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First Aid for Fandom | Thursday, period 1

"Good morning, everyone," Hannibal greeted them. Class had been asked to meet in the Danger Shop today, and aside from enough seats for them there was also a small table against the wall with coffee and tea. "Please enjoy any caffeine and sugar you may need." He understood that need.

"The first thing you should learn when offering first aid is what we call triage, so that is what we shall cover today. Triage is the process of deciding who needs the most help, and who you are best able to help."

"One of the first things you should decide upon is where you will be helping people. If it's only one or two people that need help, you might help them wherever they are. However," he noted wryly, "this is First Aid for Fandom, and Fandom rarely affects only one or two people. If you are dealing with a more widespread disaster, you must keep yourself safe while helping others, which may mean moving as much as possible away from the affected area. If you injure or kill yourself, you won't be helping anybody, after all."

He might have been looking at his TA a bit at that.

"Of course, part of the problem then will be getting people out of danger and into an area they can be helped whenever possible. So, the first determination is whether someone is ambulatory - can they move of their own accord? If they can, have them leave the area. And if they can do so, they are also less likely to be in need of immediate medical attention. Anyone who is unlikely to die without intervention, leave for last." He held up a hand. "There are no definite answers here; you may make errors. If that bothers you, you are free to do nothing, or to run for qualified medical help." You'd be judged for it, but hey, he wasn't you.

"After that determination, you must decide who it is beyond your ability to help. If they're unlikely to live regardless of what you do, leave them for next-to-last. Helpers and their ability to help are not infinite; you must spend your time and effort where it will do the most good.

"If someone is unconscious and unresponsive, there are two things to check for most of the beings on this island - blood flow and breathing. If they are human, you can check their pulse and breathing, like so." He showed them how to check for breath and where to look for a pulse, reminding them not to use their thumb (or other appendage with a strong pulse of their own).

"Otherwise, you must do your best to determine how to check. It might not hurt to ask them in advance about their vital signs." He nodded to Peridot. "If someone who should otherwise be breathing and have a pulse is doing neither, they are likely beyond the help of first aid, and may already be dead. If they have a pulse but are not breathing, you can attempt resuscitation. If they have a pulse and are breathing, but are still unresponsive, they are in need of further assessment. And if they have no pulse but are breathing," he gave a wry smile, "they are not any organic being I'm familiar with, so I'd say get them out of the area of danger, and wait for the rest.

"Now, before moving anyone who is unresponsive, you must be careful not to injure them further. In first aid terms, check for obvious broken bones and open wounds, and stabilize those before moving them."

He held up a stack of index cards with ribbons threaded through them, then set them on the desk next to a pile of black sharpies. "This week, we aren't covering resuscitation or stabilizing wounds. For this exercise, assume that qualified medical personnel and healers are following after you; your job will be to triage only."

He pressed a few buttons, and apart from their little area, the rest of the Danger Shop became a city in the aftermath of what appeared to be a bad earthquake - there were some fires breaking out, a lot of upturned pavement and broken walls, and people lying down, sitting, and walking around covered in dust.

Hannibal nodded toward them. "Grab a pile of tags. Go there, and do what you can. Get those who can move to come here, and those who can't, determine if they need immediate care, will probably need care, will probably not need care, or are beyond care. Mark it on the card, and tie the card around a wrist or leg." Everybody would have at least one; Hannibal wasn't actually trying to traumatize anyone.

"If you have any questions, let me know, but you should do as much as possible on your own."

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Ready to label.

Take notes, ask questions, propose scenarios.

Feel free to mod your people, or ask in OOC thread if you want something specific. Also feel free to ask Hannibal for help IC.

He's here.

It's Thursday for some people, damn it!

Peridot

Peridot was tapping out notes as quickly as her phone would allow, which was pretty quickly, except for how it kept trying to be helpful and replace words for her. Come on, phone, stop helping...

The setting, with the fire and the chaos and the dust-covered humans sitting with red fluid leaking from their damaged bodies, didn't really bother Peridot at all.

Heck, she was willing to give the assignment a chance!

She just... had little idea of what she was doing. In the time it took for her to determine exactly what a pulse was supposed to feel like, she was pretty sure she'd lost a few patients somewhere along the way.

"I want a do-over," she muttered to herself.

"Are you having difficulty?" Hannibal asked her. He had wondered if her analytic ability would win over her inexperience with human bodies.

"I didn't realize that this 'pulse' you were talking about was so... faint," Peridot muttered, a blush coloring her cheeks faintly blue. "I'm not entirely certain that what I have found is the standard, either. I can determine that this human," who was only mostly dead, "does in fact have a beating heart."

Which was about it. Good job, mostly dead dude.

