accidental exposure to Pencillin - woman falls sick; airlifted & treated in New Zealand

There is much spoken of the ‘golden hour’ ~ 108 services have proven to be a great boon to the city ~ the services do respond well ~ but in city traffic even ambulances get struck in the melee of traffic and sometimes affects the movement of the patient being rushed to the hospital…

Sir Alexander Fleming  was a Nobel laureate. Born in Scotland in 1881, he was an accomplished researcher. Early in his medical life, Fleming became interested in the natural bacterial action of the blood and in antiseptics. He was able to continue his studies throughout his military career and on demobilization he settled to work on antibacterial substances which would not be toxic to animal tissues. He devised sensitivity titration methods and assays in human blood and other body fluids, which he subsequently used for the titration of penicillin. In 1928, while working on influenza virus, he observed that mould had developed accidently on a staphylococcus culture plate and that the mould had created a bacteria-free circle around itself.  After further experiments he  named the active substance penicillin.

This was mass produced and became the most used anti-biotic.   Pencillin was most effective drug that worked wonders  though many types of bacteria are now resistant. Penicillin kills bacteria by interfering with the ability to synthesize cell wall. The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1945 was awarded jointly to Sir Alexander Fleming, Ernst Boris Chain and Sir Howard Walter Florey "for the discovery of penicillin and its curative effect in various infectious diseases".

Many drugs can have unwanted side reactions and Pencillin also can cause some reactions like – rash, allergy, itching and the like.  A woman in Newzealand suffered severe reaction to accidental pencillin ingest.

Today’s NZ Heralad reports that a  young woman suffered a seizure and was flown to hospital in a semi-conscious state after suffering an allergic reaction to penicillin she accidentally squirted onto her lip while treating a cow today.  The report states that the 25-year-old causal milker on Mt Ella Station at Murchison in the Tasman region had her hands full as she was treating the cow with a syringe of the veterinary penicillin, farm owner Rick Monk said. "[The syringe had] a plastic cap on the end. She grabbed the plastic cap in her teeth to pull the syringe off to inject the cow and somehow the penicillin ... a very small amount, squirted out onto her lip," Mr Monk said.

The woman, who has worked at the farm for only a few days, fell in and out of consciousness while paramedics rushed to the scene and monitored her health, before the Nelson Marlborough Rescue Helicopter arrived to fly her to Nelson Hospital. Mr Monk said he believed the woman knew she was allergic to penicillin, and immediately after the syringe squirted the drug onto her lip she reported it to a manager on the farm. The woman was treated at the hospital before being discharged several hours later.

--- while even ambulances suffer in Chennai city traffif – in New Zealand,  the Nelson Marlborough Rescue Helicopter Trust administers a professional air rescue service throughout the Nelson, Tasman, Marlborough & Buller communities utilising a twin engine BK117 helicopter and a single engine AS350BA helicopter. They have highly trained personnel and volunteers for the treatment and recovery of people needing urgent medical care and attention.  The Nelson Marlborough Rescue Helicopter Trust is a registered Charitable Trust operating since 1991 to provide a dedicated rescue helicopter service to the community.

Interesting and wish that we have such things in India too.

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

1^st April 2013.