There can be a wide range of side effects when you are exposed to any type of nerve agent. That, of course, depends on what kind of nerve agent it is, how much you were exposed to and how you were exposed to the agent. Organophosphates that are used in everyday chemicals like pesticides and found in treatments for lice, can kill small things but aren’t harmful to humans. When used at weapon-grade they serve a far more dangerous purpose, chemicals like mustard gas, tabun, sarin, and others can kill a person if not treated. Sarin, created during WWI is one of the most deadly of the nerve agents and causes uncontrollable muscle spasms. Among all the making of these nerve agents gas’ one of the most intense medical treatments is a byproduct, chemotherapy.
Sarin chemical is said to be deadly with as little as one drop on the skin, but the skin is not the only way this chemical can get into your system. All types of exposure include the person having nausea and vomiting or foaming at the mouth, death within minutes of and most can recognize symptoms within minutes. When contracted through the eyes the victim experiences redness and heaviness in the eyes, dim and blurred vision and heaviness and pressure behind the eyes. Swallowing sarin can be by eating or drinking contaminated food or drink. This can cause the body to have abdominal pain, diarrhea, and uncontrollable bowel movements. Liquid sarin can have immediate effects on the body but if by vapor, the effects
would not be apparent until as long as eighteen hours after exposure. On the immediate spot where the skin was exposed, you will see muscle spasms and sweating of the body overall. The body will become weak and the person can fall unconscious, eventually, muscles will lose control and people begin to have seizures and paralysis of the body and muscles. Breathing in sarin causes the liquid to form in the lungs, resulting in foaming at the mouth. This is particular to breathing it in, most of the other symptoms are the same as contact with skin.
Mental Side Effects
When you think about veterans and how they have PTSD and anxiety about things that happened while they were at war, it’s easy to assume how they might feel. It’s easy to assume that they are triggered by loud noises and that they have seen their friends drop dead in front of them but the same cannot be said for people involved in chemical warfare because it’s looked at as separate from traditional warfare. Even though experiences will be different, it is important to remember that the effects are both significant. What’s found most common among veterans, soldiers and refugees is to have insomnia, depression, anxiety and some kind of sleep disorder after experiencing chemical warfare. US soldiers were sent to drop 200 pounds of mustard gas on a small town where regular people lived. The attack was secret so no one saw it coming, more than 4500 people died and the damage was massive. More than 50% of those soldiers who participated in that attack were said to have PTSD from that experience, and 1⁄3 of that group had PTSD that lasted a lifetime. Psychological impressions made by chemical warfare are more crucial to the person, in most causing them to feel like their life has lower quality, and that can impact at most two generations.
Effects on Families
What some people fail to realize is how one person's mental state can affect those around
them. Families of soldiers and veterans are always affected by how they have adapted to the environment. Children and wives of veterans are said to be more likely to suffer from psychological disorders and could even inhibit the same ones from their loved one who experienced the trauma. This can be in many ways; a parent who is constantly waking up in their sleep and having night terrors because they think someone if after them in their sleep can turn into their small child thinking the same thing and having the same problem later. Even listening to what they experienced can have an effect on the other person, similarly to when people watch horrible things that are put on the news repetitively. Listening and imagining what a loved one has been through is common, because you want to try and internalize what they might have felt. Which can turn into that person feeling bad about what they had to experience and sympathizing with them by sharing the same kind of psychological disorders.
With that, PTSD is not always immediately recognized in a person. It can be as soon as one week or as late as 30 years after the initial trauma. One of the main reasons is because of the types of exposure. If you are actually experiencing the trauma it is likely that PTSD will be recognized sooner, and this can be because you actually know what is causing you to react certainly or because there are clear correlations. On the opposite of that watching and re-watching the event might be difficult to make a direct correlation to. You weren’t there in person but you watched it so many times that you bean to sympathize with people you don't know, because you at least know their innocence in the situation.
In a study done by the Iranian Journal of Psychiatry and Behavioral Scientists, veterans of chemical warfare showed more prevalent signs of depression in comparison to those who were part of traditional warfare. In this specific case they correlated depression with number of injured veterans, and out of the 100% that was injured more than 50% were depressed. With depression comes many ways that veterans try and succeed in killing themselves. The same group studied sleep problem in soldiers during the Persian Gulf war in 1990. They found soldiers felt the following; not feeling rested after sleep 42%, fatigue 36%, problems falling or staying asleep 33%, feeling unwell after exercise or exertion 17%, moderate or multiple fatigue symptoms 47%. Patients were also said to have problems breathing at night which can turn into sleep apnea where you stop breathing during sleep and potentially die. These results really give a bigger scope to the suffering soldiers and veterans go through while others aren’t aware or present to see.
Treatment
First responders wear full body suits making sure that you don’t have immediate contact with someone who was exposed. This is an important factor because spreading the chemicals is one of the main things to avoid. Given as a staple precaution to places that experience chemical warfare, they tell people to try best at protecting their skin and airways. There is a basic three step process that happens when someone is exposed to a small amounts of a nerve agent. Removing all clothes and keeping them sealed, to keep from exposing other things to the chemicals. Being washed with water and diluted bleach and being put through an eye wash, so they have somewhat better chance of keeping their vision or at least what they have left of it.
The third step will only be necessary if serious exposure occurred and there is only a chance that the person will recover. A nerve agents like hydrochlorite to help further the decontamination process and are given small amount at a time through a drip IV. If the patient is not showing improvement at the rate they should be, the dosage is doubled but after that there is nothing more that can be done. Too much can be dangerous to the person or have absolutely no different of an effect than it did.
Atropine, benzodiazepine and, oxime are used when treating someone who has been affected. They all have different purposes but cannot all be given at the same time even though they might need them all. Atropine helps when there are symptoms of nerve poisoning but directly there is no effect on the nerve agent. So if someone were to breath in a miniscule amount of a nerve agent, they would likely have this administered. Benzodiazepine help control the seizures and are given by injection and, oxime is used to fight against organophosphates but are shown to have limited effectiveness in their treatment. Even though there are ways to treat this kind of physical trauma still many people die, weather it be immediately or with time. So many lives are claimed with effects of chemical warfare, the most common cause of death after nerve gas exposure is related to respiratory failure.
Works Cited
Yurtoğlu, N. (2018). How do chemical weapons affect the human body? History Studies
International Journal of History, 10( 7), 241-264. doi:10.9737/hist.2018.658
Love, J. S., & Dickinson, E. T. (2017, September 01). A Review of Chemical Warfare
Agents and Treatment Options.
Razavi, S. M., Negahban, Z., Pirhosseinloo, M., Razavi, M. S., Hadjati, G., & Salamati,
P. (2014). Sulfur Mustard Effects on Mental Health and Quality-of-Life: A Review