So some of the things we see coming into the Emergency Department
from cold stretches include exposure
and exposure can range from anything from
Just being cold or chilled to the bone as they use to say to something we use
to call medically related coldness or hypothermia. Hypothermia is one
Of those things that
when patients get exposed to
cold temperatures for a long period of time, it goes to a certain levels of
injury patterns to your extremities. Usually your fingers and toes.
And the first level of hypothermia would include
redness to your fingers or toes very cold
painful, tingling, numbness, things like that. It can progress pretty quickly
to the second degree which could include blistering
and then the more severe episodes which include tissue death.
What actually happens inside of there is that the water from inside your body
freezes and it crystallizes and
causes cell damage. The best thing you can do
with that or any other coldness is to get out of the cold and not expose yourself
So there are things that people can do to prevent injury from cold temperatures.
Simple things like covering up. You always want to wear a hat, wear gloves.
You will see people run into this situation when they don't expect to run into
this situation so their driving in their car and they
run out of gas or they slide off the road
and they can't get the car unstuck. And they didn't expect to be exposed because they are inside of their car
but they are not prepared. So, they don't have hats, they don't have gloves, they don't have multiple layers of clothing.
They don't have good shoes to be able to walk in. And so,
being prepared is nine tenths of the situation.
So, if you have to go out, you want to keep yourself covered. Covered in layers are
best. So if it happens to warm you can take some of those layers off or if it
cools down, you can layer yourself back up again.
That's one of the best things you can do to protect.
if you happen to be in that situation get yourself out of that situation.
It's really the best thing to do. I'm sure all the times we remember as kids
running around outside and being cold and your nose was a little bit
red and your fingers felt a little bit cold. You know that's a touch of hypothermia.
And so what do you do for treatment? You don't have to go running to the doctor every time you have
just a little bit of that.
So, we talked about first-degree, it's a little bit red is a little bit
sore, kind of tingly, get yourself out of that expose
take off that wet clothing. That is the best thing you can do.
Once you take off that wet clothing, dry yourself off
and get yourself re equilibrated to a normal
temperature. So, when you bring the kids in, bring them inside, take their wet clothing off, dry
off any areas that are cold and
you know, go ahead and expose them to the warm temperatures.
You don't want to too rapidly rewarm. You are not going to dump in hot water or anything like that becasue
that would then cause injury from a higher temperatures
you know, let the temperature come back up. If you have to run a little cool water over top of it to make them
feel a little bit better, that's okay too but make sure you try
and keep your hands nice and warm, sit next to a fire
or, you know, just warm yourself up in a blanket can go a long way.
So there's a couple things that people who had more severe
hypothermia, whether it be second or third degree, you'll notice some
findings on, the pain will be sever. Something you really can't handle. And that's kind of a sign that
you may be having some tissue damage probably worth getting checked out
clearly blistering on the skin is something there
if he had skin that's changing colors and it's not changing back, a little bit redness
is okay
dark color, black color is not okay. That would be significant injury related to it
If you're having pretty sever pain
up until that point, one thing that is relatively unique
to lower temperatures is the exposure to carbon monoxide.
You will see that in a couple different situations
people will be in their garage and they'll turn on their car because they will want
it up but there's no
ventilation. And you car produces carbon monoxide
is an oderless gas it's a tasteless gas
and it can very quickly overwhelm you.
You'll get dizzy, you might get lightheaded, you may get confused
so very quickly, when you get dizzy lightheaded and confused
you may fall down. You may have situations where you can't get yourself out of that carbon
monixide poisioning and bad things can happen from that. So, not only the car
but also from heaters and from fireplaces.