Summer Smith

"Ah." Hannibal nodded. "If I may?" He reached for her hand, but waited for permission.

Peridot squinted a little, but then shrugged her shoulders, nodded, and held out her hand.

Hannibal took her hand and guided it to his own neck. "My own pulse is strong and steady. Human pulses may be faster under stress, or stronger, but you may consider this a reasonable baseline."

Peridot frowned thoughtfully, nodding a little as she counted in her head each beat, made a note of how it was supposed to feel, and then looked back at the human she'd been attempting to figure it out for.

"So... that one?"

Probably not gonna pull through, but she was hesitant to make that call without having a good example for what a pulse shouldn't feel like, as well.

Hannibal felt for the man's pulse. "I have my own opinion; what is yours?"

This was about learning, Peridot.

Peridot frowned a little at the man, then back at Hannibal.

"He's unresponsive," she noted. "I... think he's breathing."

She squinted a bit. It was possible she was terribly incorrect in that regard. They'd spent some time discussing pulse in class; breathing, not so much, and she wasn't completely certain what the regular rate of air exchange was meant to be, either.

"He also seems to be leaking large amounts of red fluid and his pulse is getting harder to feel." She tilted her head. "He's damaged, but not dead. Can be be repaired?"

Hannibal hid his amusement. "He is bleeding quite a bit, and his pulse is weak, and yes, he's unresponsive. Is there a part of your body that is more sensitive than others to the sense of touch or heat?"

Peridot lifted her hands and gave her touch-stumps a wiggle.

"That is what these are for."

It was right there in the name!

Hannibal nodded. "So, to feel breath, put those fingers right in front of his mouth. See if you feel air coming out. It will be slightly more humid than the air in the room."

He held her other hand close in front of his mouth, to let her feel the difference.

Peridot was frowning even more thoughtfully, now. Holding one hand in front of Hannibal's mouth, and then reaching back toward the man prone on the ground.

...

"Oh. He's not doing that very well, either."

That was bad, right?

"He is not," Hannibal agreed. "So, he is bleeding badly, unresponsive, and has a weak pulse and breath. Can you do anything for him, or would you need a doctor?"

Peridot spread her hands a little.

"I can't do anything for him," she noted. "I don't know what to do."

Homeworld probably would have written this guy off and recycled him for resources.

"So, you can't send him straight back to safety," Hannibal said. "And he's unlikely to improve without medical help. Now you need to decide, is he likely to improve with medical help, or not?"

He smiled. "This is where many humans would have difficulty deciding. In part, you must decide based upon how others are doing. The worse off a person is, the more help they will require, and others' help must be put off.

"I can tell you as a doctor that human beings that lose all of their blood, or even most of it, do not survive without assistance; they will need more blood put back into them and their wounds treated so that it stays in their body. A man of this size should have four to five liters in his body. Also, if they have lost too much blood for too long, even if it replaced, they stand a good chance of brain damage - blood carries oxygen to the brain, and without oxygen, the brain begins to die."

Peridot hesitated a moment more, looked around, and then said, "Then he's high priority. If he can be repaired, it needs to be done before he loses too much of..."

She looked at the blood on the ground.

Kind of waved her hand at it.

"Too much of blood."

Eh, close enough.

Hannibal nodded, accepting her judgment. "So, label him as such. Write 'HIGH' on the tag, then tie it around him so it's visible."

Peridot nodded too, satisfied that she'd fumbled her way through something vaguely first-aid related. And she'd learned how to check a pulse and for breath!

Learning!

So she took one of her tags, wrote on it as instructed, and then after a moment of considering the amount of blood soaked into the man's clothing, stuck it to his forehead.

Visible!

Hannibal chuckled. "You'll want to tie it to something so it doesn't blow away from him. An arm or leg works best, although I suppose his hair or an ear would also work."

Peridot was squinting more, now. And then taking the tag back and tying it around the man's wrist, instead. Then looking at Hannibal to see that she'd done it properly.

"Making them stick would be so much more sensible."

Just saying.

"It likely would," Hannibal said. "Perhaps I'll bring stickers next time, and you could get your own in the event something like this actually happens."

Kaylin Neya

This was one heck of a lot easier for Kaylin than it would have been in real life. The people here weren't real so they didn't pull at her inherent talent the same way. And her upbringing and training made her less squeamish than most and more able to calmly assess injuries.

Hannibal nodded at her, watching. He hadn't expected her to have much difficulty here beyond refusing to let people go.

This would have been a totally different experience if the people had been real. However, Kaylin had seen many people die and killed more than she wanted to think about herself.

She could leave people behind when she had to.

Except kids. She couldn't leave kids.

Shiemi Moriyama

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First Aid for Fandom | Thursday, period 1

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