In medicine, electrical injury is understood as a combination of various pathologies in the human body, which occurs as a result of the effects of an electric current on it. Electrical injuries often occur due to the fact that people neglect the safety rules when handling electricity, as well as during the influence of atmospheric electricity (during a lightning strike).
Why does electrical shock occur?
Injuries are understood as damage to tissues by exposure to various physical, chemical or mechanical influences with the force that the human body is not able to resist. In case of electrical injuries, a similar factor of influence is a high-intensity current passing through the human body.
Most often, electrical injuries occur if people use faulty electrical appliances at home or at work, and specialists working with electricity neglect safety measures in their own activities, or people are outside during a thunderstorm and do not try to observe safety measures at the same time.
Household electric shocks have become widespread in recent years, thanks to the increase in the number of equipment that people use every day. Young children are most often struck by current because of their curiosity and ignorance about the rules of behavior with electrical objects.
Symptoms of electrical injury
Symptoms of electrical injury can be local and general. An electrical appliance under current can damage human tissue in two ways. The contact method of an electric burn is understood as such damage that was caused by an electric current flowing through the tissues and heating them to the highest temperatures. And a thermal electric burn can only be obtained if a hot volt arc occurs when a person comes into contact with electricity.
When a local electric burn occurs, doctors distinguish 4 main stages of injury. At the first stage, reddening of the skin occurs with the formation of an electromark or an imprint of a current object that affects the body. In the second stage, blisters form at the site of the burn, which differ from thermal burns in that they do not have liquid inside. In the third stage, the skin lesion penetrates deep into the tissues, they undergo necrosis (die off), but the integrity of the subcutaneous structures is preserved in full. In the last fourth stage, the lesion reaches not only the skin layers, but also deep subcutaneous tissues and even bones. Often this results in their complete charring.
A feature of electrical injuries is that at the site of the burn, damage occurs in the form of the object with which the injury was inflicted. The skin may take on a metallic appearance due to the action of the current conductor. Another feature of electric burns is the painlessness of the affected area due to the blocking of pain receptors by electric current.
The main danger of the impact of electricity on the human body is not at all a burn during an electrical injury, but the effect that electrical effects have on the functions of the body. Especially dangerous can be the effects of electricity on the nervous system, which is especially susceptible to this due to the high electrical conductivity of nerve fibers in the body.
The first sign of electrical injury is often the contraction of muscle fibers and, as a result, the person is thrown away from the current source for some distance. With a slight electric shock, the victim simply pulls the affected area away from the electrical appliance, and with a strong electric shock, there is a significant rejection of the body from the source. If the supplied current turned out to be low-voltage, then the spasm of muscle tissue turns out to be persistent, which is even more dangerous for the body due to the duration of exposure.
At the moment when contact occurs, the victim feels a strong piercing pain with trembling. Most often, a strong electric shock is accompanied by loss of consciousness. In domestic conditions, this is more of a plus, since a fall helps to move away from the current source, and in production conditions it is more often a minus, because a person can fall from a height, onto sharp objects, and so on.
The return of consciousness occurs quickly without the use of any stimulation of this process. But if a person who has received an electrical injury does not come to his senses for a long time, this may signal the occurrence of a brain injury.
The main symptoms of an electrical injury include:
- bluish lips and pale skin;
- apathetic state, lethargy;
- the occurrence of memory loss;
- lowering of pressure;
- violation of coordination of movements, reflexes, disorders of the pelvic organs.
A very dangerous symptom of receiving an electric shock is the occurrence of cardiac arrhythmia. This symptom cannot be noticed immediately, since it occurs against the background of apparent well-being only after a few hours or even days. That is why electrical injuries must be treated within the framework of medical institutions, since only medical supervision will help to notice irregularities in the heart rhythm in a timely manner and begin to treat them.
With high-voltage electrical impact, rhythm failure occurs instantly, which often leads to death of the victim. In this case, the function of breathing may be disturbed, sometimes breathing may stop altogether.
The nervous system gives out its damage during an electrical injury by the resulting convulsions. Convulsive convulsions at the same time can sometimes lead to fractures of the limbs, they can manifest themselves so strongly.
If a voltaic arc occurs during an electrical injury, a person’s vision is affected. In 6% of cases, this ends with clouding of the lens – a cataract, sometimes – retinal detachment, intraocular hemorrhages, and complete blindness.
First Aid
Immediately upon the occurrence of an electrical effect on the human body, it is necessary, if possible, to stop the supply of electric current. This can be achieved by pushing the victim away from the power source with a rubber or wooden object (in no case metal and not with bare hands). In the process of repulsing the victim, he should not be touched with both hands, it is better to eliminate him by the edges of the clothes, and not by the bare areas of the body, since the human body is an excellent conductor of electricity, and when saving someone there is a significant risk of wedged into the electrical circuit.
You can also try to disconnect the appliance from the power supply by removing the plug from the socket or cutting the wire with an ax on a wooden handle. When “disconnecting” a person from the power supply circuit, it is important to use protective equipment – a rubber mat under your feet, rubber gloves, a dry cloth, wooden objects.
If the victim was shocked by a high-voltage cable located on the ground, you can move towards the victim only with small shuffling steps without taking your feet off the ground so that there is no potential difference between the feet, and the rescuer is also not shocked.
After “disconnecting” the victim from the electrical circuit, he must urgently check the pulse and the presence of breathing, and in their absence, it is necessary to perform artificial respiration and indirect cardiac massage. Further, before the hospitalization of the victim, he must be examined, given painkillers and sedatives, and the places of electric burns should be bandaged with dry bandages.
Sometimes, in the course of providing first aid to the victim, before the ambulance arrives, it is recommended to give drugs to thin the blood, increase blood pressure, anticonvulsants, and drugs that prevent the occurrence of arrhythmia.
In a clinic, a patient affected by an electric current is given anti-shock measures, diuretics are given if there are injuries in the head area, heart medications are given, and so on. If the electrical burn is very severe, and because of it there is a necrosis of large areas of tissue, surgical intervention is required. Such an intervention can be carried out for the purpose of skin grafting or for the amputation of affected non-viable limbs.
Electrical injury is a very complex phenomenon in medicine, since its consequences can affect absolutely all human organs on one scale or another. That is why it is so important to observe all safety precautions when working with electrical appliances, since neglecting these rules can cost a person very dearly.