Pop Quiz
July 16, 2006
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Posted by Aubrey Turner
You’re working at the local turbo cluck when one of your coworkers suffers second degree burns from hot oil.
Which course of action do you think is best?
- Call 911. Get gauze wrap from first-aid kit and wet it before applying to the wound.
- Apply first aid (see option A) and rush coworker to hospital.
- Take coworker to CVS/pharmacy location several blocks away and ask the pharmacist about it.
I witnessed “option C” while I was waiting for the pharmacist to figure out how to log my Claritin-D purchase into The Book of Potential Criminals™. As soon as I saw the young man I knew the burn was fairly serious and would need treatment. I know they don’t always hire rocket surgeons at this place, but you’d think someone would know to call for EMS (while taking him directly to the hospital is an option, I’d probably go with EMS, since they can likely make him a bit more comfortable during the ride).
The lady in line behind me was a nurse who told them to apply a damp gauze wrap (which is what I’d also learned in first aid) to the burn. The burn victim’s compadre then asked if they had any gauze, since he said they didn’t have anything like that. That got me to wondering if they didn’t have a first-aid kit at the Chicken Express or if this guy just panicked. It doesn’t seem to reflect well on management, though, as you’d hope they’d give their employees at least rudimentary training in what to do if someone gets hurt (which is always a possibility when working with deep-fryers and other hot kitchen equipment).
Categories: Random Ramblings
They don’t. Or rather, they didn’t when I worked at a resturaunt. Oh, there were the required OSHA laminated signs that talked about safety, but there was little actual safety training.
I guess I shouldn’t expect too much from these places. But you’d think that the threat of a lawsuit would at least provide some slight motivation to do the right thing.
I dunno, I think this response might be rational with just a minimum wage job and no health insurance.
Perhaps it would be in that context alone.
What I was getting at was the fact that the employer has some responsibility for injuries incurred on the job, and it just seemed to me that there was insufficient training for the employees about what to do when something goes wrong.
In an emergency you only perform to your level of training. In this case, it was obvious that there wasn’t any, as they defaulted to what they’d do on their own.