Survival Medicine Handbook Giveaway Winner!

Thanks for all the interest in the Survival Medicine Handbook.  As I promised last week, I've put all the names of those who commented into the hat, and we have a winner:

And the winner is:  Kenny!  Kenny's comment is the 13th one down on last week's post.  I guess number 13 can bring good luck sometimes!  For all those who didn't win, keep an eye out for more giveaways, as I have lately been receiving a flood of books and other products to review and test.  And again, I think this book is a worthwhile addition to your survival library, whether or not can get it for free!

Book Giveaway: Survival Medicine Handbook

I have an extra signed copy of The Doom and Bloom Survival Medicine Handbook to give away to one lucky reader of Bug Out Survival.  This book currently goes for $31.49 on Amazon and is jam-packed with information that makes it well worth the price.  You may be familiar with the authors: Amy Alton and Dr. Joseph Alton, through their Dr. Bones and Nurse Amy's website and podcast.  They were kind enough to send me a review copy of their new book, as well as an extra copy for one of my readers:

This book is unique among practical medical handbooks in that it specifically addresses the issues of medical help when conventional means of help is not available, such as in a post-SHTF scenario.  Topics include all sorts of problems ranging from sanitation, hygiene and infections to environmental factors that can lead to heat stroke, hypothermia, burns, smoke inhalation and even snake bite and stings.  There are many additional resources in the back of this 440-page book, including a glossary of medical terminology and a list of YouTube Video Resources.

Look for a full review of the book here in the near future as soon I get caught up enough to read it in depth (As many of you know, I've been quite busy with my own latest book project).  In the meantime, if you'd like a chance at winning this signed copy of the Survival Medicine Handbook, just leave a comment on this post with a username and I'll put all the names in a hat and pick the winner one week from tonight.  It doesn't matter what you say in your comment, everyone gets an equal chance based on the luck of the draw.  Look for the winner to be announced here next Monday night, and good luck!

What to Do When Help is NOT On the Way

What would you do in a post-SHTF scenario if your partner or a member of your group suffered a severe, deep cut to a leg or arm with a tool such as a machete or axe?  What if the blow was so hard the blade penetrated not only flesh but nearly severed the bone in the limb as well?  It's not far-fetched at all that a person could suffer such a cut by accident or in an intentional attack.

When I was traveling through the Caribbean on my solo sea kayak journey of 1988-90, I met a young man in the town of Samana, in the Dominican Republic, who had suffered just such a horrible wound at the hands of a jealous husband wielding a machete.  He was lucky to have survived, as the attacker meant to split his skull with it.  Using his forearm to block the vicious strike, he almost lost the arm, but absorbed most of the force before it hit his face.  Far more stitches than I could count encircled the forearm that was slashed to the bone and another row extended from the top of his scalp all the way across his forehead, eyebrow, bridge of his nose and cheekbone.  All this just from one strike.  While it is certain he would have been killed instantly if he had not sacrificed his arm to block the blow, if he had been in a situation where he could not get quick medical attention, he probably would have bled out from the cut artery in his arm anyway. 

So what would you do in a case like that if you couldn't get outside help?  I was thinking about this a lot over the last two days as I worked on a scene in my current book project (the post-apocalyptic novel I'm now writing) in which one of the characters is cut almost the same way.  Getting to a hospital or calling for an ambulance is out of the question, so what choices does the person attending the victim have?  Stopping the flow of blood is obviously the first priority, and depending on the severity and location of the wound, you may have only minutes to do so.  Applying a tourniquet used to be the accepted wisdom, but it is now known that doing so almost guarantees the loss of the limb.  Applying direct pressure is much safer, and can be just as effective.  As it happens, just as I was sorting through various references on the correct way to do this, a message came through on my Twitter account informing me of a new follow by James Hubberd@thesurvivalMD, and the timing could not have been better. 

