Saline Solves Everything

DECON Corridor

Today for our second day of trauma week 2023, we had three medical personnel come to talk to us about what happens to the patient when getting to the hospital and how they recover. First, we went outside and got to walk through a DECON corridor. Victims get in the first part, remove their hazardous clothes, walk through the second part, get flushed with water, and walk through to the end. Next, we went inside and a nurse explained to us what they do to certain types of burns and how they flush them and scrape off skin. Afterward, we went to the next station in the Biomed lab where a nurse explained to us what they do for patients who have respiratory problems.  Sometimes airways get blocked from fluid and swelling as a reaction to chemical inhalation. They use a breathing mask on the mannequin to help it breathe better or an endotracheal intubation to open up the patient’s airways which may be closed from swelling. If it got serious they punctured a hole in the victim's neck and stuck a tube in it. This is called cricothyrotomy. They even have small devices that they can stick down a patient’s trachea to see its airways. Lastly, we learned about what happens to patients who get chemicals in their eyes. What's cool is sometimes when people get chemicals in their eyes, it just develops a cover over the eye to where you can just peel off the cover, and it's over. Other times, the patient has to get their eye flushed with saline. One of the most interesting things I learned today was that in the ER, you keep flushing the patient with saline or other neutralizers until they stop screaming. It sounds like a very thorough and self-explanatory technique to use in medical procedures. Also, we were all given mini strips of PH paper and tested our tongues and water bottles to see how acidic they were. Today was a good day because I learned that saline solves almost every problem in the medical world and health.