How would you treat this guy in the Zombie Apocalypse?

by **CLFilms** » Mon Apr 30, 2012 2:28 pm

How would you treat this guy in the Zombie Apocalypse? First off, if you see this guy around during the Zombie Apocalypse -- create some distance.

(VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED)
http://zombiespotreports.blogspot.com/2 ... ve-za.html

I don't think anyone would take a chances in the Zombie Apocalypse like this -- but with people like him around, there's just no way of truly knowing that.

But back to the main question:
- How would you treat this guy if there were no hospitals or medical clinics available for treatment?
- What is the bare minimum required to treat an injury such as this?

by **majorhavoc** » Mon Apr 30, 2012 4:04 pm

Well I'd say neat trick, distracting the audience with that shtick about obscuring everyone's view of the turntable while he fit the bloody prosthesis on the back of his hand.

But if your question is what if someone had a real wound that looked like that? Of course I would treat him. Assuming the blade went through his hand as it appeared in the video, with it's cross section parallel to the metacarpals, there's a good chance of minimal vascular, nerve and connective tissue damage.

Treat for bleeding and infection. That's about all I'm qualified to do. The wound will heal and hopefully he'll get full functionality. But it'll be an ugly scar.

by **Sixty-Eight Whiskey** » Mon Apr 30, 2012 4:29 pm

First, stop the bleeding and get it bandaged. Then eventually test him for nerve or muscle damage, if he has... well, in a PAW scenario he's screwed with that in any way.
In a normal situation put a dressing on and go to the hospital.
The hand or foot itself can take piercing damage pretty well compared to arm or leg.

by **The Big Ugly** » Mon Apr 30, 2012 4:38 pm

Hand him some gauze and maybe some triple-a ointment and tell him to wrap it himself with his good hand as I drive off...because that's what he gets for trying that stupid shit in the PAW.

by **Projo** » Mon Apr 30, 2012 4:59 pm

Law of natural selection will take control. Zombies will probably smell the blood, chase him down and eat him. Now you will have one less knucklehead in your group and dramatically increase your chance of survival.

by **Doctorr Fabulous** » Mon Apr 30, 2012 6:29 pm

Projo wrote:Law of natural selection will take control. Zombies will probably smell the blood, chase him down and eat him. Now you will have one less knucklehead in your group and dramatically increase your chance of survival.

I feel so sorry for whatever unit gets you as a corpsman.

by **CLFilms** » Mon Apr 30, 2012 6:38 pm

Oh, I wouldn't turn him down to be treated; but by golly I would try to be politely go separate ways... He's Zombie fodder at that point. :roll:

by **Niblick** » Mon Apr 30, 2012 8:07 pm

If real: I would treat him as he should be treated, like an idiot.

by **CLFilms** » Mon Apr 30, 2012 8:14 pm

@Niblick: That sounds like some Daniel Tosh philosophy right there! :lol:

by **Projo** » Mon Apr 30, 2012 8:26 pm

Doc Torr wrote: I feel so sorry for whatever unit gets you as a corpsman.

Me too. I spent 17 years enslisted before commissioning, neither rate I held was Corpsman. I was being humerous.

@Niblick, I hear you.

by **CLFilms** » Mon Apr 30, 2012 8:57 pm

It's so funny how serious some people are...

“If you’ve ever uttered the phrase, ”'There’s nothing funny about blank’, we’d never hang out. Yes, there is if you write good jokes.” - Daniel Tosh

by **Vicarious_Lee** » Mon Apr 30, 2012 9:56 pm

Helluva trickster. I'd love to have a guy like that on my team!

by **abelru** » Tue May 01, 2012 12:42 am

Sixty-Eight Whiskey wrote:The hand or foot itself can take piercing damage pretty well compared to arm or leg.

Please explain the rationale behind your statement.
Not trying to cause a tussle, simply want to hear why you believe this to be so.

by **Doctorr Fabulous** » Tue May 01, 2012 2:37 am

Projo wrote:
Doc Torr wrote: I feel so sorry for whatever unit gets you as a corpsman.

