John B

The Safety pin airway – Iraqi style! (Sweet unibrow dude!)

Read THIS so you can’t sue us

Treating a trauma casualty was briefly mentioned in Andrew R.’s First Aid Kit article, and we’ll make sure to post more thorough discussions here in the future on how to treat all things trauma.

In Andrew’s article he introduced EABC (exsanguinations, airway, breathing, circulation), and briefly discussed treating life-threatening bleeding. The next step in the trauma assessment is ensuring the patient has a patent airway.

Unless the airway is blocked due to a foreign object (debris, broken teeth etc), the main cause of an airway blockage is the tongue relaxing and blocking the airway. So opening an airway simply involves removing any object that is blocking the airway and making sure the tongue is out of the way.

Oral pharyngeal airways are designed to pull the tongue up and towards the front of the mouth, ensuring it doesn’t slip back and obstruct the airway. The downside with oral pharyngeal airways is that they have to be sized correctly to the patient, so you have to carry a half-dozen or so.  In addition, if the patient should regain consciousness or is semi-conscious, they can trigger the gag reflex.

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Dude, Just walk it off its not that bad

In a wilderness survival or tactical environment how can you tell if you’ve sprained or broken an ankle?  The distinction may seem minor, but the implications are dramatic.

In a wilderness environment it means the difference between wrapping the ankle and the patient can walk out, or immobilizing the limb and carrying the patient out.

Tactically, the distinction is the same, but instead of having another shooter, you have a casualty.

So here is a field expedient method to determine if an ankle is broken or sprained.  It called the Ottowa Ankle Rules.

(This isn’t completely fool-proof, so use some common sense.  If the patient’s foot/ankle is obviously deformed then it’s safe to assume it’s broken and don’t let the patient put any weight on the foot.)

Click Here to Find Out if you are Injured or just Being a Wimp >>>

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Dude, No amount of Cipro is going to fix this

Disclaimer

Wound care away from the hospital is always a problem.  And thanks to Bear Grylls, everyone thinks that any cut or scrape is going to lead to gangrene and amputation.

While antibiotics are often tough to acquire in any decent amount to treat a seriously infected wound outside of a licensed medical facility, here are some steps that you can use to prevent that field amputation.

First, wash the crap out of the wound.

Sounds easy, but a serious laceration or puncture is tougher to wash out than just using a bottle of hand sanitizer.  You need to pressure wash the wound to make sure that anything embedded (debris or bacteria) has been removed.

Two easy ways:

1: Take a standard average plastic bottle, poke a hole in the cap and squeeze.  Creates a jet of water that you can use to wash the wound

2: Take a Ziploc bag filled with water, cut a small bit of the corner off, and again squeeze to create a jet of water.

Adding some salt in the water will help to create a more aseptic solution.

Now that the wound is clean, here’s an easy Ditch medicine step to keep it from getting infected:

Click Here to Read How to Keep Your Wound From Getting Infected by Using a DIY Antibiotic Solution >>>

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The Tactical Enema – Just like maximum security prison but without the sporks

Anyone who has ever broken a sweat knows how important it is to stay hydrated. Dehydration of just 2-3% will decrease your endurance capacity by a whopping 25%.

Just sitting in front of the Xbox will cause you to lose dehydrate (mainly through respiration), and sit somewhere cold, you’ll dehydrate quickly as your body converts stored energy into free energy to shiver (plain old metabolism uses 1.5-2L of water a day, figure 2x-3x if you’re in a cold environment).

And all bets are off if you’re playing in the sandbox.

To rehydrate properly, you need a mix of salt and water, preferably in the same concentration that your body normally is – and if you can throw some glucose (sugar) in the mix for energy it’s a bonus, plus sugar makes a salt/water mix not taste like shit (actually glucose has some good hydration properties in itself and should be added in appropriate amounts, but that’s a different article).

Click Here to Learn How to Make a Field Expedient Electrolyte Drink and How to Administer a Tactical Enema >>>

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