Medical emergency
From Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia written in simple English for easy reading.
A medical emergency is an injury or illness that poses an immediate threat to a person's health or life. It needs to be treated immediately. Doctors that are trained in emergency medicine are taught how to react to medical emergencies, and how to resuscitate patients.
[edit] Response
When there is a medical emergency, emergency medical services should be notified as soon as possible by calling for help using a local emergency telephone number, such as 911 in the United States or Canada, 112 in most of continental Europe and on GSM cell phones, 999 in the UK and most of its former colonies (112 works as well), 118 in Italy, 119 in South Korea and Japan, 000 in Australia, 101 in Israel and 111 in New Zealand. The people that answer emergency calls generally ask for the caller's name, where they are, and some information on the person that is being called about, e.g. whether or not they are conscious, how badly injured they are, their name if it is known, and if they have any other illnesses.
[edit] Statistics
Most emergencies are quite unspectacular. They will happen close to home and not to complete strangers.
- 53% happen at home (or when doing a hobby)
- 15% happen at school
- 6% are traffic accidents
Of all emergencies:
- 49% are illnesses (a stroke, problems with the heart)
- 10% are intoxications (alcohol, other drugs, mushrooms,..)
- 12% are accidents (traffic accidents, accidents in the house)
- 17% are muiscellanea (finding someone without residence frozen in the park)
- 15% are false alarms.
