cooling down the heat stroke victim

[oded private]

Most EMS personnel would recognize and treat a heat stroke agressively. Few 
wouldn't. But with lay persons it's quite diffrent- too many of them don't 
understand the meaning of heat stroke. Most frightning to me is that 
teachers are among them. Luckily, there is a medic in every field trip

>From: John Annen <rjannen at yahoo.com>
>Reply-To: "Trauma &amp; Critical Care mailing list" 
><trauma-list at trauma.org>
>To: "Trauma &amp, Critical Care mailing list" <trauma-list at trauma.org>
>Subject: RE: cooling down the heat stroke victim
>Date: Sun, 24 Dec 2006 05:29:36 -0800 (PST)
>
>In the EMS classes that I have taken going back to the basic EMT class
>that I took in the US State of North Carolina in the mid 80's, it was
>always stressed that heat stroke is a true emergency requiring
>immediate attention.
>
>Do you have any evidence to back up your statement about EMTs learning
>about heat stroke from the movies? I would hope that trained rescuers
>everywhere rely on their training and field experience, rather than on
>depictions in films for determining their treatment.
>
>In the places that I have been active in prehospital care, heat stroke
>is or was extremely rare, whereas heat exhaustion is something that one
>sees a lot of, both among the public and among one's colleages. I have
>suffered mild heat exhaustion a few times myself working strenuous
>rescues or outside events on hot days. In the places I have been, there
>has almost always been good access to shade, air conditioned vehicles
>or buildings and plenty of liquids to drink, so early intervention in
>cases of heat exhaustion, thus preventing their advancement to heat
>stoke, is straightforward.
>
>As with other conditions that one doesn't see very often, perhaps in
>places where heat stroke is rare, the problem is one of recognition
>rather than one of training, if, indeed, there is a problem at all?
>
>Best wishes to all for very happy holidays.
>
>John Annen
>Zurich, Switzerland
>
>--- oded private <tangentcarrot at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > BTW
> >
> > It's amazing how virtullay everybody outside the medical world (such
> > as lay
> > persons) and many inside it (such as EMTS') don't understand that
> > heat
> > stroke is a true medical emergency. I think that holywood, with its
> > reknown
> > scene you see in every third movie of someone lost in desert,
> > starting to
> > get delrious then crashes, later to be "saved" with a few drops of
> > water,
> > has much to do with it.
> >
>
>
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