Shock is a term that can be very broad in its description but can also be broken down into more precise definitions. Many people mistake the term “shock” to mean that dazed and confused state some victims go into after experiencing something emotionally traumatizing.
Emotional shock is still a concern for a medic but is not usually considered life-threatening in an emergency. For our study today, we’ll focus on medical forms of shock and hopefully approach it in a way that’s easy to understand.
Shortly after high school, I took my wife’s family out for a short summer camping trip to one of Colorado’s national forests.
It was just me, an overconfident 19-year-old, my future wife and her younger siblings spending a few nights under the stars. I showed them what I knew about building fires and throwing knives, but after a while we got bored and decided to head out for a hike.
While we strolled along in the back, her siblings ran on ahead and I lost sight of them for a short time.
Continue reading Mountain Man Medical Talks Moose Safety
With summer comes outdoor activities like hiking and camping, and yard work. With the warmer weather comes more interaction with wildlife like snakes.
Knowing what to do with snake bites could help you to come out on top in a bad situation. In this article I will be discussing some first aid, dos and don’ts so you can save the day.
Continue reading Should YOU Tourniquet a Snake Bite?
Tourniquets enjoy too much of the spotlight. With all the glorious combat saves a good TQ has, the hardworking pressure dressing gets forgotten in civilian emergency preparedness.
Yes, of course TQs are important, but they only count for approximately ¼ of your body. There are other places where a wound would be life-threatening, but untreatable with most tourniquets.
That’s where a good pressure dressing and wound packing comes in. It handles the bleeding that TQs miss.
Continue reading 4 Styles of Pressure Dressings Explained
If you have a good understanding on how to use your gear, it frees you up to think outside the box and come up with solutions to problems you might face in an emergency.
Everyone wants to be that person who saves the day, calm, cool, and collected while the world goes to hell around them. It’s an admirable trait and one anyone can cultivate with a little practice.
Part of that journey includes having a good understanding of your gear. If you know how to use what you’ve got, your effectiveness and efficiency (both essential for saving lives) skyrocket.
Here’s a brief run-down of what a pressure dressing is and why you need one (or a dozen) in your trauma kit:
Continue reading If You Don’t Already Know, Here’s the Theory on Pressure Dressings:
An emergency usually means you have little or no resources available to recover from a bad situation. Being able to extend the life of precious resources like trauma gear might become an essential skill set, and it happens to be one that medics pride themselves in.
Unless you're heading out to do errands in a fully stocked ambulance, you aren’t going to be able to carry all the things you might need for trauma control. And the situation only gets worse for multiple casualties.
Some things you just can’t get around, like carrying tourniquets for life threatening bleeds or seals for chest wall punctures. But if possible, carrying items that can be used for more then one type of injury is good for extending the number, and different kinds of emergency trauma you might encounter.
Here’s a list of items that can handle more than one job:
Continue reading Extending Your Resources: TOP 5 Multi-Use Trauma GearFull disclosure: I’m the one that decides what gear should go in our kits. And if it isn’t obvious already, I receive a financial kick back for talking about the MMM kits.
But I’m also confident this is an excellent trauma kit full of top-of-the-line gear and priced better than any comparable kit on the market. I take a lot of pride in the value we offer, and it’s my hope that more trauma gear is placed where it can save more lives.
One of my favorite jobs during my career in the medical field has been teaching trauma classes to organizations looking to be proactive in preparing for a disaster, either natural or manmade.
Continue reading An Extremely Biased Review: The Mountain Man Medical “Mass Casualty Trauma Kit”
*This is Part 2 of a 3-part series. Click Here for Part 1. Come back next week or click here for Pt 3.
Cars Don’t Explode
If you’ve seen an action movie, you know well how vehicles explode at the very slightest provocation. In reality, car manufacturers try very hard to come up with designs to ensure this doesn’t happen. It’s bad business to produce vehicles the blow up.
I’m sure its possible, given the right conditions, but you shouldn’t be attempting to drag a casualty from a car because you’re worried its gonna blow.
Continue reading Car Wreck First on Scene: What to Do Pt 2
Research is a vital component to medical care. Without medical researchers constantly developing new techniques and testing the effectiveness of old ones, we’d still be stuck with medieval era medicine.
Thankfully, the medical world is a constantly changing and shifting environment, which is why we no longer drill holes in our patient’s head to let out evil spirits and cure mental illness.
Progress is a good thing, and we need to continually question why we do what we do, and if there's a better way.
Continue reading Bleeding Control: Does Elevating the Wound Actually Help?
“If the tourniquet isn’t high and tight, you’re wrong.”
While this isn’t wrong advice, it’s important to understand where this tourniquet procedure came from and why we’re constantly being told to place the TQ as high up on the limb as possible.
Continue reading Is a “High and Tight” Tourniquet Wrong?