PSA, plus talking about writing to a crowd

[naomikritzer]

So, you probably remember the story of the McDonald's coffee lawsuit, where the woman spilled coffee on her lap. What you might not know is that the woman was really, really badly injured, requiring lengthy hospitalization, skin grafts, etc. This was due to the intense heat of the coffee but also because she was wearing cotton sweat pants. Knit cotton will glue itself to your skin when wet, and if it's wet with something that's scalding hot, it soak the scalding hot stuff right up and then hold it against your skin with great efficiency. If you ever pour scalding hot liquid on yourself, you want to get the hot, soaked fabric off your skin as quickly as possible. Sometimes you just hold it out, away from your skin, until the liquid cools; sometimes you need to take the clothes off.

Also, if you burn yourself, once you've gotten away from whatever is burning you, you want to get the burned part under cold water (or whatever you've got handy: snow, a cold pack, etc.) as quickly as you can. Don't just try to shake it off: you can avoid a much more serious injury by cooling the burn down as quickly as you can. This can actually make the difference between a minor burn and a really bad burn, and even if you know it's not serious, getting your minor injury under cold water can make the difference between a burn that stops hurting right away and a burn that's still hurting six hours from now. Minor burns can still hurt a lot.

Anyway, this is all prefatory to telling you that Lyda, Haddayr and I went today to be speakers at the Mensa MN Regional Gathering. It was sort of like an SF con with no costumes, but friendlier. Lyda wanted caffeine and a sandwich before we got started, so we went up to the hospitality suite, where I poured myself some coffee and then promptly knocked the cup over, dumping it down my leg, where the scalding hot liquid got soaked up by my cotton sock. (And my jeans, but jeans don't glue themselves to your skin when wet, so that was less of a problem.)

So at this small, friendly nerd convention filled with kind, welcoming people, I proceeded to swear loudly, kick off my shoe and rip off my sock, and demand ICE OMG ICE RIGHT NOW.

The good news (for me, anyway): I was left with just a mildly sore spot on my foot and not a really unpleasant burn. (I'll note that it is sore enough that I'm pretty sure I could have wound up with a really bad burn if I hadn't freaked out and yanked my sock off as fast as I could.)

The bad news: adrenaline and embarrassment are not a particularly good mix right before you're about to do public speaking. I think I am usually more collected and less disjointed when I do panels than I was today. Everyone was nice about it, though.

Comments

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

Yikes!! D: I'm glad you were able to get that ice...

I had a thing like that happen once (minus the cotton sock: it was a glass beer stein full of hot tea that cracked right down the middle as I was holding it in my bare hands), and I'm also convinced the outcome would have been a LOT worse if I hadn't spent most of the ensuing two hours with my hands in cold water or wrapped in cold wet paper towels. Thank you, Girl Guide First Aider badge!

[naomikritzer]

My Girl Scout first aid skills have come in handy a surprising number of times.

Also my CPR training. I have never once used the actual CPR skill (which is good, because I took that class in 1989 and CPR procedures have changed dramatically) but the bit where you order bystanders around? ("YOU! Go call 9-1-1!") That bit, I've used.

[corinnethewise.livejournal.com]

Also about the McDonald's coffee case - they had been warned multiple times that their coffee was served at too hot a temperature. That's what provided the justification for the lawsuit - they knew that they were doing something dangerous and did it anyway.

But yay Girl Scout Training! Between learning how to talk to people by doing cookie sales and the first aid training, I consider girl scouts to be one of the most useful activities from my childhood.

[silkblade.livejournal.com]

Wow. I'm glad you're ok. Foot burns are terrible. I'd add: don't put anything oil-based on it, since that traps the heat in your skin making it all worse.

I poured boiling water on my hand once while making tea. Completely missed the tea pot. Worst pain ever. Worse than the time I set an iron down on my hand.

Another thing most people don't know about that McDonald's case is that the car was stopped when she spilled the coffee on herself and she wasn't the driver.

The new CPR rules: chest compressions to the beat of "Staying Alive".

[naomikritzer]

Yeah -- she was pulled over in the passenger seat, trying to get the lid off in order to POUR OUT the over-filled cup and when it came off, it spilled. She did absolutely nothing wrong, was very badly injured, was the latest in a long line of injured people due to them keeping their coffee at a truly insane temperature, and this was a completely reasonable lawsuit and people who casually cite it as an example of frivolous lawsuits around me get an extended lecture and probably resolve to NEVER EVER EVER mention lawsuits around me again.

I had actually heard the "Staying Alive" rule, along with, "forget about breaths, just call 911 and then do chest compressions as fast as you can." But there's something to be said for practicing on a dummy, something I haven't done since 1989. (Though, honestly, CPR is very rarely useful to people who are not First Responders. Far more useful is all the stuff they covered in my basic First Aid classes: Heimlich maneuver, direct pressure for bleeding, treating for shock. I've used direct pressure -- mostly on myself after kitchen accidents -- and I've totally treated for shock.)

[lenora-rose.livejournal.com]

Glad you acted fast enough and the burn wasn't too serious.

Though I'm told by an EMT that Ice can be less than ideal, since it can overfreeze and on a burn it's harder to tell; the ideal, where possible, is to run a steady stream of fresh cold water over it for several minutes. Of course, I'd like to know how you could have done that in your location.


I've done the long lecture about the reality of the suit, and as well as the people who probably hope never again to hear from me on the subject, also had someone conclude by saying, "Okay, so McDonald's really is partly culpable. The woman should still have taken *some* responsibility."

Which ... (Facepalm). There seems to be some confusion in this society what constitutes responsibility.