PREHOSPITAL CARE Feasibility of prehospital treatment with activated charcoal: Who could we treat, who should we treat?

Objectives: To investigate the feasibility and potential risk benefit of prehospital administration of acti-vated charcoal. Methods: Review of deliberate self poisoning presentations to the emergency department (ED) of a toxicology unit by ambulance over six years. Data were extracted from a standardised prospective database of poisonings. Outcomes included: number of patients attended by ambulance and number arriving in emergency within one hour. Cases were stratified by ingestion type, based on toxicity and sedative activity. Results: 2041 poisoning admissions were included. The median time to ambulance attendance wa