Contributor : Do It Yourself Emergency Care

Bad Dancer says:

October 21, 2022 at 9:50 am

Thank you for the article and links Reltney McFee I’ve read it several times and will go through it again to make notes soon. I appreciate you sharing your experience and advice.

I’m building a few kits as Christmas presents this year. Are there any supplies you recommend added for a family that has a 1-2 year old?

Thank you for reading.  Outstanding question! With regard to families that have toddlers (or infants), my first pass suggestions would sound very much like, “What did you want on your last camping trip, that you did not have?” along with, “what sort of comfort item does your child love?”

If I were to add to that, I would look to my own “Grand Kids Are Here:  What Might I Need RFN?” (GKAHWMINRFN) supplies. Now, remember, I’ve been a paramedic, paramedic instructor, ED Registered Nurse, and mid level provider since Jimmeh Cahteh was the HMFIC (OK:  President).

On the top of my “GKAHWMINRFN” bag is a pediatric BVM (Bag-Valve-Mask:  commonly referred to as if they were all branded as Ambu Bags).  You might be happy with a pediatric sized rescue breathing mask of some sort, or, easier to pack, mastery of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Near the top would be comfort items, so as to both distract the child, as well as help the child “buy in” to the procedures to be performed. Blankets, pacifiers, stuffed animals: whatever floats the child’s boat.

Remember that children, particularly infants and toddlers, are NOT simply pint sized adults.  Due to differences in body surface area, kidney function, maturity of their livers and other factors, they may metabolize medications quite differently from adults. So, just slapping some QuikClot on Little Johnnie’s wound may be a problem.  OTOH, here is what I did find in a reference that I use, myself, clinically every day:

“Compared with standard sponges, the use of the kaolin-impregnated sponges in 31 infants undergoing the Norwood procedure had a significantly lower intraoperative use of blood products and lower incidence of perioperative bleeding requiring return to operating room for hemostasis (0 versus 41 percent) [44].” (source: https://www.uptodate.com/contents/overview-of-topical-hemostatic-agents-and-tissue-adhesives?search=quick%20clot&source=search_result&selectedTitle=1~150&usage_type=default&display_rank=1#H2249912903

That means, better bleeding control. THAT suggests that a kaolin-impregnated sponge (QuikClot), at least, is not inappropriate for use on bleeding in children that is not otherwise controllable by dressing, direct pressure, and (in extremis) tourniquet-ting. So, small (2×2, 3×3) dressings impregnated with QuikClot appear to be reasonable.

Splinting materials for fingers, limbs, or whatever, are going to be a challenge, both because children do not, as a rule, comprehend the entire “lay still while I splint you” thing, nor the bit about “do not wiggle about, you will work you way out of this splint, and your injured (whatever) will hurt, and be injured further.”  So, however much tape or gauze you THINK that you will need, you are wrong, and will require considerably more than you guessed. Unless, of course, you have made it a habit to secure IV armboards to infants and toddlers, several times a day, for the past several years.  If you have done so, and done so successfully, please tell me when/where your classes will be, and save me a seat.

Another tangent from adult IFAK/Jump Bag/Holy Fertilizer kits, and child directed emergency care, is that children will both dehydrate, as well as become hypothermic way, way more rapidly than adults, and, once they have burned through their reserves, will crash and burn, often irretrievably. The axiom is that children generally do OK with their injuries, until they don’t.  And, when they don’t, they crash biggly. Adults generally slowly decline, until they die. Therefore, measures to protect a child from heat loss are important.  That means blankets and knit caps in appropriate sizes.  The foil “emergency blankets” are a mixed bag:  they are not going to get saturated in whatever bodily fluid is present (good thing), but they are not going to trap heat in a maze of air pockets formed by a Mark 1, Mod Ø fuzzy/fleece/wool blanket. (and you will notice the difference). Select thoughtfully.

Another feature of kid injuries, particularly infants and toddlers, is that they are top heavy.  Their heads are a greater proportion of their body weight than adults, and that means that their initial point of impact may be more likely to be their heads, than their hands/wrists/forearms. Therefore, when you are in the hot seat, you need to be suspicious of the possibility of a head injury, when children fall. You have learned to spine board/cervical collar/secure for transport, head (and that is often spelled N-E-C-K) injured patients, right?

Right?

Another needful skill, that you pray is never needed.

That is it for my off the cuff, just got home from work and warmed up my laptop, answer to your question.

Thank you for the stimulating inquiry.  Gonna be food for more rumination!

Spokesperson Drew Hammill said the assailant is in custody and the motivation for the attack is under investigation.

Nancy Pelosi was not in the residence at the time. pic.twitter.com/TltjUJfhyO

— The Associated Press (@AP) October 28, 2022

I guarantee you that the assailants are either Black or illegal immigrants and neither had any idea who Paul or Nancy Pelosi are.

If they were white men, especially if they had the faintest association with the Right the media would be exploding with how this was Right Wing extremist political violence.

That the media is not doing this speaks volumes about the assailants even though the police haven’t said anything.

Jim drove his cart over to Bill’s farm. He had a hundred bails of hay stacked in the back. When he got to Bill’s farm Bill’s son unloaded the hay and Bill gave Jim an IOU for 200 pounds of wheat.

