Tips for first aid while hiking
Cold and strong wind can cause frostbite and freezing, severe consequences of which, including death, are possible not only at low temperatures, but also at 0° and even slightly higher.
Frostbite is often caused by damp clothing and shoes, poor circulation due to tight shoes, tight lacing, pulling the feet with crampon straps, tightly tied shoe covers, a tourniquet or a pressure bandage. The most common cause is frozen shoes or deformed shoes as a result of careless drying by the fire, as well as previous frostbite.A decrease in the body's overall resistance can occur as a result of poor nutrition, lack of hot food and vitamins, illness, and mental depression. This also contributes to frostbite and freezing of the body.
There are four degrees of frostbite.
The first degree usually manifests itself in paleness or redness of the skin, edema, swelling of the frostbitten area, burning sensation and pain. Repeated cooling of the extremities and chills are considered chronic frostbite of the first degree. In chilled areas, the skin becomes more red and blisters form easily.
The second degree of frostbite is characterized by a deeper circulatory disorder, blue discoloration and swelling of the skin than in the first degree. A few hours after warming up, bubbles with transparent, sometimes bloody contents appear,
With the third and fourth degrees of frostbite, necrosis of the skin, subcutaneous tissue, partly muscles, tendons and joints occurs. The skin becomes cold, insensitive to touch and injections. The contents of the bubbles are bloody in color. The process of exfoliation of dead areas may be accompanied by suppuration.
Prevention of frostbite begins long before the hike and consists of the correct selection of clothes and shoes and preparing them for the hike, as well as mastering practical skills in the prevention and treatment of frostbite in hiking conditions. It is not recommended to wrap your feet in paper: it frays and rolls into lumps, which causes chafing and contributes to frostbite. You should also avoid lubricating your feet with fatty compounds, as they prevent the evaporation of sweat and increase skin moisture.
Before putting them on, boots must be warmed up by a fire or over a primus flame and thoroughly kneaded so that they do not cool or compress the foot. Socks should also be warm. The mittens should be tucked under the jacket (in the waistband of the trousers) and warmed by breathing before putting them on. In severe frost and wind, you need to cover your face with a fur hood, mask or scarf, and examine each other more often. If it is necessary to provide assistance in the wind, you need to build a barrier from skis and polyethylene (tent) to cover the victim and the group.
Providing assistance with frostbite. It is recommended to rub whitened cheeks, nose and ears with a clean hand or a warm downy mitten until the skin becomes red and sensitive. You should not rub frostbitten areas of the skin with snow, as it cools the tissue even more and causes tiny scratches into which germs can get. The heated area should be covered with a dry bandage or scarf.
Frostbitten limbs should be warmed and massaged until the skin turns pink and becomes sensitive, while simultaneously moving the fingers. If rubbing does not bring the desired result, frostbitten limbs are warmed up under a sweater on the body of a comrade. This method is usually used during ascents and descents along difficult slopes, when it is impossible to set up a tent and make a fire. In the forest zone, it is best to warm up frostbitten limbs by the fire.
If all these measures do not help, you need to quickly set up a tent and warm up your frostbitten leg (arm) in warm water. As a bath, you can use several plastic bags or one of the cooking buckets. Initially, the water temperature should be no more than 20o. In the next 20-30 minutes it is brought to 37-38o. Warming in water should be combined with light massage, rubbing and finger movement. After blood circulation has been restored, the skin should be wiped dry, wiped with alcohol and a dry bandage applied. The fingers are usually bandaged together. Frostbitten areas should not be lubricated with iodine and other colored solutions, as well as fat.
Help provided before signs of frostbite appear (immediately after pain disappears and numbness appears) often prevents its development altogether. If the area of skin being rubbed becomes bluish, which indicates incomplete restoration of blood circulation, the victim should be taken to the hospital as quickly as possible to avoid serious consequences.
If frostbite is detected late - during the period of warming up, when swelling and blisters appear - massage and rubbing should not be done. In this case, you need to wipe the skin with gauze (cotton wool) moistened with alcohol and apply a dry sterile bandage. Further treatment is carried out only by a doctor.
Freezing occurs during prolonged and intense cold, as a result of which the body temperature drops to dangerous levels. Most often, tourists are exposed to freezing when they find themselves face to face with a blizzard, strong wind and frost. Freezing can also be caused by immobility (sleeping in the cold, being in an avalanche or a crack), a painful condition, or traumatic injuries.
