Lots of injuries, how to treat them?

Based on common sense, wake up the guy with the assumed concussion. And keep waking him every couple of hours. For the scrapes and the gash, clean them off. If water is available, and a method of boiling it, boil the water. I have read that honey has antiseptic properties. If you can locate a honeycomb, smear the honey liberally on all the scrapes. Bruises you wouldn't need to do anything about. For the gash on the arm, unless a deer wanders by that you can kill and harvest sinew for thread and bone to make a needle, you will probably need to just pull the edges together (after washing with the boiled water) and wrap it fairly tightly (but not so tight that it is like a tourniquet). For the broken leg, pull it straight and splint it with tree branches. Unrelated to these injuries (but perhaps needed if you find that honeycomb), in south GA in the fifties a wad of well-chewed chewing tobacco was used by my neighbor to draw bee and wasp venom from stings. A lot is going to depend on where this crash took place. Different things available in upstate NY than in central AZ. Hope any of this helps.

MM

Repeatedly waking a person with a head injury is diagnostic, not therapeutic. All those TV shows depicting a person being forcibly roused to keep the patient from falling into an irreversible coma have it wrong. If brain trauma is taking the person deeper into unconsciousness (coma) waking them up won't actually be possible. Trying to wake up a person at midnight that was able to be awoken at 9 pm merely let's the person annoying the sleeper know when the cerbral edema got severe enough that the patient was no longer responsive to verbal stimuli.

There are only two treatable injuries here, the cut and the leg fx. The head injury needs to be monitored, given supportive care (put on side if vomits, kept warm) but there isn't anything concrete to do to fix the concussion...it's more a matter of monitoring. The gash would do well cleaned if possible, bandaged if possible, even sutured or steri-stripped but it sounds as if your char is ill equipped for such a feat. The leg fx- depends compound or simple (is bone sticking out?). Lowere or upper (femur would be extremely painful and the hamstrings and quads are extremely powerful, when they spasm the fx ends will damage, the higher on the femur better chance of lacerating femoral artery or vein= significant hemorrhage...there is a way to fashion a traction splint w/ very rudimentary stuff (needs padding, picture the stout stick rammed between the legs...and this pt is a guy...) and this needs to be done for pain control as much as to stabilize the fx...however this is not "setting" the bone" just an effort to make it more stable, to overpower the thigh muscles. For a lower leg simple fx, just splint it...I would not try to reduce it unless I really think we're going to be living out the rest of our lives in the boonies, never back to civilization.
As far as apitherapy, again, not unless we're never going back to civilazation. Not a good enough trade off to introduce foreign matter into an open wound.

The guy who knows how to treat himself is going to kow basic first aid, so:

1. Concussion: As Horseshoes stated, let the guy sleep. Keep slightly elevated to avoid aspiration of vomit. Rolling on the side may help some, but if vomit is pockets in the cheek, it can still be aspirated. Your survivalist (if that's what he is) would know to check pupils occasionally for dilation.

2. Cuts and scrapes can be cleaned even with cold, unboiled water. Not the medium of choice, but good enough to flush out dirt and other assorted nasties. Your guy would know to look for animal tracks by water sources to partially decide on the quality of water. Any pastures, keep upstream from the herd. Ew, ok?

3. The leg should not be splinted tightly until all swelling has gone down. This can take 2-4 days depending on the severity of the fracture. Have the person doing first aid remove the splint every few hours or just completely loosen it, to allow for more room and to check swelling.

4. The gash should be cleaned out. Old timers and a survivalist may just think of using moonshine or another alcoholic substance (vodka, whiskey) to clean it out, especially if there is any sign of infection at all. If there is thread, as you said, then if the wound is too bad to hold together with wrapping, have the wilderness dude sew it up. He would put one stitch, tie it off, and then go for another. Plain cotton thread will work, white is best. Fishing line will even work in a pinch.

Bruises and such can be treated by different old fashioned methods. In a rural are with no doctor you will run into a lot of herbal wisdom.The foothills of an area may have herbs such as ginseng, witch hazel, and comfrey. Comfrey was the treatment of choice for bruises, rashes, and other assorted cuts. Witch hazel can help with bruises by tightening blood vessels and reducing blood flow under the skin.

SouthernFriedJulie said:

The guy who knows how to treat himself is going to kow basic first aid, so:

1. Concussion: As Horseshoes stated, let the guy sleep. Keep slightly elevated to avoid aspiration of vomit. Rolling on the side may help some, but if vomit is pockets in the cheek, it can still be aspirated. Your survivalist (if that's what he is) would know to check pupils occasionally for dilation.

2. Cuts and scrapes can be cleaned even with cold, unboiled water. Not the medium of choice, but good enough to flush out dirt and other assorted nasties. Your guy would know to look for animal tracks by water sources to partially decide on the quality of water. Any pastures, keep upstream from the herd. Ew, ok?

3. The leg should not be splinted tightly until all swelling has gone down. This can take 2-4 days depending on the severity of the fracture. Have the person doing first aid remove the splint every few hours or just completely loosen it, to allow for more room and to check swelling.

4. The gash should be cleaned out. Old timers and a survivalist may just think of using moonshine or another alcoholic substance (vodka, whiskey) to clean it out, especially if there is any sign of infection at all. If there is thread, as you said, then if the wound is too bad to hold together with wrapping, have the wilderness dude sew it up. He would put one stitch, tie it off, and then go for another. Plain cotton thread will work, white is best. Fishing line will even work in a pinch.

Bruises and such can be treated by different old fashioned methods. In a rural are with no doctor you will run into a lot of herbal wisdom.The foothills of an area may have herbs such as ginseng, witch hazel, and comfrey. Comfrey was the treatment of choice for bruises, rashes, and other assorted cuts. Witch hazel can help with bruises by tightening blood vessels and reducing blood flow under the skin.

Click to expand...

This is what I would suggest also along with keeping the fractrued leg elevated to help reduce the swelling. If there is a really cold stream, a cloth dampened in the cold water could be used in place of an ice pack to help reduce the swelling even more. I would not suggest the honey due to the sugars in it. They can feed the bacterial that were introduced from the skin in the laceration process and close off the air supply to the wound that would allow increased growth of gangrene or other anaerobic organisms.

Actually raw honey has pretty well-established antibacterial properties:

http://tinyurl.com/ncs3k