PrepperMed 101: Keeping A Minor Wound Minor, An Example

Keeping minor wounds and injuries minor is something we really need to do if the Stuff Hits The Fan (SHTF), and this is something that we can prep for, right now, to help happen.

This is also another great example of a prep that will serve us well during good times and bad… I mean, even if the S has not HTF, who wants an infected cut or uncontrolled bleeding all over everything in sight?

I was tooling around today at work in my wheelchair, and…

As I was doing my morning rounds at work in my wheelchair (I’ve got a broken ankle in a cast… I don’t NEED a wheelchair I can gimp around on crutches but the chair is a LOT faster and safer), I turned down a narrow hallway.

Mounted on one wall of the hallway is one of those big “dry erase” boards where team members can track ongoing customer servicing and goals… this particular whiteboard has an aluminum frame with a shelf on the bottom that has a sharp edge. I’ve been meaning to file it off for a while now, but haven’t taken the 5 minutes it would take. 

My forearm caught on the sharp shelf edge and I got a small minor scratch. As scratches go, it was absolutely no big deal at all… barely took off enough skin to bleed. I muttered something unmentionable, and started wheeling on down the hallway. When I got to the end, I looked at my arm and there was a three inch long stream of blood down it.

Whispering a few more words under my breath, I wheeled around and headed back to my office. Once there,  I grabbed my first aid kit and wheeled on into the men’s room to clean and dress this minor wound.

I didn’t want to do was bleed all over the carpet, my coworkers, clothing, etc… because that’s just not a fun Monday Morning at work, right?

As you can see by the size of this wound, it’s just a tiny, minor little thing… but by treating it properly and stopping the bleeding, I decreased the chances of it becoming infected, and I protected everybody around me from any blood-borne contamination that I might have.

It’s a minor little cut, so what?

Salty, you may be asking, are you really writing an article about a small scratch you got at the office today? Really?

Well… no, not really. I’m using it to illustrate a concept that’s a major part of what this article is about. I’m not writing about my broken leg or the post-break surgeries… those are major wounds and things that would be really difficult to deal with without medical care in a SHTF situation. 

The purpose here is to keep things that are minor… well… minor.

Making a minor wound stay minor

I opened up my personal, well stocked first aid kit, turned on the sink with warm (but not boiling hot) water, and washed off the wound. As I did so, I grabbed a one-inch sterile gauze pad and put compression on the scratch to see if I could get the bleeding stopped.

After a minute or so it had nearly stopped, so at this time I put the wound back under warm running water, then applied soap to it and scrubbed it down really well. 

I then used a second one-inch sterile gauze pad to dab off all the wetness. I applied some triple antibiotic cream to the scratch (which was already starting to bleed again) and put a third one-inch no-stick gauze sterile pad on the cut.

Then I wrapped the whole deal up with a roll of gauze around my forearm, putting enough pressure on it to discourage the bleeding. I was careful not to tape anything to my hairy arm, because I don’t particularly like losing arm hair when pulling bandaging off.

I then went to the closet, got the bottle of bleach we keep in there, and cleaned out the sink.

And now, the rest of the story

Let’s use my today’s little experience as an exercise in what I did right to keep a minor problem minor, and what I did wrong.

First, here’s what I did right

1. I recognized fairly quickly that I had a small wound, and I knew that with a small bit of care, the chances were great that I could keep this from getting infected.
2. After examination of the scratch, I recognized that this wound came from a sharp edge that is touched by a lot of people, so the likelihood of germs being on it is relatively high.
3. I put direct pressure on the minor wound to stop the bleeding, recognizing that any blood that I spilled in the office would need to be cleaned up with a hazmat kit.
4. When I wheeled myself back to my office, I was able to grab my fully-stocked first aid kit that had everything I need to deal with bleeding issues, from minor all the way up to limb loss.
5. As I was treating the minor wound, even in the early stages, I used sterilized bandages and not just paper towels hanging from the dispenser.
6. I scrubbed with warm (but not hot) water and soap, because I know that the soap doesn’t kill all the germs nor does the water… they loosen the hold of the germs and wash them away.
7. When I bandaged the arm using continuous pressure, I used plenty of wrap to insure there was no bleed through.
8. I kept in mind that this is a public area, and that other people use this sink. I used the bleach as a way to protect them against any unknown blood borne issues that I might possibly have.

What did I do wrong?

What did I do wrong (I’m asking Spice to jump in here and answer this part, because other than #1 which is mine, I don’t know what I did wrong)?

1. I was surprised that I was bleeding as much as I was, I had no idea what was going on. Well, it turns out that I have been taking four “baby” aspirins as a day on doctor’s orders (as well as other drugs to reduce my leg’s swelling), and therefore I am far more susceptible to bleeding than normal.
2. I (Spice) would have let it bleed while washing it. It bled a lot for a tiny scrape, absolutely (because of the aspirin in his system); but that’s still a very small amount of blood and it does help wash the wound from the inside out.
3. Salty should know everything he’s taking and their likely side effects. He was taking the aspirin on doctor’s orders, but had forgotten about it. (I hadn’t, and he has just been taking what I handed him.)

Final thoughts on other considerations for minor wounds

Why all the drama for a minor scratch? I mean, SERIOUSLY, it’s a tiny little scratch!

We’ve gotten in the habit of thinking of potential infections as minor annoyances. Mostly they are these days, although antibiotic resistant strains are becoming ever more common and can really be a problem. If the SHTF though, a minor wound that gets infected can very easily kill. It was a leading cause of death for much of human history, after all.

Don’t bother constructing arguments about how clean the scratch is. Bacteria are literally everywhere. Yes, you got bacteria in the wound.

Harsh sanitizers like hydrogen peroxide and alcohol (rubbing or drinking) do kill germs but also good cells. They’re no longer recommended by most of the sources I’ve read.