Me too. I spent 17 years enslisted before commissioning, neither rate I held was Corpsman. I was being humerous.

@Niblick, I hear you.

I, too was being facetious. Shoulda been in blue, I guess.

Corrected version: Scary coming from a SAR guy, no?

Besides, I'm convinced that all Navy personnel are officers. Otherwise why do they wear the shinies....

by **Silent Kube** » Tue May 01, 2012 3:46 am

abelru wrote:
Sixty-Eight Whiskey wrote:The hand or foot itself can take piercing damage pretty well compared to arm or leg.

Please explain the rationale behind your statement.
Not trying to cause a tussle, simply want to hear why you believe this to be so.

I can't attest as far as hands but as far as feet go, when I was a kid I hated wearing shoes. Even when playing on my dad's wood pile. At least half a dozen times I ended up stepping on exposed nails. A couple of times they went completely through. This was a long time ago but as I recall, the basic procedure was the doc cleaning the wound, slapping a bandage on it and I seem to remember a shot (tetanus booster?) and if course a lecture but overall it never seemed very serious.

by **Projo** » Tue May 01, 2012 4:15 am

If this guy was trying to keep everyones morale up with props, that would be great. If he was dumb enough to put a blade through his hand during a zombie apocalypse.....That would be the equivelant of stabbing yourself while diving with sharks.

Doc Torr wrote: Scary coming from a SAR guy, no?

LOL, good to hear. One of the few rescue professions where we get to choke and punch victims :lol:

I went to NDSTC with ARC Corpsman and have meet was awesome FMF and IDC Corpsman, nothing but respect for them.

by **Sixty-Eight Whiskey** » Tue May 01, 2012 12:00 pm

abelru wrote:
Sixty-Eight Whiskey wrote:The hand or foot itself can take piercing damage pretty well compared to arm or leg.

Please explain the rationale behind your statement.
Not trying to cause a tussle, simply want to hear why you believe this to be so.

Well, compare the hand to your arm. The arm is a bone wrapped with flesh, nerves, muscles and a plethora of blood vessels to supply those big muscles and the tissue. Put a knife in and it will penetrate deeply into it, probably damaging one of the various arteries that go through there, cut some muscle tissue, nerve and whatnot.

The hand on the other... hand... is rather thin, composed mostly from small muscles, muscle tendons and multiple relatively narrow bones. First of all, if you pierce it there is not a lot of tissue to penetrate before you're through so that limits the extent of damage possible. Then there's also the fact that even though there's a lot of important stuff running through your hand it is not so much fixed by surrounding flesh like in the arm but can move a bit so blood vessels and tendons could move to the side instead of being pierced if you're lucky.

Don't get me wrong, there's still a chance of muscle or nerve damage if done wrong, I'm just saying compared to getting that knife in the arm it's not that bad.

by **CLFilms** » Tue May 01, 2012 1:56 pm

What would you do to ease the pain upon immediately injuring it? Ice? Painkillers (i.e. motrin, ibuprofin)?

by **Doctorr Fabulous** » Tue May 01, 2012 3:01 pm

CLFilms wrote:What would you do to ease the pain upon immediately injuring it? Ice? Painkillers (i.e. motrin, ibuprofin)?

Ice in small doses. Too much ice, too long on contact and you'll accelerate necrosis and cause nerve damage, basically inducing frostbite.

Aspirins and acetominophens (tylenol, motrin, ibuprofin) are blood thinners and anti-clotting agents. Administering those will (at best) do nothing for the pain and slow clotting. At the worst, your patient will bleed out.

A commentary on the first-aid response: you can observe that something is not right with the patient, right? An altered mental state means no drugs until you know what exactly the patient is on, their allergies, and when/how it was taken. Blood thinners+alcohol means a dead patient when there's a bleed involved. Opiates+opioids= and OD, which means a dead patient unless you have narcan. Hell, look into the new guidelines for battlefield applications of morphine AI and Fentanyl-pops, the guidelines are basically "carry Narcan just incase you pop them too many times and/or they have a reaction to opioids."

