Yes, I am a guy. And no, don't get any ideas. But I do really need some sanitary napkins. Something I picked up from a very close friend the other evening. He got me thinking (yeah, he is a guy too) and now I cannot do without a packet of sanitary napkins in my pack.
Before you start getting any ideas, let me put your mind at rest before it goes into overdrive thinking of a million perverted reasons why I would want to keep sanitary napkins and what's my sudden obsession with them.
Well, as you probably know I run a wilderness survival school. Also urban survival training and first aid training. And that is where I learned of this wonderful new usage for sanitary napkins. I wonder why I did not think of it before. In fact, I was speaking to my daughter the other day and telling her to try and open her mind to look at things differently, to find new ways to use existing things. For all my talk, I failed to see the obvious use of sanitary napkins.
IT IS A WONDERFUL PIECE OF FIRST AID EQUIPMENT TO STOP BLEEDING.
An arterial wound can kill you. The blood will spurt out thick and fast and you lose a lot of blood very very quickly. A loss of one liter can put the body in shock, a loss of two liters and you are in extreme danger. Three liters of blood less in your body and you are dead. So the bleeding has to be stopped with whatever means possible.
One way to stop bleeding and that is what we have been doing for so long is to use cotton or gauze. But an arterial wound requires a lot of rolls of cotton to stem the bleeding. Soon the cotton will be wet and soggy, requiring more and more cotton.
A sanitary napkin is designed to absorb blood. And if the advertisements are to be believed, they can absorb blood indefinitely and copious amounts of it. The blood will not seep, I think it gels inside the napkin. And when we are talking of arterial bleeding we are talking of a lot of blood. Apart from what the manufacturers and inventors designed it for, how best can we use a sanitary napkin for? So the bleeding is not from the area that it was made for. So what. A sanitary napkin in my first aid will do the job of maybe half a dozen cotton rolls.
Survival is about improvisation. It is about being open to ideas. It is a taking decisions probably not listed in any book. One needs to survive and one needs to do the best possible, with the given resources. A sanitary napkin in my first aid kit is a boon. Another lesson learned.
This example just goes to show that there is no end to learning. The definite book on survival is yet to be written. Every log, every branch, every brook, pond and river, every grain of sand in the harsh desert landscape can and will continue to teach us newer and better ways to survive. The effort and the learnings continue.
So, till such time as someone does not invent a better blood absorbent, dump a pack of sanitary napkins into your first aid kit. I hope you never ever have to put it to the test in a real life emergency situation though. Have a safe life in the wilderness.
Showing posts with label first aid. Show all posts
Showing posts with label first aid. Show all posts
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Delhi Bomb Blasts – Lessons to be Learned
India was once again rocked with the devastating effect of an exploding terrorist bomb. As of writing this, eleven people are confirmed dead and 76 others are injured, in various stages of criticality. I am sure there are others who have fortuitously escaped with minor physical injuries, but the mental anguish of witnessing and being so close to an act like this can have a more long lasting and devastating effect.
The media has dusted off the old files and old tapes and are repeating the same old conversations and debates about what we as a Nation need to do to tackle terror. The people in power and the people who oppose them are voicing the same old platitudes. Fortunately, and probably because this is not Bombay, we are not hearing about the celebrated resilience of the people of India. Some people are voicing what they have been voicing so often, “Enough is enough.”
I am sure there are things that need to be done and that there are people to do them. If the current people are incompetent or unable, I am sure some day a more competent bunch of people will be found to do the job that needs to be done.
I do not have the knowledge or the intelligence to begin to presume that I might have the answers on how to tackle the menace of terrorism that has made Bombay as fearful a city to live in as Kabul and Karachi. Far from being presumptuous about so delicate and important a matter, I want to delve into a more mundane issue – the issue of healthcare.
Eleven people dead, scores injured. Eye witness accounts state that when they looked around in the immediate aftermath of the blast, they saw people with their lower limbs missing. I wonder if there is any published data of how many of the eleven people lost their lives through the blast itself, and how many lost their lives through blood loss. Losing a limb ... or two ... and that too the lower limbs means an inordinate amount of blood loss from the femoral artery, one of the most difficult arteries to contain in case of a severe external wound that is bleeding in the lower limbs.
Like in any other emergency, there were a lot of good Samaritans who were picking up these people, loading them onto whichever passing vehicle was willing to lend a helping hand to take them to the nearest medical facility. I wonder if any of them knew how to contain the severe blood loss. Excessive loss of arterial blood, particularly from the femoral artery can result in a very quick death. If only the Samaritans did their bit and put pressure on the femoral arteries, maybe the death toll could have been less than eleven. Like I said, I wonder how many of these people died from blood loss.
There would have been other injuries, superficial and deep. Cases of bleeding resulting from shrapnel injury would have been present. I wish more people knew the basics of first aid.
