing him that this will compensate for the loss of fluid through the damaged surface and prevent the onset of pain shock.
Types of burns can be determined depending onskin disorders. It is important to provide competent assistance in the first minutes, taking into account the characteristics of the damage, and immediately contact a medical facility. Follow-up treatment will be scheduled by a professional.
First aid for chemical burns
The classification of these injuries also depends on the degree of tissue damage, and providing assistance to the victim includes almost the same actions as with other types. The only difference is that the exposure to the skin itself must be stopped, and this is done by removing the chemicals under a strong stream of water, preferably under a faucet.
Most often, chemical burns appear as a result of contact with the skin of organic acids (nitric, sulfuric, hydrochloric), it can also be from other potent substances (potassium, sodium, quicklime), s alts of heavy metals (silver, nitrates, zinc, phosphorus) and other chemicals. Injuries like this happen in manufacturing, where workers come into contact with life-threatening ingredients. Accidental ingestion of acid causes burns to the mouth, gastrointestinal tract, and stomach.
The action of chemicals
The effect of various chemicals on the skin is based on the violation of its integrity, which any of the above means is capable of. When one of them hits an area of the body, the effect lasts until it is removed from the surface of the body.
When acids come into contact with the skin, dehydration occurstissues depending on the type of dry necrosis, while the scab is usually dense. The chemical can easily penetrate into the deepest layers. Sometimes you can determine what has got on the skin by the color of the scab: when exposed to sulfuric acid, the scales of the skin are gray, and nitric acid is yellow.
Often, due to protein oxidation and saponification of fats, the eschar becomes moist and the lesion becomes harder. This phenomenon is characteristic of some types of chemical burns, so doctors can quickly determine the factor that caused them and prescribe the correct treatment.
"No" sode
You can't neutralize acid with alkali and vice versa, don't use baking soda. The release of heat has the ability to create a combined burn (chemical + thermal), and such assistance can only aggravate the situation. If the burn occurred under the influence of dry bulk preparations, shake them off as quickly as possible and only then start washing. Try not to let medicines come into contact with intact skin.
The meaning of first aid
Regardless of the classification of burns (chemical, thermal, and so on), their treatment should begin as soon as possible. High-quality support provided in the first seconds makes it possible to simplify the situation of the victim, improve the prognosis of the disease, prevent the development of complications, and in some cases help to survive.
Thus, a burn is tissue damage caused by excessive exposure to the sun or other radiation, contact with flames, chemicals, electricity, orsmoke inhalation. Burns should be treated by a qualified he althcare professional.
With superficial lesions, you should also consult a doctor, because sometimes a not very noticeable burn can lead to the development of an infectious process in the patient's body. Doctors will determine the extent of the injury and provide all necessary first aid (the classification of a burn is also established only by a specialist).
