Skip to main content

Nature’s Fury and Human Heroes

Image
By
Natural calamities, such as the recent Uttarakhand Tsunami, are characterized by six Ds: destruction, death, devastation, disease, depression and despair. Yet, despite all this, it comes as a one-in –a-lifetime type opportunity for some to put their learning, ability and skills to real test.
For the soldiers and officers who daringly rescued thousands of jolted starving stranded pilgrims to safety, it was an opportunity that transformed them from unknown regulars to national heroes.
Several heroes must have been born in such conditions. States of sudden chaos and vacuum throw up new leaders who emerge from within the group, motivating those around and telling them what to do, setting common goals that fellow survivors feel compelled to join in for their collective survival, and showing the way through their own actions.
The opportunity for medics and para-medics in such situations is immense.
In the first phase, they run shoulder to shoulder with the rescuers, providing first aid and splinting broken spines and bones of the injured before moving them to safety. This is a vital oft-neglected step for which even rescued people often pay a heavy price with lives and disability.
Bones of the head (skull) and spine act as cages to protect the soft and vulnerable brain and spinal cord. Fractures here often cause compression with disastrous consequences.If they are dragged or lugged unknowingly, pieces of brokenbone may press and tear the tender nerves or cord, often causing permanent paralysis or death.
One of the essential steps in disaster management, therefore, is splinting of injured body parts before attempting to move the person. What it means is that wounded parts of the body should be immobilized to prevent further damage. The spine is best immobilized by placing the victim on a hard stretcher and strapping the body, broken limbs by tying to a piece of wood or branch, and mobile parts, such as dangling fingers, by bandaging or strapping to the stable ones. It is safer to keep the splint on till the victim is seen by an expert in a hospital and evaluated with x-rays or scans.
After the 1st wave of death from injuries and drowning, the 2nd wave follows at its heels with infections. People stranded without potable water, shelter or electricity are prone to pneumonia and diarrhoea, and their huddling together makes the germs spread quickly from one to the other. Antibiotics and vaccines are as important at this phase as clean water, food, blankets and shelter to prevent outbreaks and epidemics.
Another neglected aspect of disaster management is tackling the emotional trauma of those who have been through it all and seen wailing spouses been dragged away by swirling waters, parents being knocked down to death by falling boulders, and infants crying incessantly in their arms before falling finallysilent.

How does one help them cope and persuade them to live on rather than jump into the waters? Think about it till we meet next week.
As published in HT City ( Hindustan Times) dated 7 July, 2013
.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Doctor’s Dress

By
The familiar white coat worn by physicians as their distinctive dress for over 100 years, has started generating  murmurs  of controversy. It is not uncommon to find the blood pressure to be higher when measured by a white-coat-wearing-doctor in the hospital or clinic than the readings obtained at home by relatives.  This is due to the anxiety that the white coat and the hospital setting evokes in patients, and has been termed “White Coat Hypertension”. Mature clinicians often routinely subtract a few points from these measurements when entering records in case charts or calculating the dose of anti-hypertensive medications to be prescribed. The white coat scares children too.  Kids often express their dislike for this dress by crying and screaming and by denying access to their bellies or chest for examination by paediatricians in this attire. Many pediatricians across the world have folded up their white coats and taken to informal colourful dressing to...
2 comments
Read more

Food Fads in Liver Disorders

By
In an attempt at trying to do well to those they love, spouses and parents often enforce diets on patients of liver diseases that often turn out to be detrimental. The commonest food fad is pale insipid boiled cabbage being doled out to nauseous patients suffering from hepatitis that makes them puke even more.  The liver, in a way, is a buzzing manufacturing unit that requires lots of energy to keep its multiple functions going. And it derives all this from the food we eat. During disease, such as during an attack of jaundice, when many of the liver cells get killed, the liver attemptsdamage control by trying to regenerate quickly. For its cells to multiply however, it requires a generous supply of energy that comes from carbohydrates, and protein, the building block for its cells and tissues. Boiled green vegetables unfortunately have neither of these. Hence the situation often progresses to that of a starved liver unable to recuperate due to cut-off food suppl...
2 comments
Read more

Teaching and Learning – is there a trick?

By
One of the big mistakes that we as parents and teachers often make, and that could stifle the mental development of our children, is to treat them as just small adults! In fact, it is this attitude of grown-ups that could be leading our next generation to become stereotyped conformists rather than original thinkers and innovators. And if we intend to drive home health messages and inculcate healthy habits we need to tailor our efforts to their cognitive potential. That children indeed think and discover the world differently was first noticed by a Swiss scientist Jean Piaget in the early 20th century. He studied his own three children grow and was intrigued by how they behaved, played games and learnt at different ages. With further observations and experiments, he propounded the theory of ‘cognitive development’, placed great importance on the education of children and is hailed even today, 30 years after his death, as a pioneer of the constructive theory of knowing.  He...
1 comment
Read more