Beware the advice of “friends”

It horrifies me the number of “helpful suggestions” that I see being posted in social forums with regards to some quite serious first aid emergencies.

While some suggestions are benign, some have been downright dangerous. For example, the application of ice, lavender oil, and egg whites to a severe steam burn.

This is but one example of some practices that could lead to permanent scarring or life long injuries that appear almost daily in the public domain. People should be very careful about the advice that they offer in a public domain.

If facing any injury and it warrants the asking of advice, the Victorian government has Nurse On Call on 1300 60 60 24. Queensland has 13 HEALTH (1300 43 25 84). All other states and territories use contractor healthdirect Australia on 1800 88 24 36.

Serious incidents should reported to 000 and ask for Ambulance.