We do like to play…tips to keep you away from us

Playing with new toys this week. Very exciting. Tourniquets that stop spurts of arterial blood from partially severed limbs. No doubt they will save many people that we would previously not expect to survive.

A special word, though, for interosseous fluid giving sets. In a critically ill patient requiring fluids, we commonly stick in IV lines to run fluid in. In a patient who is very fluid-depleted this is often an extremely difficult task, as the dehydrated patient’s veins shrivel up and shy away from you. All we achieve is stabbing a poor sod in the arm (or groin) several times with no end product.

So, an alternative is to give fluid directly into the bone marrow, or ‘interosseously’. We have a lovely bit of kit that looks a little less sophisticated than a Black&Decker cordless drill that will bore a large hole into one of your bones (a few centimetres below the knee in the tibial bone seems to be a favoured spot). Through this we give fluid directly and quickly.

Does it hurt? Of course it bloody does! As do most things we do to our trauma patients to save their lives. So, here are a few tips to help you avoid me and my fellow drill/saw/sharp needle-wielding maniacs.

 1) Wear a bloody seatbelt. In a recent horror smash at our hospital, two young blokes in a car walked away, and the third broke his neck and died. The difference…you guessed it.

2) Don’t jump. It is excruciatingly painful when you land, and a broken pelvis hurts like a bugger for months.

3) Cyclists: bright pink leggings, fluorescent yellow tops, floodlights and a prayer to St. Christopher. You’ll look like an idiot but the car drivers will see you. And miss you.

4) Pedestrians. Those headlights don’t want to come and play and they don’t want to be your friend. Wait

5) Don’t race other drivers on the motorway with your young child in the back. You won’t get away with it, and neither will he/she.

6) Fence-jumping at 3am is not advised. Particularly after a whiskey-crack chaser, and if being chased by a 7ft imaginary monster.

7) Taking a midnight dive into the neighbour’s pool is probably only a good idea if they have filled it with water first.

8) If you are scared of your mother, don’t cut yourself up smashing a petrol station shop’s windows. The police will be called; they’ll call her; and you’ll end up cowering in the corner crying whilst I’m trying to stitch you up.

9) Metal cutters are for metal, not your fingers (that one was me, actually, in a previous life!)

10) If you slip on ice and nearly knock yourself out, don’t do a slow-motion re-enactment for your friends a few seconds later. Or if you do, don’t end up knocking yourself out for real. (Yup, that one was also me).

11) If you get shot in the same place twice, don’t go back there again. Don’t expect sympathy when we see you for the third time.

12) Don’t piss off a knife wielding spouse. Especially if you have a long neck. And definitely don’t do it twice in the same year.

13) Don’t drink and fry. A chip-pan is a lethal weapon in the wee small hours after a big night out.

Hope you find the above of use. If not, I’ll be waiting.

With my drill.