What is the difference between poisoning and accidental first aid

The first priority of first aid for poisoning is to block the continued intake of toxic substances and accelerate the discharge of toxins that have entered the body. The core priority of ordinary first aid for accidents is to prevent the progression of existing injuries and stabilize vital signs as soon as possible.

Anyone who has been in pre-hospital emergency care for two years can immediately tell the difference. The last time I went out to the police, I encountered two patients who were sent here at about the same time. One was an old man who had eaten toadstools. When he was sent to the hospital, there was nothing wrong except for vomiting twice. He was in high spirits. He also told us that the mushrooms he picked from the back mountain were absolutely non-toxic. We didn’t dare to wait at all, so we inserted a gastric tube to wash his stomach on the spot and poured activated carbon suspension into it. We were afraid that the undigested mushroom toxins would enter his blood and he would be unable to save his liver and kidneys if he suffered from liver and kidney failure. The other was a young man who was riding an electric scooter and was hit by a car. He suffered an open fracture in his arm and blood sprayed all over his sleeve. We came up and tied the upper arm with a tourniquet. We held the wound with gauze and held the arm with our hands to prevent the broken bones from poking the blood vessels. There was no other operation during the whole process. We stopped the bleeding and stabilized the blood pressure before talking about anything else.

The academic community has always had different views. Most scholars who engage in disease control statistics believe that poisoning is inherently an unintentional sudden accident, and there is nothing wrong with classifying it in a broad sense of accidental first aid. However, the frontline staff who spend their days in the emergency room and in front of the hospital basically disagree with this statement - when it comes to handling it, the two approaches are completely different. I heard an analogy from an old nurse in the department before. Ordinary emergency first aid is like a wall being broken through at home and the wind blowing in. Your first reaction is to find something to plug the hole to prevent the heating in the room from running out and the wall to collapse faster, that is, to cover the damage that has already occurred. First aid for poisoning is different. It is equivalent to eating a time bomb and the fuse is still burning. You have to quickly take out the bomb and cut the fuse. Even if you don't feel pain now, you can't wait until it explodes.

Of course, this does not mean that the two are completely separated. For example, if someone jumps into a river and is fished out after accidentally taking pesticides, it is necessary to clear the respiratory tract first to control water and stabilize breathing, and then intubate and perform gastric lavage to find an antidote immediately. At this time, two lines must be pursued at the same time, and classification cannot be stuck. Oh, by the way, there is another point that is most likely to be mistaken by ordinary people. When many people see someone poisoned, their first reaction is to send them to the hospital, which delays the golden 15 minutes of vomiting. When someone falls down and breaks a bone, they dare to move the person around, and instead poke the broken bone into the blood vessels and nerves, making the injury more serious. Essentially, they do not understand the difference between the two treatment logics. To put it bluntly, no matter what kind of first aid, the core is to save life first, but understanding the difference between the two can help ordinary people avoid pitfalls when they encounter trouble, and it will not be a hindrance.