Thread: Interesting First Aid Facts.

I think Lissa is the Greek word for rabies

Can you get it from bat urine?

In the tropics if you're having a night time BBQ under a tree, you tend to cop some bat urine. They pee themselves to keep cool.

Did your first aid course cover stingrays as venomous creatures?
The only two deaths attributed to stingrays were when the tail stinger pierced the victims heart!!!! Hardly a venom issue.

Yet another amazing fact from the first aid class room.

Enjoy your course Grizzly, I hope you don't need to use any of it. Though you feel better if you do for all the money you spent. On our last trip to the Simpson we were well prepared (IV fluids, antibiotics, adrenaline, corticosteroids, advanced airway management, dental repair kit.....) We only needed one band aid - now to see all the expensive stuff go out of date. At least we got better use out of the tools and the welder.

how many people take vineagar to the beach.....?

or do you just go to coles with the jellyfish tentacle hanging off.....?





this is a tricky one......

It use to be quite common on the northern beaches to have jars or bottles of vinegar on the beach themselves - ie. the council supplied it.

They are still there these days, however now they are starting to colour the vinegar as people were stealing it and replacing the fluid with water. Unfortunately this caused a few deaths

And yes we covered stingrays in the "how (and when) to remove barbs" section, though nothing was said about deaths. I dunno quite how someone's heart managed to get pierced with a barb, we've got quite a lot of shielding (bone) around our heart to protect it... nasty thought though.

I hope we never have to use it, but I will keep it up to date just in case anyway. At least then we stand a better chance if either of us is hurt.

EDIT: From the first aid book it says (about stingrays):
A sting to the chest or abdomen from a stingray is a serious medical emergency and requires immediate medical aid. (The stinging mechanism is attached half-way along the stingray's whip-like tail.) Signs and symptons include immediate intense burning pain, bleeding form the wound and possibly breathing difficultly.

So I stand corrected

Hi,
vinegar should be part of all first aid kits if travelling off the beaten track. you can use it for a variety of purposes, not only as dressing on your sallad. It has some desinfective potential, you may cool burns and the like and -as in your example- there are heaps of other choices for using it.

Lyssa (gr.) is the same as Rabies (lat.), a highly contaguous viral infection, typically transmitted by animal bite (although the virus can be found in any part of the infected animal and even its excretions). Rabies/Lyssa infection is alwaysfatal, you can protect yourself (e.g. if working in an exposed environment) by active immunisation (not really necessary if travelling in Australia).
After having been bitten by a suspect animal you have a good chance of surviving the incident if you get a passive vaccination as soon as possible (within about three days).
If travelling an area with high prevalence of Rabies I would recommend to take a sufficient amout of passive vaccination on the trip, provided there are adequate storage facilities and medical knowledge among the group members.

Have a safe trip!

theres some talk at the moment of moving all the bats out of hervey bay due to an infection thats nasty to humans-- Lyssa?

dont know how-- there are literaly millions of them--

Originally Posted by Michael2

I think Lissa is the Greek word for rabies

Can you get it from bat urine?

In the tropics if you're having a night time BBQ under a tree, you tend to cop some bat urine. They pee themselves to keep cool.

Did your first aid course cover stingrays as venomous creatures?
The only two deaths attributed to stingrays were when the tail stinger pierced the victims heart!!!! Hardly a venom issue.

Yet another amazing fact from the first aid class room.

Enjoy your course Grizzly, I hope you don't need to use any of it. Though you feel better if you do for all the money you spent. On our last trip to the Simpson we were well prepared (IV fluids, antibiotics, adrenaline, corticosteroids, advanced airway management, dental repair kit.....) We only needed one band aid - now to see all the expensive stuff go out of date. At least we got better use out of the tools and the welder.

Thats some serious medical supplies michael, Both my wife and I are paramedic qualified and she does it full time and our first aid kit isnt that impressive. So how many engels did you take? and who was the nominated Paramedic to canulate. I admire your preparation and I'm glad it all went out of date rather than use

I did a senior first aid in May too. The most dissapointing thing for me was that if someone has a Sudden Cardiac Arrest, and you cpr them, if they don't come back to life more a less instantly, then they probably aren't going to. It's not like the movies

Basically, you keep CPRing them until you get to someone with a defibulator.... all you are doing is keeping the body and brain alive. The scary thing is that in remote areas you could be doing that for a long time :O

Hi Dirtydawg,

Where (what station) in Perth does your wife work? I did an observer shift in Freemantle a couple of years ago. Are you working in the field?

I was the only paramedic, I ran a first aid refresher for everyone in the group, but that just covered basic first aid (except child birth & marine emergencies )

The golden rule was DO NOT LET THE PARAMEDIC GET HURT, so on the Finke to Alice track, where there were a heap of bikes practicing for the Finke Desert challenge, I took 2nd position, so if a bike collided with the first vehicle, I'd be able to assist. A GP I know helped out with the scrips for medication and a dentist made me up a little dental repair kit.

Now to put this trip on my resume' and get a job as a medic on the G4 Challenge .

Work actually advertised for expressions of interest for paramedics with 4WD experience to do the Variety Bash, a 10 day event. But SWMBO will not grant me additional leave from home - but that's okay - I wouldn't want to drive an Explorer anyway.