1. ACCIDENTES DE TRÁFICO: EMERGENCIAS,
REANIMACIÓN Y TRANSPORTE SANITARIO
Mª ISABEL HERRANDO RODRIGO
herrando@unizar.es
ASSISTING ACCIDENT VICTIMS: BASIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUES
IN ROAD TRAFFIC INJURIES
Departamento de Filología Inglesa y Alemana
22 Enero de 2010
Universidad de Zaragoza

2. Table of contents
• Introduction: Aims and Communicative Foundations
• Primary or Basic Exploration SVB: Adult Basic Life
Support vs. Advanced Life Support
• Further Exploration
• Procedures
• References

3. Table of contents
• Introduction: Aims and Communicative Foundations
• Introduction Aims
To establish effective communication with traffic injuries.
To dominate a useful sytematic communicative
conventions which give us confidence with traffic injuries:
using English as a vehicle or lingua franca for handling
succesfully with these patients .
To be able to acquire basic techniques of spoken grammar:
Direct and clear chunks which will enable us to cope with
non-native speakers of Spanish in stressful situations.

4. 1. Introduction
• Communicative Foundations
Look the patient in the eye (if possible).
Use your body language .
Repeat clear, simple and direct statements such as:

5. Useful language
• Calm down.
• Take it easy, I´m here with you.
• I´m here to help you. Don´t worry. We are the
emergency medical technicians.
• Please trust me and don´t move. Help us to help you.
• Don´t worry in a short while we will give you a painkiller
but we have to examine you carefully so please you
must cooperate.
• Please trust me, I´m here with you. We are here to help
you and we know what we have to do.

6. 2.- Adult Basic Life Support
Is the patient severly injured or not severly injured?
We have to determine if the patient is conscious, if the
patient breaths and if he or she has pulse.
• Basic life support (BLS) is a level of medical care which is used
for patients with life-threatening illness or injury until the patient
can be given full medical care. It can be provided by trained
medical personnel, including emergency medical technicians, and
by laypersons who have received BLS training. BLS is generally
used in the pre-hospital setting, and can be provided without
medical equipment.
• Basic life support consists of a number of life-saving techniques
focused on the medicine "ABC"s of pre-hospital emergency care.

7. Adult Basic Life Support
• ABCs (Cardiopulmonary resuscitation)
Airway: the protection and maintenance of a clear passageway for
gases (principally oxygen and carbon dioxide) to pass between
the lungs and the outside of the body
Breathing: inflation and deflation of the lungs (respiration) via the
airway
Circulation: providing an adequate blood supply to the body,
especially critical organs, so as to deliver oxygen to all cells and
remove carbon dioxide. Circulation also includes the control of
potential hemorrhage.

8. Adult Advanced Life Support
ALS deals with several techniques addressed to deliver a
defenetely treatment to the patient. They consist of airways
management, proper breathing control, vascular access and drug
administration.
Besides, ALS concerns with the transport and overcoming of the
potential injuries relative to hypoxia/isquemia.

9. Enlace a página BLS:
http://hcd2.bupa.co.uk/fact_sheets/html/abcfirst.html
http://www.healthcarelearning.leeds.ac.uk/pages/learnzone/3_bls/bls_nav.htm

10. How can we dertemine Traumatic Head Injury?
Neurologic Exploration
1.- Pupils dilatation:
• In U.S. medical jargon, it's much more common to say that the
patient's pupils are equal, rather than isochoric. Normal pupils are
usually referred to by the achronym PERRL (pupils equal, round
and reactive to light). In Spanish, PERRL translates to "pupilas
isocoricas y normoreactivas a la luz (sometimes abbreviated
PINRAL)
• Dilated non-reactive pupils. Different dilatation; brain death,
potential donor.
• Pupilary reflex: light reflex; light reflex

11. How can we dertemine Traumatic Head Injury?
2.- Glasgow comma scale:
Better to:
Ocular response (1-4)
Verbal response (1-5)
Motor response (1-6)

12. 3.- Further Exploration
Do you suffer from any allergy? ALLERGIC TO ANYTHING?
Have you ever suffered from a severe illness? HAD ANY
SERIOUS ILLNESS? ANY CURRENT ILLNESS?
Have you been operated on? ANY SERIOUS OPERATION?

13. Useful language
• Calm down.
• Take it easy, I´m here with you.
• I´m here to help you. Don´t worry. We are the
emergency medical technicians.
• Please trust me and don´t move. Help us to help you.
• Don´t worry in a short while we will give you a painkiller
but we have to examine you carefully so please you
must cooperate.
• Please trust me, I´m here with you. We are here to help
you and we know what we have to do.