You're Not Bleeding Out on My Watch!
- Sharie Weakley
- Aug 12
- 4 min read
About a year ago I was happily slicing zucchini with my new mandolin slicer. I was quite pleased with the nice, even, thin pieces I was producing: a very proud moment. But then I sliced off the end my pinkie finger.
I think I knew instinctively that this was supposed to be a dangerous activity, but I was over-confident. As a chunk of my finger smoothly sliced off (and into the sink), I could clearly see all the veins and insides of my finger structure before it started bleeding rather profusely. However, being stalwart as I am, I slapped a couple of band aids on it and continued slicing. Almost immediately there was again blood everywhere (except on the zucchini; I was being careful). So I grabbed a piece of paper towel and tightly wound it around the finger. I need to get this zucchini finished! We need dinner!
But soon the blood soaked through the paper towel and I wrapped another, bigger paper towel around it. It soaked through again, surprisingly quickly. I was perhaps slightly more concerned, but I did finish the zucchini slicing and got the blood wiped off the counter, as well as ran the garbage disposal (incidentally with that bit of flesh in it. That felt wrong.)
So I head upstairs and ask my daughter to help me bandage it. Now the chunk off my finger was about the size of a Cheerio, maybe less. My daughter takes one look at it and says, “Mom, you have to go to urgent care. We are not going to be able to bandage that.” Ok, fine. We’ll go to the walk-in clinic; it closes in twenty minutes but we’ll make it.
We get there, they soak it, get it to clot, etc. Then this is the good part. The APRN pulls out some hemostatic gauze – commercially known as QuikClot. I had read about this! This was very exciting.
The methods medics used to stop bleeding in combat wounded troops hadn't changed since the Civil War (basically direct pressure and tourniquets).
At the end of the last century, 50,000 Americans a year bled to death from traumatic injuries in hospitals, in traffic accidents, and as a result of gun violence. The problem of “bleeding out” was also one of the military’s top concerns on the battlefield.
During the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, uncontrolled hemorrhage accounted for nearly 50% of battlefield deaths prior to evacuation.
Trauma exceeds all of the other causes of death combined in persons younger than 36 years of age.
(Also, hemorrhage causes hypothermia. If you can stop the bleeding, you won’t die of hypothermia.)
This stuff will clot blood from a wound in under three minutes. It clots 5x faster than with ordinary gauze. In me, that was pretty minor; but in a major wound, that is HUGE. I am a true believer in this stuff. All U.S. soldiers carry it in their packs now as they go into battle. Police officers, firefighters, medics – they all carry it.
So the APRN cuts a square about 1.5 times the size of the wound and presses it on, then wraps it in gauze, tape, elastic wrap, etc. and sends me on my way. It throbbed a bit, but the bleeding had clearly stopped, and I was on my way to recovery.
I was told to change the bandage 48 hours later, so I carefully removed the outer covering and inspected the QuikClot. It had absorbed blood right at the wound, but was not saturated – clearly it had stopped the bleeding at the site. Also, it was hardened and adhered to the wound – there was no way I was pulling it off, and I wasn’t supposed to. (Obviously in an ER with a large wound they would have the means to safely do that.) As the wound healed over the next week or two, I would carefully trim the edges as the part still adhered to me continued to shrink, and it all healed beautifully. I was very impressed. Had I had some of this stuff at home, I could have bandaged my own finger and skipped the time and money going to urgent care.
Come October or November, I start thinking about Christmas presents (I’m very proactive, and I use a spreadsheet to track everything). I decided that, in the name of love and safety, that all my close relatives were getting QuikClot for Christmas. My nieces and nephew are all athletic and adventurous, and all in the most vulnerable age group, as are my daughters. I also included all the parents. Everyone got two packages: one for the car and one for home. This stuff is not cheap; it’s $19 for a strip that’s 3 in. x 2 feet, individually wrapped. But in our family $40 is fine for basic Christmas presents outside the immediate family. Even if it doesn’t actually save their life, it may allow them to be a hero saving someone else’s.
Well, last night I was vindicated. My niece texted a picture of her friend with her finger bandaged, writing, “My neighbor cut her finger and I used the gauze you gave me to wrap it up! It really came in handy!” I cannot express the joy I felt. My whole way of thinking, gift-giving and life is now vindicated. Long live QuikClot!!
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