Signs of freezing (there are three degrees of them) - a drop in body temperature to 32-30o and below, a decrease in pulse to 65-38 beats per minute, a feeling of fatigue, weakened memory, drowsiness, bluish coloration of the skin. Disturbances in the rhythm of the heart and breathing, loss of consciousness, and frostbitten limbs that cannot be forcibly straightened indicate the most severe form of freezing.
With immediate assistance, you can count on the success of returning a person to life. The basis of this is rapid warming and intense rubbing. In mild cases of cooling (the person is conscious, there is no frostbite), sometimes general warming and drinking hot tea or broth is sufficient.
To help someone who is frozen, you need to quickly set up a tent. If you don’t have a stove, you can heat the tent by burning alcohol in a bowl. For this purpose, hot coals from a fire are also used, poured into cooking buckets or on duralumin sheets. It is advisable to place the victim on a raised platform made from backpacks or on a trestle bed made from skis and other improvised means, cover them with homemade heating pads, wipe the body with alcohol and begin rubbing. Areas of the body that are rubbed red should be covered with heated sweaters and jackets. With the appearance of mobility in the joints of the arms and legs, it is necessary to bend and straighten them carefully, without much effort, while continuing to rub them.
Once the victim has been brought to his senses, he should be given hot tea or broth and given cardiac medications. If the victim does not regain consciousness while the body is warm, he should be given a cotton swab soaked in ammonia to sniff.
If there is no breathing, the victim should be given artificial respiration without stopping rubbing and heating.
Providing assistance to those rescued from an avalanche usually involves restoring breathing, cardiac activity and eliminating the consequences of freezing.
Rice. 110. Artificial respiration: a - using an S-shaped air duct; b - “mouth to mouth”; c - indirect cardiac massage.
Artificial respiration (Fig. 110, a, b) is carried out in the following sequence:
1) lay the victim on his back with his arms extended along his body, clear the airways of snow and free the chest from belts and harnesses;
2) throw back your head, pull your lower jaw with one hand, and pinch your nose with the other. If your tongue gets stuck, pull it out and hold it with your fingers;
3) take a maximum breath and, pressing your lips to the victim’s open mouth, blow air into it until the chest straightens, then remove your mouth from the victim’s lips and stop squeezing his nose. You should do 15 to 20 blows per minute. If the lower jaw is damaged, insufflation is performed through the nose.
The absence of a pulse and failure to hear the heartbeat indicates its stopping. An indirect heart massage is required, which is performed as follows: standing on the side of the victim, place one palm on the lower (part of the sternum, and the other on top of the first, closer to the lower part of the sternum, with force (with the entire weight of the body) squeeze the sternum about 4-5 cm in the direction of the spine, fix this position for half a second and sharply release the pressure (Fig. 110, c). The movements should be repeated with a rhythm of about 70 pressures per minute. An artificial pulse wave on the carotid artery will indicate sufficient pressure. If, after 2 hours of artificial respiration and cardiac massage, spontaneous breathing and cardiac activity are not restored, assistance can be stopped.
The most common injury on a ski trip, a sprain, is identified by swelling and pain in the joint that maintains mobility. The damaged joint should be lubricated with iodine and a tight bandage applied (it can be removed at night).
Colds (tracheitis, bronchitis, tonsillitis) are accompanied by fever, headaches, and general weakness. In addition, with tonsillitis, redness of the throat and difficulty swallowing are observed, and with tracheitis and bronchitis - a hacking cough, first dry, then with sputum. To treat acute forms of illness, you have to stop, sometimes even for several days. Treatment: heat, rinsing, hot milk with soda, taking norsulfazole (sulfadimezine, sulfadimethoxine) on the first day, 2 tablets 4-6 times, on subsequent days - one tablet. Antibiotics include tetracycline (vitacycline, oletethrin), erythromycin in the same dosages.
Camping first aid kit for 6-8 people: narrow, medium and wide bandages, 8 pieces each, gauze 5 m, cotton wool 50 g, adhesive plaster wide and narrow, one reel each, alcohol 300 g, tincture of iodine 25 g, Bf-6 glue tube, synthomycin emulsion 50 g, novocaine 5 ampoules (0.5-2% solution), norsulfazole, sulfadimethoxine, sulfadimezin 10 packs of 10 tablets (0.5 g each), tetracycline (vitacycline) 50 tablets, aspirin, analgin, pyramidon (amidopyrine), besalol, syntomycin (levomycin, phthalazole), enteroseptol - 20 tablets each each medicine, purgen 10 tablets.
P.I. Lukoyanov Winter sports hikes.