fandomhigh | First Aid: Extreme Edition, Monday Fifth Period

Don was a bit out of sorts today. He'd had plans to spend the weekend finishing getting everything planned out for his class after he and Thor had spent the week off doing some hiking along the Appalachian Trail. Instead, he had somehow completely lost the weekend and Thor, after determining that fact, refused to tell him what had happened other than, 'The island did a thing.'

Very helpful, Thor. Very informative.

Flying by the seat of his pants it was!

"Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to 'First Aid: Extreme Edition.' I am Dr. Donald Blake, although I still do not have a current license to practice medicine. The wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly and all that. I recognize most of your faces, but a couple of you are new, so let's start with introductions. Name, something interesting about yourself, any first aid training you've had previously, any particulars you would find useful. You know how introductions work."

Once that was done, he said, "So you're probably wondering, 'What do I do when my buddy just cut off his own hand with his laser sword?' Lightsaber," he corrected himself. "Apparently it's called a lightsaber. And the good news is, lasers cauterize, so your buddy isn't going to bleed to death. The bad news is that lasers cauterize, so reattaching the limb is going to be nigh impossible, but that's a surgeon's problem, not yours. Put it on ice just in case anyway. Then your real danger you need to watch for is going to be shock, which I believe Thor covered in our class on splints, but for those of you who weren't there--" Don proceeded to quickly run through the warning signs of shock and what to do about it.

"Speaking of cauterization, it is in most cases not best first aid practice in the modern world. Cauterization is, for those of you unfamiliar, the technique of burning, usually by the application of hot metal, the flesh in order to stop bleeding or remove something like a tumor. It does work, and you may find yourselves in a situation where it's useful, so I just want to make you aware of it.

"Now, let's say your buddy just cut his limb off with not a laser sword. Let's say he lost a finger to a kitchen knife. It happens. Step one, control bleeding. Get a dish towel or something and apply pressure on the wound. Step two, get the finger on ice. This will give a good surgeon the best chance of reattaching it. If you're talking about a larger limb then this is when you would use a tourniquet, and keep that limb elevated above the head and the heart to slow blood flow. You may even have to pinch off the artery--yes, with your fingers. Yes, I know. But you want to give your friend the best possible chance of keeping his life and his hand, even though it's currently lying over there in an ice chest.

"Does anyone have any questions?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's all fun and games until someone loses a hand.

Ignis Scientia

Beta

Arden Finch

Henry

You may have to what the artery?

What did it say when thinking about pinching off someone's artery was better to focus on than pretty much anything else she'd thought about today?

Nothing good, probably.

Edited 2024-07-08 17:18 (UTC)

Ignis had a small recorder in front of him for the lecture, but that wasn't going to stop him from paying avid attention now.

Even if his mind was sort of wandering, just a little bit, on how certain events of the weekend, if somehow prophetic, would absolutely change his perspective on a situation like this considerably...

You know the drill!

"Umm, I'm Arden Finch," Arden replied, subdued, her eyes on her desk. "I've taken Dr. Blake's first aid course, but that's pretty much it for any other relevant experience." On the plus side, she hadn't taken any OTHER courses offered by the school, so...bonus?

And was skipping the 'something interesting' part of the question entirely.

"Welcome back," Don said with a smile. "Glad to see I didn't manage to traumatize you too badly." In more ways than one.

Also, hopefully that wouldn't change today with the whole artery thing.

"I'm pretty hard to traumatize with this kind of stuff," Arden said.

Mostly by virtue of having come in pre-traumatized. Good to get it out of the way early!

"But glad to be back, sir."

In the medical field, they called that philosophy 'residency,' and hey, it worked! Look at Don!

"Good to know," he told her. "But if I cross a line you can step out at any time. Actually, that goes for everyone," he said, making a mental note to make an announcement.

You mean the Don of this weekend? That Don?

Arden nodded. "Will do, sir."

Don was blissfully ignorant of that guy! (And Thor was still debating on whether or not he should stay that way.)

He smiled and nodded at her one last time before moving on to the next student.

"Henry," she waved. "I took your other class, same as Arden," she offered.

"I like putting potato chips in sandwiches." Not the most interesting interesting fact but all the really juicy stuff was stuff she wasn't ready to share.

"Hi, Henry," Don said to her. "Same as with Arden, welcome back. I've never tried the chips thing, but it sounds interesting."

"Ignis Scientia," he offered, with a nod of his head. "Feeling exceptionally relieved to be accurately placed in the correct first aid class this session. I have a great deal of field experience already, although, admittedly, my world of origin does come with things like healing magic and potion-like curatives that does take some of the guess work and the immediacy out of urgent care. All the more reason, I felt, to brush up on my skills, as those shortcuts are, more often than not, not available to me. And I suppose it would be important to mention, as well, though I don't like to draw attention to it, that I am blind. I don't expect it will hinder me too much, but I am not so proud as to think it might not cause the occasional extra challenge."

"May I ask what, if anything, you can see?" Don asked, since he was well aware that blindness was a spectrum. He had planned to do some more brushing up on that over the weekend, but--well, whatever had happened had happened, and any hope of cramming this morning had been lost to, 'Oh, would you look at the time, must get to paintball.'

"From a teaching perspective, your condition does present a complication, although obviously not an insurmountable one. Diagrams can be described, and so forth. How have you handled assessing patients in the past, if you don't mind my asking? There's a lot of visual information most of us rely on that obviously...you can't. Some things can be done by feel, of course, but that introduces its own complications which I'm sure you've already considered. Although I suppose healing magic would make all of this a heck of a lot easier," he said wryly.

"Nothing at all," Ignis answered, with a clearly habitual push of his glasses up his nose, "unfortunately. Complete darkness. However, I did spend 23 years of my life with sight, and that, thankfully, informs my perception a great deal. A bit of a memory game, sometimes, but still effective. Touch, smell, effective communication and a well-trained ear can still provide a good deal of information, especially when one is not used to relying on visual cues. There's no need to adjust any of your methods, Doctor, I assure you. I'll follow as best I can, and let us worry about what bridges need to be traversed as we come to them. The last thing I'd want is for anyone to be held back in any way for my sake."

For any you may have.

What happened this weekend?

Ugh I have a cold.

First Aid: Extreme Edition, Monday Fifth Period

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