Thread by @ReasoningAloud

@booksfightback As a paramedic: For the love of god do not pack a wound with a mask (or a tampon as others are suggesting). If the wound is to the chest or abdomen the only thing you should do is cover it with an occlusive dressing (plastic wrap, gloved hand, something that will create a seal)

@booksfightback If the wound is to an extremity use direct pressure or a tourniquet. IF you have QuickClot or other combat dressings designed to be used to stop an arterial bleed in a junctional area then use them. Otherwise: Direct pressure. No tampons. No masks. Pressure, Pressure, Pressure

@booksfightback Crap, didn't realize you were a middle schooler when I saw this. Sorry if my tone was a bit off. The advice remains the same, but I'm so sorry you're having to learn any of this ;(

@booksfightback I'm trying to keep up with questions in this thread but I'm not able to so I'm just going to answer them all here if alI can. If a wound to the torso or abdomen the main things that will kill you are internal bleeding (which you can do nothing about) and a tension pneumothorax

@booksfightback This happens when air gets sucked into the hole when you breath, eventually collapsing the lungs and great vessels. So you main goal is to stop that. You want ideally commercial chest seals. But, you can use anything that is not permeable to air to seal the hole. Your hand,

@booksfightback A flat piece of plastic, plastic wrap. Get creative. My go-to for an improvised chest seal is large sandwich bags with a thing coating of Vaseline. Put your hand in the bag like a glove, cover one side with goop, put the goop side down on the wound, withdrawal hand

@booksfightback The goop helps form an airtight seal that wont break down as easily with contact with blood. But you don't need it. Someone else suggested an empty lays potato chip bag. That would also work.

@booksfightback No tampons. Don't stick anything into a hole in someone's torso or abdomen. Just don't do it.

@booksfightback For arms and legs, you can still bleed out from here. But you can actually control this bleeding. Use an absorbent pad and apply direct pr4essure. This will hurt. Generally speaking bleeding control hurt worse than getting shot. But you have to stop the bleed

@booksfightback If you can't stop the bleeding with direct pressure, you need to use a tourniquet. A commercial Tourniquet ($25 CAT is a good investment for everyone) is best. But you can improvise one.

@booksfightback If you have a penetrating injury to a junctional area (the pelvis, shoulder/chest meeting point, then you want to consider wound packing. Ideally combat gauze will be used here. But you should use bulky dressing that you use to put internal pressure on the bleeding artery

@booksfightback After packing you still need to apply direct pressure to the area to close off the artery. If it's an inguinal injury, kneeling on the area will probably be your best bet

@booksfightback If you want information on how to build a personal trauma kit this guide is a great place to start: iaf-fai.org/2020/08/31/ski…

@booksfightback I'm gonna go play stardew valley cause I'm sad as fuck that kids need to know this shit. ;( I hope this helped a bit

@booksfightback A quick & dirty guide on where to seal, torniquet, or pack, cause I've gotten a few DMs about this

@booksfightback Coming back to this to add this link that explains how to properly pack a wound and which hopefully gets across why a tampon or mask are I'll suited to that purpose (cw: gore and stuff)

jems.com/patient-care/t…