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I was reliably informed today by a student on my CFAW course that for welders flash (from an electric welder) you should bath the eye in milk!
Alec.
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Can't see any reason to use milk. For welders flash "arc eye" the perceived wisdom is you don't actually irrigate the eye. You try to get the patient to keep the eyes closed and apply cold compresses to the eye lid. Moving the patient to a darkened room and the use of dark glasses will help.
This is not a burn in the traditional sense as the "damage" is to the back of the eye not the surface.
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I concure with Speckles, methinks it's an old wives tale, however having had first hand experience of "welders flash", a cold wet tea bag compress over the affected eye certainly helped ............another old wives tale..but it worked.
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Rank: Advanced Member Groups: Registered Users, Subscribers
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A used cold tea back is a form of cold compress. I would not teach it though in case they remembered the used teabag, but forgot the cold bit. The other thing is teabags are not as a good as they used to be and often split once used.
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Rank: Member Groups: Registered, Registered Users, Subscribers
Joined: 16/11/2011(UTC)
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Hi
Welders flash, Arc eye or to use the proper name Photokeratitis certainly is a burn to the surface of the eye.
It is similar to sunburn (due to UV light) and affects the cornea and conjunctiva.
They are (or were) common on the oil rigs and pipe laying barges that I worked on in the 70s and 80s.
First aid is limited to cold compresses and dark rooms. the definitive treatment was local anaesthetic drops and adrenaline (astringent) drops. Without the local first these would be extremely painful.
We used to get issued with "welder's drops" which were Zinc Oxide. I only used them once. You sit the guy down, put in a drop and watch him do a wall of death around the sick bay whilst screaming.
Stick to the cold compress and dark room. The condition will resolve, usually with 24 hours.
ps/
Before anyone starts, yes we padded them for 4 hours after the local.
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