Wilderness Medicine Case Study 30

You are at a friend’s cabin cutting firewood for the upcoming winter, when the chainsaw slips and cuts deeply into your Ron’s right leg just above his knee. The saw stalls on the canvas of his pants and his tissue; dark blood immediately begins to well out of the wound quickly saturating the material and flowing down his leg. You quickly grab his sweatshirt and attempt to stop the bleeding with direct pressure as you yell to your brother to grab the first aid kit. Blood is seeping from under the shirt when the first aid kit arrives. Opening it, your brother finds two CAT tourniquets, 3-4 rolls of sterile gauze, two Chito-SAM dressings, Trauma shears, and a couple of 2-inch elastic wraps. You are at least six hours from the nearest hospital.

What should you do? Click here to find out.
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Don't know where to begin or what to do? Take one of our wilderness medicine courses. Guides and expedition leaders should consider taking our Wilderness First Responder course.

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