The golden hour, also known as golden time, refers to the period of time following a traumatic injury during which there is the highest likelihood that prompt medical and surgical treatment will prevent death.
The volume of traffic on Indian roads is increasing by the year with over-speeding, indiscipline and flagrant disregard of traffic rules being the mainstay of Indian drivers; all these coupled with pot holes and poorly designed roads are leading to accidents that are believed to average more than one every minute and a road accident death every four minutes or less.
The sad part of all this is that only about 20% of accident victims reach hospitals in time to receive interventional treatment that can save their lives. In some cases, even the well-meaning onlookers cause more harm by manipulating the injured person’s body that worsens his situation.
Cases of severe trauma, especially internal bleeding, require surgical intervention. Complications such as shock may occur if the person is not managed appropriately and expeditiously. It therefore becomes a priority to transport people with severe trauma as fast as possible to specialists, most often found at a hospital trauma center, for treatment. Because some injuries can cause people to deteriorate extremely rapidly, the lag time between injury and treatment should ideally be kept to a bare minimum; this has come to be specified as no more than 60 minutes, after which time the survival rate for people who have sustained trauma is alleged to fall off dramatically.
Things To Do
Traditionally, a crowd usually rushes to the accidents, but few are inclined or even aware of what to do in such emergencies – for some, taking a selfie is more important on such occasions. Onlookers should immediately call the ambulance and police and keep the injured person calm and reassured that help is on the way. If there is bleeding, the onlooker should try to staunch it by applying pressure with a wad of clean cloth.
Remove all tight clothing so that the airways are free for normal breathing. Remove any foreign objects from the nose or mouth that are obstructing breathing. Immobilize any visibly fractured area with a wooden stick or cardboard. Slide the victim onto a rigid board to prevent further damage to injured organs before transporting him to a hospital if an ambulance isn’t available immediately. The bottom-line is that the victim should be rushed to the hospital within the golden hour for timely treatment by experts.
The reason why onlookers still don’t rush the accident victim to the hospital is due to the earlier rules where the person bringing the victim to the hospital had to provide all his own contact details too. The public needs to be awakened to the fact that such archaic rules no longer apply and they shouldn’t fear being victimized by getting involved in saving the injured person.
Even though accident protection devices like wearing helmets, seat belts and cars with airbags are being implemented more these days, the injuries from road accidents are also getting worse with each year.
