prompt preventive and therapeutic measures taken to help an accident victim or a person suddenly taken ill.
First aid includes personal and mutual first aid and first aid provided by medical personnel. It is usually rendered by a nonspecialist: the ill person himself or a witness to the accident. The measures taken largely depend on the nature of the injury or disease. Most often, first aid entails the halting of bleeding and application of bandages to wounds or burns. Closed-chest cardiac massage and mouth-to-mouth artificial respiration are employed if clinical death has occurred. Splints, usually improvised, are applied to fractures. If poisoning has occurred, the stomach is washed out by inducing vomiting, and such drugs as aminopyrine, nitroglycerin, and validol are administered if available. The ill person or accident victim is placed in a comfortable position and brought at once to the nearest medical facility.
All medical facilities, including pharmacies, are required to render first aid, as are all medical personnel present at the scene of an accident. First aid in industry and agriculture, on transport facilities, and in public places is rendered at first-aid stations equipped with stretchers, splints, and first-aid kits containing drugs and dressings. The effectiveness of first aid depends largely on training the entire population in the basic methods of first aid. This training, which ought to begin in grade school, should be given in particular to individuals engaged in hazardous occupations, such as transport workers, electricians, machine assemblers, miners, and lumberjacks.
V. IA. IL’IN