I followed the link back to his website: The Survival Doctor, and found an excellent resource on just the kind of trauma first aid information I was looking for.  Dr. Hubberd's blog posts only go back to September, but all of them are informative, with illustrations and videos that show and explain in simple terms how to deal with some pretty severe medical emergencies in the field.  Dr. Hubberd is a family M.D. with 30 years of experience in the field. What's interesting about his approach, is that as his site title suggests, he's writing this for those interested in medical preparedness in the event of a disaster, social upheaval or other situation where you're isolated and "help is not on the way."  I think this site is going to be a useful resource for all of us and I've added The Survival Doctor to my blogroll so we can all look forward to learning something new from Dr. Hubberd's updates.  And thanks to the quick-thinking actions of his brother who knew just the right thing to do because of this new site, my badly-slashed character will not only live, but may even regain full use of his right arm again.

Pine Resin for Wilderness First-Aid

Fresh pine resin is an often overlooked resource that has many uses in the wilderness.  One of these uses is to quickly seal wounds and stop bleeding.

The other day when I posted the contents of an EDC (every day carry) survival kit,  frequent commenter Dave Sears mentioned Super Glue as something he would include in such a kit.  As he says, Super Glue has many uses, including sealing a cut closed or re-installing a loosened crown on a tooth.

On another blog I frequent, Paul at the Urban Survivalist mentioned that he followed the advice in my book and went out and purchased himself a machete.  He promptly sliced open his finger with it, as happens all to often with this wickedly-dangerous tool if you are not 100% cognizant of where the edge is every moment you have one out of its sheath.  I felt bad that he got cut with something I recommended, but I've done it myself as well.  And I once took a fellow member of a survey crew to the emergency room after he nearly whacked off his index finger with one while trying to split the end of a stake he was holding upright with the other hand.

But back to the topic here.  If you spend enough time outdoors doing anything with machetes, axes, hatches, knives or even chainsaws, you're bound to get cut at some point.  Many years ago I learned an old woodsman's trick from a backwoods kinda gal who's father was a logger that had cut himself severely more than once while working alone deep in the woods with no proper first aid kit. 

I had scored a piece of glass with a glass cutter and placed it on the edge of my outdoor workbench to snap it off by pressing down with considerable force. It snapped alright, but when it did, my wrist went across the edge and the blood started pouring.  At first I thought I had hit an artery, but it wasn't nearly that bad - just a long, clean cut that let the blood flow freely and looked like it would require stitches to stop it.  But this person referred to above knew what to do, and ran away for a moment to a grove of pine trees nearby, quickly returning with a big gob of sticky, amber-colored resin which she pressed onto my wrist directly over the still pouring cut.  To my amazement, though the blood mixed with the messy pine sap, the bleeding stopped, as there was no way for it to get through this tenacious mess.  Anyone who has ever inadvertently put their hand in a patch of this stuff while passing a pine tree knows how hard it is to get off. 

I was worried that it might be harmful, but she assured me that it would not only stop the bleeding, but heal the wound.  She told me how her father had used in once after a deep cut with a chainsaw that went into his thigh almost to the bone.  I decided to experiment and test it out, leaving the resin on my wrist until it dried out enough to peel off.  When it did finally all come off, to my amazement, the cut was cleanly sealed without scabbing.  Eventually it healed with hardly a trace, much less conspicuous than another glass cut I had on a finger years before that I had sewn up with stitches in an emergency room.

I did a little searching around and found other references to pine sap's usefulness in sealing wounds.  Apparently it has anti-fungal and antibacterial properties, and is safe to use in this application, as well as for more obvious uses like making pitch glue.  Here is a discussion thread about it on the BushcraftUSA forums that you may find of interest.  The discussion gets more interesting on page 2:  

  http://www.bushcraftusa.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4613

You won't find fresh pine sap on every tree, even in a pine forest, but since that incident, whenever I make camp in the woods and there are pine trees around, I make a mental note of any particular trees in the area that are oozing sap - just in case.