Injury at Sea

[DoctorK]

I'm just curious who here has been injured on a long passage. Obviously if it's life threatening, you'd be yelling for help, but what about broken fingers, deep cuts, etc. How did you deal with it? What supplies did you have on board? What recommendations do you have for others?

I know a lot of places we cruise aren't anywhere near a medical facility, and it seems to me that if you're out there enough, eventually someone is going to get hurt.

[rockDAWG]

I have not done long passage yet, but I intend to carry all necessary medical surgical equipment and drugs (both IV and PO) to be self sufficient. Yes, I do know how to use it on myself or my love ones.

[Sixpoint]

I haven't been on a long passage either, but my plans for it are (and I would suggest for anyone else): carry as good a medical kit as you can confidently use.

For example, if you have no medical training at all, you probably don't want to waste time/money/storage space on a suture kit.

So, build yourself a trauma/medical kit that is as inclusive as possible without giving yourself the opportunity to possible make an injury/illness worse than it was.

I know that's a pretty vague sounding rule, but there are just too many contingencies to go into here. I'm almost certain there are books on the topic. I'll see if I can find some better resources and post back here.

[Boasun]

There are First Aid kits made up for:
Weekend sailing (basic FA kit)
Coastal sailing and
for Ocean crossing.
Each type is slanted for the various possibilities of illnesses and accidents.
Depending on what you are doing and your medical needs... Perscription drugs can be in the Coastal FA kit and definitely in the Oceans FA kit.
The latter two will have a dental repair (temporary) kits also... You ever broke a tooth or lost a filling or a crown you will appriciate having that kit on board.

[sck5]

It is a good idea to take a first aid course of some kind if you are going offshore. I took a Wilderness First Responder Course and learned a lot of very useful stuff I hope I never have to use.

They said the two most common serious injuries on sailboats are burns and getting bashed on the head. Assorted lacerations, broken bones, sprains, etc. come after that.

[MarioG]

My frst mate was a surgical nurse and I've taken all types of first aid classes over the years

[Sixpoint]

Also consider reference materials on the subject. For example,

Amazon.com: When There Is No Doctor: Preventive and Emergency Healthcare in Uncertain Times (Process Self-reliance…

There are many many books like this one out there. I don't have experience with any of them, so I can't recommend one. And I imagine you've already thought of this; just wanted to offer that.

[Omatako]

Make friends with your doctor and he will help you.

We did that and not only did he tell us what we would realistically need, he taught us a lot about how to give painless injections, how to reset broken limbs without x-ray, how to stitch bad lacerations, he gave us tables that described how much medication was recommended for different things and so on and then he provided us with medications from burn treatments to vials of pure morphine for pain.

Luckily up to now, we've never needed anything but the basics. Long may that endure.

[captbillc]

when we crossed the atlantic on a 42 ft vagabond (6 0f us) one was an MD. he was just what we needed- a gynecologist. he did bandage my hands when a spinnaker tack ran through my fingers cutting through to the flesh. the trouble was that i had to help get the spinnaker in with salt water running into the cuts. no infection, though.

[dhays]

Originally Posted by Sixpoint

I haven't been on a long passage either, but my plans for it are (and I would suggest for anyone else): carry as good a medical kit as you can confidently use.

Years ago when I was just a kid we were visiting some friends of my parents who lived on a lake. They owned a Thistle and the guy had taken my little sister out for a sail in the late after noon. It was light wind to begin with and then it completely died, leaving our friend and my sister sitting in the middle of the lake. The slight occasional breaths of air were coming from behind them so he had raised the centerboard somewhat. Thistle centerboards are heavy and the tip end rolls on rubber wheels as it pivots. My sister had her hand resting on the centerboard well and the cleat holding the centerboard gave way. The roller rolled right over the tip of her middle finger, crushing it. We could hear her screaming from the shore.

Well, our friend was a VA psychiatrist. However, before he did his psychiatric residency, he did a surgical rotation under a very good hand surgeon. When they finally got to shore, he was able to reshape the finger, and stitch it up.

A year later we are at a regatta on Yale Lake. Our friend was racing his Thistle, my folks their C-Lark, and I was being a dumb kid on shore. I sliced my right index finger between the 1st and 2nd joint. I almost but didn't quite sever the muscle, fortunately missed the tendons, but it was bad. When my folks came in off the water, our friend looked at the finger but he didn't have a suture kit. Another sailor, an MD did. That Doc wouldn't suture the finger for us. Our friend would have, but the MD with the suture kit wouldn't let him use it. They almost came to blows. Instead, we drove over an hour to the nearest small town emergency room, had to wait for several more hours due to a motorcycle accident that produced several victims, and finally got back to the campsite at around 2am.

The moral of the story (long story) is that if we had had a suture kit with us, our friend could have taken care of the problem. When my father suffered a stroke while my folks were cruising, anchored near them were an ER Doc and ER Nurse. They had some first aid supplies, but the point was that you never know when you may have expertise available and if so it would be nice to have the necessary supplies.

Dave