THE SHOCK OF AN ACCIDENT

Northern Advocate, 22 March 1934, Page 4

THE SHOCK OF AN ACCIDENT

Hoad accidents. the fruit of tin? motor 'traffic in the majority of cases, have reached fearsome, proportions. It is probable that few people consider the victims of these accidents. It has been

estimated-that bO per cent oMbe , lives eonld .lie saved il serious 1 thought were given to the patient at the time of the,accident. Very few wounds are fatal, but shock' may be. Any sudden disturbance of the human system causes ! shock, the heart becomes tempo)*- j arily checked, and it takes sever-; al minutes to restore itself to nor-; mal. Those minutes are of vital j importance if a life is to be, saved. If the patient is left j alone, kept quiet and warm, the j heart adjusts itself sufficiently to enable a journey to be under-! taken, and the loot or has a chance to attend to the wounds and save a life. If, however, the patient is quickly lifted up, made to walk, bundled into a passing motor car, and raced to a hospi- ( tal or some other place, the _ heart, which is beating so fierce-1 Jy, has no chance, and so shock is j augmented, and a life is lost. Vej are afraid that deshm to get a j patient to the hopsital in a hurry! has had injurious results in more | than one instance in this district, j though the institution of a branch ! of the St. John Ambulance, with two specially fitted vehicles, has bad a steadying effect upon public opinion, it being realised that I it is better for a patient to lie quietly even for a fairly long period, until an. ambulance and trained men arrive, than to rush him off to hospital in. a car or to | have* his injuries attended to by I those who are inexpert. It is uui questionable, however, that many [lives are thrown away by the ! mistaken idea of speed and. ini experipnend handling at the time !pf an accident. It cannot be too ! strongly impressed on the public i that the victim of an accident is | a life to bo saved, and that the (life depends upon doctors and [trained ambulance mcip, and I must on no account be touched by untrained hands. It should be unnecessary to say that bleeding must be stopped at the earliest possible moment. As a medical man said recently, the instinct of the untrained mind when witnessing an accident is immediately to- lift the patient up, make him walk, or sit him up in a chair; people do not realise the possible fractures, internal injuries and shock; and their misdirected kindness may cause death or greatly hamper the efI forts of the trained doctor. The war wounded proved the. truth of this statement, for it is rightly contended; that they are alive because they were, left on the battlefield for many hours and I handled only , by experienced •stretcher hearers. If those same j wounded men bad been road | accidents of today, it is feared j that many of them would, in jnewspaper language, have “died on the way to hospital.”