Traffic accidents in recent years have become so frequent that any person can become a witness or participant of such events sooner or later. How to act in critical situations, preserving personal security, and how can you help the victims in the accident before the arrival of doctors? We will tell about this in our new material.
Causes of accidents on the roads
Accident is always a stressful and critical situation. However informed and experienced we are, it is better never to meet with such incidents in our life. Perhaps you need to try to avoid the most typical and frequent causes of accidents. In most cases, car accidents on the roads happen due to:
- excess speed on unauthorized sections of the road;
- non-observance of elementary rules of the road in overtaking, stopping, turning;
- Driving a car while intoxicated;
- telephone conversations at the wheel;
- faulty technical condition of the car.
Medical assistance in case of an accident
Physicians have strict instructions with an exact algorithm of actions, which indicate how to act and who needs first aid in an accident. Depending on the severity of injuries and conditions requiring assistance, people are divided into groups:
- victims with traumas that caused stopping of the heart and breathing;
- victims with arterial hemorrhage;
- victims with venous bleeding;
- victims with traumatic brain injuries;
- victims with a fracture of the spine;
- injured with broken ribs, collarbones and extremities.
At the same time, assistance is first provided to those who belong to the first group of victims. Medical workers do their best to save lives and preserve health. They use special equipment and medicines to restore breathing, stop bleeding, fix dangerous spinal fractures.
Transportation of the injured is also carried out in accordance with strict instructions that indicate the position when transporting the patient according to the nature of his injury. But often before the arrival of the ambulance takes too much time. Therefore, thousands of people die on the site of traffic accidents only because the provision of medical care during an accident for various reasons was delayed.
The first first aid for an accident
The first-aid kit in the car of each driver is not a guarantee of his competence and ability to use it. Namely, drivers are the most real contenders for participants or victims of an accident. Although it is not a sin to every pedestrian to know what an emergency aid is in case of an accident. How to act in an accident, if you really want to help the victims:
- The first rule: do not hurt yourself. A burning car, high-speed highway, steep cliff - all these are potentially dangerous moments, assessing which, you need to compare their capabilities and risks.
- Next, you need to protect the scene from subsequent collisions, using the appropriate signs and signals. This is where the very first aid to those injured during an accident begins.
- It is necessary to help the victim get out of the car. Very often in the accident injured cervical vertebrae, so evacuation should be done very carefully. After all, any careless movement can irreversibly damage a person. If you suspect a fracture of the spine, you must first fix the head of the victim with a roller imitating a medical collar, and only then begin to evacuate.
- If a person after the accident is conscious, the evaluation of his condition is reduced to examination and questioning. If the victim is unconscious, you should immediately check if there is a pulse and breathing. For this check, according to European standards, 10 seconds are allocated.
- In the absence of breathing or palpitation, only 4 minutes remain to equip the brain with oxygen until the gray matter dies away completely. Artificial respiration and indirect heart massage are the only ways to bring man back to life. Light oxygen supply should be carried out through a special film, included in the kit of the car kit. If you do not have one, you can use an ordinary handkerchief or a napkin. Heart massage is carried out in a ratio of 2:30, that is, after making 2 exhalations in the victim's mouth, 30 sharp pressure on the sternum should be performed.
- Another action that can save the life of a person who has an accident is the stop of bleeding . Differences in the origin of blood loss (arterial or venous), you need to take appropriate measures. Internal bleeding can only be stopped by medics in a hospital.
Unqualified assistant will be able to correct the situation if it is a question of visible external bleeding. It will take a tourniquet (only for the limbs) and a stop bandage. - To stop arterial bleeding (fountain striking bright red blood), you must first clamp the place above the wound with a tourniquet, and then close the damaged artery with a bandage.
- To stop venous bleeding (dark red slowly flowing blood), it is necessary to act on the contrary: to pinch the point of hemorrhage, and then to bandage the tourniquet below the vein lesion.