I'd stay back until I could attempt to do a AAA exam (alertness, awareness, alacrity) to make sure I wasn't going to be dealing with a hostile patient. If he was determined to be alert and aware, then he's getting a bandage (probably just a pressure bandage) and water and that's it.

by **Sixty-Eight Whiskey** » Tue May 01, 2012 3:17 pm

Doc Torr wrote:Aspirins and acetominophens (tylenol, motrin, ibuprofin) are blood thinners and anti-clotting agents. Administering those will (at best) do nothing for the pain and slow clotting. At the worst, your patient will bleed out.

Correct me if I'm wrong I am not used to US drug labelling, but isn't tylenol's sole active ingredient paracetamol? Because if so paracetamol totally isn't in the anticoagulating business as far as I'm aware...

by **squinty** » Tue May 01, 2012 3:55 pm

Sixty-Eight Whiskey wrote:
Doc Torr wrote:Aspirins and acetominophens (tylenol, motrin, ibuprofin) are blood thinners and anti-clotting agents. Administering those will (at best) do nothing for the pain and slow clotting. At the worst, your patient will bleed out.

Correct me if I'm wrong I am not used to US drug labelling, but isn't tylenol's sole active ingredient paracetamol? Because if so paracetamol totally isn't in the anticoagulating business as far as I'm aware...

Acetaminophen = paracetamol? Not an NSAID, so no, Tylenol isn't an antigoagulant. Aspirin most certainly is, and I believe other nsaids (ibuprophen, naproxen etc) are as well. I know that naproxen can exacerbate ulcers and GI bleeds, and it increases the effect of prescribed anticoagulants.

by **Liff** » Tue May 01, 2012 4:03 pm

You're not "wrong". Paracetamol is acetaminophen and vice versa. It all depends on what country you are in. In the States, "paracetamol" does not exist, but acetaminophen does. No matter what what the ingredient is called, that is what is in regular Tylenol.

No anticoagulant effects from Tylenol also. If, and only if, we are talking about acetaminophen/paracetamol with no other pharmaceutical. Warfarin and paracetamol/acetaminophen is not so good for instance. And acetaminophen/paracetamol is the best recommendation for patients using warfarin. Go figure.

People who take the anticoagulant drug warfarin are at increased risk of excessive anticoagulation if they also take large amounts of the pain reliever acetaminophen, according to a study from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).

http://news.bio-medicine.org/biology-ne ... n-14941-1/

Remember: There are no absolutes in medicine, including this statement.

ETA: (If that video was not fake.) I would treat that guy just like I would treat a horse with a broken leg.

by **Doctorr Fabulous** » Tue May 01, 2012 4:25 pm

Interesting. I'm gonna go over the USN guidelines again. Maybe they blanket banned the combat use of acetominophen just in case of warfarin additives. I know that all the motrin we get issued and most that I've seen in stores uses warfarin or a similar product to increase the anti-inflammatory effects. Tylenol's probably a 50/50 as to the additives. Not much of a painkiller unless your can get Tylenol 3 (with codeine), and that sends us right back to drug interactions and allergies.

Liff: well put. I remember seeing a guy with a very interesting med tag. He was allergic to betadine, but not iodine. Hell knows how, but good example of there being no absolutes.

by **Liff** » Tue May 01, 2012 5:02 pm

This is kind of a joke thread anyway, so I don't feel bad about the complete derail.

pharmacist here, and I have no idea why acetaminophen would be blanket banned for combat use. I did 4 in the marine Corps and I know how everyone gets ibuprofen/Motrin for everything.

Minor, minor point: Warfarin and NSAIDs and heparin (Unfractionated or lmwh) all inhibit different places in the coagulant process. It is easy enough for triage to know the presence or absence of anticoagulant medicine. For the antidote to the specific anticoagulant, then there is a huge difference. Well past any thread in a sub-forum labeled "First aid". And truth be told, probably better material for a pharmacist who works at a warfarin clinic who would have a better, more complete grasp of the material and actual experience in dealing with these specific medicines.