I am sure there was shock. Could people have been treated for shock, by lay people, before being attended to by a qualified medical practitioner? Shock can lead to a cardiac arrest. How many people in the vicinity of the Delhi High Court knew how to administer a cardio pulmonary resuscitation or CPR? If they knew and even if ONE person has died or has suffered from a cardiac arrest, that person could have been saved.
I wonder why we do not take it upon ourselves to learn the basics of first aid. We can save people’s lives. We can take control of emergency situations and become better citizens. These things do not always “happen to other people”. The “other people” could be us next, or people who are dear to us. If only we take control of our own destiny!
Let the Government do its job in tackling terror. Why can’t we learn to tackle the terror in the person’s eyes who sees his or her legs blown off? This is terror we can tackle and we do not require the Police or the Army or the Government or Barack Obama or Asif Ali Zardari to help us do that. Let us pledge to learn the basics of first aid – for us, for our children and for our fellow citizens. Otherwise many more people will die needlessly. Maybe some will learn, but I worry that maybe many will not.
One can take a basic course at a lot of places. The Indian Red Cross Society comes immediately to mind. For my part, I can offer the OTA Survival School (http://OTASurvivalSchool.com) to impart training in basic first aid.
PS: By the way, as a double whammy, just as I was penning this piece I felt a train rumbling at great speed through my house. An earthquake hit Delhi. A terrorist attack and an earthquake, both on the same day. Talk of lack of preparedness. It is not always the disaster management mechanism that will come to our aid. They will, soon, but till then we have to take care of ourselves and take control of our own destiny.
The media has dusted off the old files and old tapes and are repeating the same old conversations and debates about what we as a Nation need to do to tackle terror. The people in power and the people who oppose them are voicing the same old platitudes. Fortunately, and probably because this is not Bombay, we are not hearing about the celebrated resilience of the people of India. Some people are voicing what they have been voicing so often, “Enough is enough.”
I am sure there are things that need to be done and that there are people to do them. If the current people are incompetent or unable, I am sure some day a more competent bunch of people will be found to do the job that needs to be done.
I do not have the knowledge or the intelligence to begin to presume that I might have the answers on how to tackle the menace of terrorism that has made Bombay as fearful a city to live in as Kabul and Karachi. Far from being presumptuous about so delicate and important a matter, I want to delve into a more mundane issue – the issue of healthcare.
Eleven people dead, scores injured. Eye witness accounts state that when they looked around in the immediate aftermath of the blast, they saw people with their lower limbs missing. I wonder if there is any published data of how many of the eleven people lost their lives through the blast itself, and how many lost their lives through blood loss. Losing a limb ... or two ... and that too the lower limbs means an inordinate amount of blood loss from the femoral artery, one of the most difficult arteries to contain in case of a severe external wound that is bleeding in the lower limbs.
Like in any other emergency, there were a lot of good Samaritans who were picking up these people, loading them onto whichever passing vehicle was willing to lend a helping hand to take them to the nearest medical facility. I wonder if any of them knew how to contain the severe blood loss. Excessive loss of arterial blood, particularly from the femoral artery can result in a very quick death. If only the Samaritans did their bit and put pressure on the femoral arteries, maybe the death toll could have been less than eleven. Like I said, I wonder how many of these people died from blood loss.
There would have been other injuries, superficial and deep. Cases of bleeding resulting from shrapnel injury would have been present. I wish more people knew the basics of first aid.
I am sure there was shock. Could people have been treated for shock, by lay people, before being attended to by a qualified medical practitioner? Shock can lead to a cardiac arrest. How many people in the vicinity of the Delhi High Court knew how to administer a cardio pulmonary resuscitation or CPR? If they knew and even if ONE person has died or has suffered from a cardiac arrest, that person could have been saved.
I wonder why we do not take it upon ourselves to learn the basics of first aid. We can save people’s lives. We can take control of emergency situations and become better citizens. These things do not always “happen to other people”. The “other people” could be us next, or people who are dear to us. If only we take control of our own destiny!
Let the Government do its job in tackling terror. Why can’t we learn to tackle the terror in the person’s eyes who sees his or her legs blown off? This is terror we can tackle and we do not require the Police or the Army or the Government or Barack Obama or Asif Ali Zardari to help us do that. Let us pledge to learn the basics of first aid – for us, for our children and for our fellow citizens. Otherwise many more people will die needlessly. Maybe some will learn, but I worry that maybe many will not.
One can take a basic course at a lot of places. The Indian Red Cross Society comes immediately to mind. For my part, I can offer the OTA Survival School (http://OTASurvivalSchool.com) to impart training in basic first aid.
PS: By the way, as a double whammy, just as I was penning this piece I felt a train rumbling at great speed through my house. An earthquake hit Delhi. A terrorist attack and an earthquake, both on the same day. Talk of lack of preparedness. It is not always the disaster management mechanism that will come to our aid. They will, soon, but till then we have to take care of ourselves and take control of our own destiny.
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