High Pressure Injection Injuries

Am I or My Employees at Risk? What You Need to Know.

[WARNING: This post contains graphic images that may be disturbing to viewers.]

Image Below Taken from an SDS for:  Base Oil and Additives – Engine Oil

They are rare, perhaps you have not even heard of the term, “high-pressure injection injuries” until now…

This type of injury presents as a small puncture wound that is often underestimated by physicians and patients.

Why should you care?

If you or someone you know were injured in this manner, the injected substance could lead to extensive tissue damage and even the loss of the limb.  That’s serious and you need to care!

What causes the problem?

It does not have to be a toxic substance.  Injection injuries can occur from lubricants, solvents, paints, oils, grease, gasoline, even air, water & cement, and they can happen anywhere/anytime.

The aim of this article is to bring to your attention,  the severity of these apparently innocuous injuries and to raise awareness for safety and prompt diagnosis, along with effective treatment.

Avoid an Injury or Possible Amputation.

Please Take Safety Seriously.

1-855-282-4527                     www.mysds.ca

AS per NCBI:

High pressure injection injuries result from the inappropriate operation of equipment that achieve ejection pressures of their contents sufficient to breach the human skin¹.

These injuries are uncommon with an estimated incidence of one in 600 hand injuries presenting to an emergency care unit². They occur predominantly in young men and are mostly occupational injuries³. The majority of the injuries affect the non-dominant index finger and occur usually due to inexperience in operating the high pressure equipment, inappropriate use, insufficient training, carelessness, fatigue at the end of the shift or rupture of the equipment^3–5. The most commonly injected substances are paints, paint solvents, grease, fuel oil (paraffin oils, diesel oil, gasoline) but there has also been reported injection of water, air, cement, and animal vaccines^6,7. In order to breach the human skin the ejection pressure has to be at least 100 pounds per square inch (psi)⁸ while most high-pressure guns and injectors reach pressures of 2000 to 12000 psi³.

The puncture wound is small, inconsiderable and not distinct. Initially the toxic substance causes edema and ischemia and later the combination of mechanical and chemical factors leads to compartment syndrome and consequently to fibrosis, adhesions, necrosis and secondary contractures and ulcerations, apart of the risk of systemic intoxication (acute renal failure, air embolism)^1,9.

References

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2532970/

Hippokratia. 2008 Jan-Mar; 12(1): 33–36

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