NEVER EVER MAKE AN UNCONSCIOUS PERSON DRINK WATER TO REVIVE CONSCIOUSNESS

Forward from a medical student

NEVER EVER MAKE AN UNCONSCIOUS PERSON DRINK WATER TO REVIVE CONSCIOUSNESS

YES ,you read it right. It's a very common practice of ours to provide water to a person who has met with an accident or who is unconscious or on verge of getting unconscious. There is a BIG medical reason for thosy

I, being an MBBS student, learnt this thing in my Forensic Medicine class. Forensics is a subject taught to us in MBBS 2nd Prof. Once, in a forensic practical, when we were viewing a postmortem of a man who died after a road accident(apparently), our Prof. Put pressure on the corpse (dead body's) chest. As he did so, a lot of blood and watery fluid came out from the dead man's mouth. That was when we were told that the victim had not died of injuries inflicted by the accident. In fact, because of trauma, he had fallen unconscious on the road and some pedestrians, in an attempt to revive him, put water in his mouth!!!!

When we are unconscious, our laryngeal muscles (throat muscles for a layman) are relaxed . thus, as the victim was given water, it went through his wind pipe ( trachea) into his lungs. So actually, the person died because of DROWNING IN THE WATER PROVIDED TO HIM.

even in the PMR(PostMortem Report) the cause of death wasn't any head injury or organ injury, but it was "Drowning due to aspiration of water into the lungs"

Hope this thing helps. Next time, you see a person injured and unconscious after a road accident, DONT PUT WATER IN HIS MOUTH. Instead:

-Turn him to the side so as to ensure patency of the airways(I.e. the air passage is not blocked)

-immediately take him to the hospital

Hope you spread this word because this is a very popular notion in our country to give water to an unconscious person to revive him.