Topics & Tools
Health Topics
Health Tools
- Symptom Search
- Body Maps
- Treatment Search
- Drug Search
- Drug Interactions
- Pill Identifier
- Drug Compare
- Doctor Search

Healthline Blogs

RSS Feed

Medicine for the Outdoors

Dr. Paul Auerbach is the world's leading outdoor health expert. His blog offers tips on outdoor safety and advice on how to handle wilderness emergencies.

See all posts »

Wilderness Medical Society Practice Guidelines for the Prevention and Treatment of Lightning Injuries

By Paul S. Auerbach, MD | Published Dec 3, 2012

TEXT SIZE: A A A

The Wilderness Medical Society (www.wms.org) is publishing a series of guidelines on the diagnosis and treatment of a number of outdoor medicine-related issues, such as high-altitude illnesses and frostbite. The most recent is an article about prevention and treatment of lightning injuries (Wilderness & Environmental Medicine 2012;23:260-269). Aspects covered include:

Epidemiology (Regional Considerations: Weather and Geography)
Trends in the United States, Physics and Physiology
Prevention (Behavioral Strategies, Shelter, Lighting Position, Group Safety)
Lightning Detection Technology
Lightning in a Mountain Environment
Lightning in a Water Environment
Injuries and Treatment (Triage and Resuscitation [Reverse Triage, Resuscitation], Cardiovascular, Neurologic, Dermatologic, Eye, Ear, Psychiatric and Neurocognitive, Pregnancy)
Disposition and Evacuation.

This article is an excellent place to begin for the practitioner interested in learning more about lightning injuries and being led to an extensive reference list on the topic.