University of Virginia Health System

Calling the poison center is easy.  Simply dial 1-800-222-1222 to speak with a poison specialist. 

For poison emergencies, the poison specialist will need ask a few questions in order to help.  Questions a caller is likely to encounter include: What is the poisonous substance?  How was the person exposed? What amount of the substance did the person come in contact with?  How long ago? With this information the poison specialist can give you first aid advice. The poison specialist will tell you if you can stay at home or if you need to go to the hospital. The majority of the time, the person exposed can remain at home.

The poison center also receives calls from various health care professionals.  Health care professionals can call to consult with our medical toxicology physicians on poisoned patients.

The poison specialists at the Blue Ridge Poison Center not only handle calls regarding exposures, but also answer information questions about medicines, plants, pesticides, household products, poisonous animals, and other chemicals.  In addition, you can call to schedule a poison prevention education program for your community!

All calls to the poison center play an important role in important injury data collection.  Data from calls, with all personal identifiers removed, is forwarded to our national organization, the American Association of Poison Control Centers. United States poison center data is used to track poisoning trends.  The annual report of this data collection is published in the November issue of Clinical Toxicology.