Even under the best conditions medical emergencies come up. That’s pretty much the reason emergency rooms and urgent care exist. In a survival situation these medical emergencies will be greater and your ability to care for them will be greatly diminished.
While there are quite a few first-aid guides out there, the three major medical issues you’ll likely face are breathing issues, severe bleeding, and shock. While there are other issues that you’ll face, the major issues with each basically come down to these three. Each is unique in it’s own way, and with some basic information you can help with these medical emergencies and get everyone out safe.
New to this post series? Check out Part 1 here.
WARNING: The information here is to be used as a basis for learning life-saving skills and should by no means be the end-all reference for saving lives. Doctors are doctors for a good reason and with this information we only hope to provide you with an overview of common medical emergencies in survival situations.
Go get CPR and first-aid training if you plan on being able to save lives and use this as a way to know what you’ll be up against. With the legal warnings out of the way, let’s get into it.
Breathing Issues
Issues with breathing can come from a variety of sources including both internal and external influence. If an airway is obstructed, whether it’s from swelling, tongue blockage, or foreign matter, You only have a few short minutes to solve a breathing problem before it’s too late.
Some sources of airway obstruction are:
- Foreign Matter – An object that can be food or an inedible item can easily block the airway and obstruct the opening to the trachea.
- Injury – Injuries to the face or neck can collapse the airway and make it difficult or impossible to breathe.
- Swelling – Swelling can be caused by a variety of sources including poisoning, allergic reaction, and the inhalation of toxic fumes or smoke. When enough swelling occurs the airway can be partially or completely blocked.
- Body Position – If someone is passed out, his or her neck can be positioned in a way that they are cutting airflow off to their body. This is most commonly seen when the head slumps forward to the point the chin rests on the chest.
- Tongue – Everyone’s heard the warning about “swallowing your tongue” before, but what this means is that the muscles in the lower jaw and tongue relax, causing the lower jaw to sag and the tongue to fall back into the throat, blocking air.
Each of these sources of airway blockage come with their own solutions, and most require some professional medical instruction to fix correctly. Knowing the sources can help you anticipate possible emergencies.
Severe Bleeding
In an emergency or survival situation severe bleeding can kill as quickly if not quicker than breathing issues. Severe bleeding usually occurs when a major blood vessel or artery is punctured or sliced completely through.
The average person has around 5.6 liters of blood in them, but this number will vary based on weight, age, and health. This means that losing 1 liter of blood will give the injured person mild symptoms of shock (more on shock in a minute), losing 2 liters produces a severe state of shock that can easily kill a person, and finally 3 or more liters of blood loss generally means death.
The loss of blood to the point of death, also known as exsanguination, can come from both internal as well as external sources. Extreme damage to internal organs can cause internal bleeding that can kill as quickly as external loss.
Shock
Shock is something we’ve all heard before but few people know what it really is. Basically shock is not a disease in of itself, but rather is a description of an acute stress reaction. Shock is:
“a clinical condition characterized by symptoms that arise when cardiac output is insufficient to fill the arteries with blood under enough pressure to provide an adequate blood supply to the organs and tissues.“
-U.S. Army Survival Manual FM 21-76.
The short version of that is that the body isn’t getting enough blood flow to sustain the major organs of the body, including the heart and brain. This generally occurs after a major injury in which a significant amount of blood is lost.
The Mayo Clinic has some great tips on treating shock and some warning signs you can look for. Shock comes in many forms but all can easily kill a wounded person.
Wrap-Up
Treating these major types of medical emergencies are a post all of their own, and ideally should be taught by a professional face-to-face. The next post in this series will talk all about treating and dealing with these three major medical emergencies so you’re better prepared and can keep calm in the face of emergency.