Why Things Change

Things change – generally for the better.?Attitudes change – culturally we’re getting more tolerant and embracing diversity, although at some point we did also manage to elect Boris Johnson/Donald Trump (delete as appropriate).?Technology moves on – mobile phones get smaller, and then get bigger again (and aren’t at all annoying).?Television improves – bigger screens, thinner screens, higher definition, and then somebody commissions Mrs Brown’s Boys.?

But when it comes to first aid, things do improve.?In the UK, research by various medical professions are fed back to three organisations who write the “holy book of first aid” – a set of instructions which are deemed to be best practice when somebody suddenly becomes unwell or suffers some kind of trauma.?The book is updated on occasion – not to annoy you, or to make more money, but because things move on.?“Old” first aid doesn’t suddenly stop working, but someone figures out a better way to do things, which then becomes the new best practice.

Over time, the changes become quite stark.?A hundred years ago, if somebody became unresponsive but was still breathing, first aiders knew that it was imperative to make sure that the casualty didn’t “swallow their tongue”.?Just for the record, you can’t swallow your tongue (because you’d have to cut it off first) but if you are unresponsive, have no muscle tone, and are lying on your back, your tongue can fall back and block your airway (which is a big deal if you want to carry on living past the next three minutes or so).?A hundred years ago, the first aider would spring into action and immediately look for a lady.?They would look for a lady because she would invariably be wearing a hat, and therefore have a hat pin.?The first aider would then commandeer the hat pin, grab the casualty’s tongue, pull the tongue out of the mouth…

Someone has just advised me to stop typing at this point because the description is getting too graphic, but you get the picture.?The point is that at some stage, somebody realised that you could have the same effect, and save the unresponsive (but breathing) casualty’s life, merely by tilting the person’s head back.?Try it – tilt your head right back, look up at the ceiling/sky and try and swallow.?It’s so hard to do because when you swallow your tongue pushes stuff to the back of your mouth, and it can’t do that properly when you’ve pulled it forward by tilting your head back.

So why choose today to point this out??Well, there are two reasons.?Firstly, in the UK today is Guy Fawkes Night/Bonfire Night, when lots of people are going to celebrate with bonfires, fireworks, sparklers etc.?It’s a sad fact that visits to hospital emergency departments owing to burns dramatically increase on 5th November.?Secondly, on 1st July this year, a brand spanking new, 11th edition of the First Aid Manual was released, and in it was a modification to the treatment for burns & scalds (don’t worry about the difference – they’re treated the same).?Previously, the advice was to cool a burn under cold running water for a minimum of 10 minutes (longer if it still hurt).?Now the advice is to cool it for a minimum of 20 minutes.?Why so long??Surely that’s way more than is necessary??In some instances it is, but the first aid manual is thinking about the treatment of severe burns (such as the ones people can experience on 5th November).

My analogy involves a sausage that’s been cooked on a barbecue (bear with me).?If you took the sausage off the barbecue with a pair of tongs and then grabbed the sausage with your other hand, you’d burn your hand.?If you run the sausage under cold running water for only 20 seconds and grab the sausage, you won’t get burnt.?But if you cut the sausage open with a knife and stick your finger in the middle of the sausage, you’ll still burn your finger.?When you burn yourself, the heat penetrates deep into the body, so you have to “get the heat out the meat” (I inadvertently came up with the phrase whilst teaching a first aid course.?I’m not sure it’s appropriate, so if anyone has a better suggestion, feel free to share it).?The key thing is that when treating a burn, if you want to help relieve the pain and minimise issues down the line (such as scarring), cool the burn for a sufficient amount of time – and if you’re in ANY doubt, seek medical assistance straight away.

I hope that you have a happy and safe 5th November, but if you – or anyone you know – is unfortunate enough to get burnt, ignore any myths that you may have heard (especially ones that involve butter).?To reiterate, best practice is to cool the burn with plenty of cold (ideally running) water for a minimum of 20 minutes, whilst arranging for them to be transported to hospital – and the sooner you start cooling the burn, the more effective the treatment.

If it’s been a while since you did first aid training (or you’ve never been trained in first aid but would like to be), you have any questions about the treatment for burns, or first aid generally, feel free to ask.

AJ