Treating Bleeding -- Segment One: Time 5:11

John:

Airway problems, if you do a little disaster epidemioloigy, what you'll
find out is what you'll see, especially in earthquake injury patterns
during daytime earthquakes you see a lot of airway problems. Why, people
are standing up, stuff starts to shake it falls down it hits you on the
head it knocks you out, and it puts you in the position where you can't
breath. Transient respiratory disturbances is what it's called, and what
it means is that somebody simply opens their airway by putting a hand on
the forehead and a couple fingers underneath the chin those problems can
be alleviated. Very simple techniques and they can be done very easily.
Make sense? Ok. The next problem were going to teach people to encounter
is bleeding problems. Are there various kinds of bleeding? All right,
that's and excellent question. What kind of bleeding is there, are
there? Arterial, venous and capillary. Arterial bleeding is the, we'll
lets back it up because I need to understand a little bit. Are there
different pressures for arterial veins bleeding? Yes there are. In fact,
you could almost describe the circulatory system as a two-part system.
One part, because it has to take blood to all the cells in the body, is
under a lot of pressure. Where as opposed to the side that's bringing
blood back to the heart doesn't need to be under a great deal of
pressure. In fact, if you were to end up taking a vessel let's say an
artery and you poke a hole in it; will it have a distinctive kind of
bleeding pattern? What kind of bleeding pattern will it have? Spiting,
bright red. Why is it bright red? When oxygen attached to the hemoglobin
molecule it turns into a bright red color. Is this a dangerous kind of
bleeding? Why? Because it's coming and it's coming fast. Let's compare
it to the other kind of bleeding. We take a vessel like a vein and we
poke a hole inside the vein. What does it do? Is it safer to say that it
does not come out as fast as the arterial bleeding? Is it still a
dangerous bleeding? Yes, if it's not controlled it could be very
dangerous. Any kind of bleeding can be dangerous even capillary
bleeding. Capillary bleeding is best associated with those abrasions
type injuries. Any body who has ever had a bike know what a road rash
is. The blood from that is what's called a capillary bleeding. No matter
what kind of bleeding you come across, however, we need to stop it. What
is the number one way to stop bleeding? Direct pressure. What does
direct pressure mean? You applying pressure over the top of where it is
bleeding. Why? Well first of all your trying to plug the hole, but
you're trying to give the body time to do what? To clot up that hole.
Can you use your hand to apply direct pressure? Good idea to have
something over the top of your hand? Is it a good idea, maybe, to put
something over the top of a wound? Why? Well, it will help you clog up
the hole, right. What else will it do for that wound? Well, it will keep
everything out, bugs and dirt from getting in there, so it's a good
idea. What could you use to put over the top of wounds? Well the most
ideal stuff obviously are the sterile pads and all this stuff. Let's say
for example we are away from all of our equipment and we come across
someone who has a bleeding problem. We can use our hands? We can use a
t-shirt. Who's t-shirt should we use? Theirs, that's right. If I had to
take care of all of you tonight and well it would be a very cold evening
yes, so use their stuff. You can use just about anything to put over the
top of wounds, as long as you remember that there is a simple rule. It
is not the article that you are putting over the top of the wound that's
going to stop the bleeding, it's the pressure. How do you put the
pressure on? Maybe we can use our hand and we can apply pressure, but
how long does it take to stop bleeding when you do this? Depends on the
injury, depends on the patient. In all the books it will be anywhere
around seven minutes. What is the one thing we don't have here? We don't
have a lot of time. So what we need to do is come up with a way we can
apply direct pressure for a period of time. Maybe what we can do is we
can make a pressure bandage.