Jim thanked Bill and headed off to town. When he got to town he went to the blacksmith to have his mare’s shoes replaced. He gave the IOU from Bill for 200 pounds of wheat to the blacksmith. The blacksmith handed him 3 IOU’s from Bill for 50 pounds each of wheat.

Jim thanked the blacksmith and headed over to the general store. There he picked up a bolt of cloth for his wife a box of 50 rounds of .45 Colt, and 50 pounds of flour. He handed the store clerk to of Bill’s 50 pound IOU’s. The clerk gave him back a 20 pound IOU and a 5 pound IOU.

Jim headed back home.

He had just traded 5000 pounds of hay for new shoes for his mare, cloth for his wife, cartridges for his pistol, flour for his food and he still had 1875 pounds of hay in his pocket.

Money is just a token used to indicate a certain amount of value. The value of that token is set by the trust of the people using that token.

In our example, Bill has promised that he will exchange any of his IOUs for the face value in wheat grain. In this he has set the value.

The blacksmith didn’t need or want hay or grain. He wants a pig to turn into food. He can trade the IOUs he got from Jim to some pig farmer in exchange for a pig. At no time did he have to transfer large bulky goods.

The blacksmith is mostly trading his time for the IOUs. He is selling his labor. The general store is selling convenience and storage in exchange for IOUs

The general store uses some form of barter or trade, including Bill’s IOUs, to purchase things that he doesn’t need in order to store them in his store. Since he has limited shelf space he can’t have everything. He is investing his wealth into his stock. While that stock is sitting on the shelves or warehouse he can’t use it for anything else.

The general store is also trading wealth for transportation. They are paying to have goods transported from where they are available to the store for resale.

If you have ever gone into a hardware store to purchase just a couple of bolts, screws or nuts, you are paying for that storage. The store has thousands of dollars invested in that stock of every type of nut, bolt, washer, and screw that normal people could want.

But what happens if Bill dies and his wife and children just up and go. Are Bill’s IOUs worth anything at that point?

Yes. They are worth exactly what people believe they are worth. If anybody else wants to match the face value in pounds of wheat then those IOUs are stable in value.

Even if nobody is willing to trade a 20# IOU for 20# of wheat, those IOUs still have value. It might be the case that instead of getting 20# of wheat for a 20# IOU you can only get 10# of wheat. Is the IOU worth less?

Maybe not. If you can still get your horse shoed for a 50# IOU and you can still get cartridges, cloth and flour from the general store with Bill’s IOUs, then they still have value.

The difference is that the value of Bill’s IOUs are no longer backed with physical wheat. It is backed by the concept of value assigned by each person that uses those IOUs to exchange wealth.

Here are some of the problems though, if Bill’s IOUs can be faked, counterfeited, then there is the possibility for bad actors to create IOUs without adding value to the system. To many counterfeit IOUs and the value of the IOUs will drop, as will the trust in those IOUs.

It is also possible for Bill to create more IOUs than he has grain to back. As long as everybody believes that the IOUs are backed by actual wheat, this doesn’t matter. As soon as people understand that Bill just creates more IOUs when he wants to buy something they will start to distrust his IOUs. This is inflation.

All money is, is a token to indicate value. That token holds that value as long as people believe in the token and as long as IOUs are not being injected into the economy with no added value. I.e. counterfeiting and printing them.

Kinda, sort of like this:

But as you can imagine if you saw the film, not quite as good-natured.

OK, he does not look like that, but that is the pic I have on my phone with his number.

I stepped outside a couple of minutes ago and was regaled with this view.

And my brain automatically found the proper soundtrack.  I believe I had not heard this song in 20 years or so.

Let’s begin.

With the elections coming in a couple of weeks and by the crap I have read in Social Media, if you don’t vote Democrat, I am supposed to take over my zip code and start scalping transgender babies or some shit like that.
Who knew?

Apropos of nothing.

.

That moment when you see the new hire and you know the last job was with a crew wearing a yellow vest picking garbage from the side of the road being followed by a sheriff’s car.

It never ceases to amaze me how people resent you do a good job. I believe that being mediocre takes more effort than doing things the right way the first time around.

I may be crazy for thinking this way, I guess.

No. Just because you are in Nashville and have an instrument, you are not necessarily a good player who should have a recording contract. In fact, you could scare rats and other vermin the way you play that thing.

Truly Nolan is hiring.

And the last one for today: Life imitates memes.

https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1585395267552960512?t=d7YybSPeHUR9jRa_Orye1A&s=19

A lot of people commented on just how useless this girl must be at Twitter that her day includes all of this bullshit and wine drinking.

But I wanted to point out something that everyone else seemed to miss.

The macha tea, wine one tap, yoga room, everything about that workspace seemed like a spa for women.

During her meeting, I didn’t see any men.

Where are they?

I suspect that they are in a cubicle farm somewhere being code monkeys.

85% of computer science and programming majors are men.

I highly suspect that in Silicon Valley, male privilege is being one of the core competency programmers slamming out code all day and never seeing daylight while all the useless people are enjoying company provided Macha and red wine in a day spa made possible by your work.