The Prepper Broadcasting Network - MEDICAL MONDAY: Treat Fractures, Face Masks, and Tourniquets - Dr Bones & Nurse Amy

Episode Date: April 27, 2026

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It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine. That's great it starts with an earthquake, birds, snakes and aeroplanes, many brutes are not afraid. I have a speedy, listen to yourself, the world, but they don't need something to give your own head, feed it up, and ask, we've got no shoes. A manor, quickly clatter with the fear fight down night, fire in the fire, and the citizen of the gang, and the government for hire in the combat site. But you're coming in a hurry to get you down your neck. To be in the border, trap the Trump, and that's all plain fine.

And up to the overfall, poppy in the corner, but in the news, see you have to be your heart, tell me the direction in the red room of the right. Use witchriotic, bitchie at a plant, right, right, feeling it's the wind in sight. It's the end of... To the doom and bloom hour with medical preparedness experts, Dr. Bones and Nurse Amy. Your source for information on how to succeed if everything else fails.

And now, your host, Dr. Bones. and Nurse Amy. In the end of the world as we know it. In the dark heart of the city, a mysterious figure known as Dr. Bones. That's me, a mysterious geyser. How mysterious do geysers get? I don't know. Not too mysterious.

Oh, I think so. You think so? I absolutely do. I appreciate all geysers of the world. Well, I will try... Both young and old. All right. Well, I'll try to up my...

Yes. I will try to up my mysterious quotient today. Okay. Hey, this is the hour of doom. And bloom. That's right, friends and neighbors. Welcome to the Doom and Bloom Survival Medicine Hour, an hour of honesty in an onerous world.

I'm Joel Lendmd, also known as Dr. Bones of Doom and Bloom.net. You'll find over a thousand post videos and podcasts on medical preparedness. for any disaster on our website. And this is Amy Alton, also known as Nurse Amy. I am an advanced registered nurse practitioner and a certified nurse midwife. And together we are the Masters of Disasters, the hosts with the most. And a spectacular set of spouses, I would say. And we are here to help the faithful few keep it together, even if everything else falls apart.

Now, this week we're working to change our format a little bit. In fact, over the next few weeks, we're going to be doing that. So we don't have such a long housekeeping session. I know. Sorry about that, guys, for what, the past eight years? Right. And a half years. Before we get to the medical stuff.

Did we start in 2010? Yeah, I think we did. In different... October 2010. Different incarnations, though. Different networks and things like that. It doesn't matter. We've been doing one every week. Just about.

Yes, that's right. I have to figure out how many, many total episodes that is. that's quite a few. I've got here. Yes, because you don't let me take vacations. That's right, because we have a mission, and we have to put a medically prepared person in every family. How are we going to do that if we're just fiddling around?

I know, but I say, honey, we're here, we're there, we're in this hotel, we have terrible internet. That's okay. We must do the show. That's absolutely right. Friends and neighbors, have you been injured in an accident with a dirty dog? You dirty dog. Well, our attorney says don't call me, call Dr. Bones and Nurse Amy. And listen to this.

Short a version. Yes. All information given and opinions voiced on Dr. Bones and Nurse Amy's Survival Medicine Hour are for entertainment purposes only and do not represent medical advice for anything other than post-apocalyptic settings. Dr. Bones and Nurse Amy strongly urge their audience to seek modern and standard medical care whenever and wherever it is available. That's right. You could do some good and bad times, but only. If you show the world, you got more sense than a case of cuckoo birds and get the training you need.

And while you're at it, you need a medical kit. I can't think of a better place to get that medical kit than Nurse Amy's entire line of often imitated. Never Equal Medical kits at store.combeambleum.com. They'll help you deal with medical issues that you'd face in any disaster. They would make your workplace, your school, your church safer, make your home safer, even more important. And they're designed by an honest-to-gosh medical doctor. advanced registered nurse practitioner. Compare our kits for quality,

contents, costs with anybody else's stuff, you'll agree. Our kits are the ones that you should have in your medical storage. And if you want more proof, just check out our testimonials page at store.dumboom.net. And see what folks, just like you, have to say about our medical kits and service.

On top of all that, our kits are approved for your help and flexible savings accounts. Just look at our special HSAFSA section in the store. Absolutely. Well, you know, we've been talking about tourniquets and stopping the bleed and things like this. I think stop the bleed month. I know that Stop the Bleed Day is May 23rd.

And it's great, actually, that the government is supportive of our efforts to try to get people to have the materials available to stop bleeding if they come upon somebody who's had an accident. It's true. It is a flip from previous beliefs that tourniquets would basically kill you and they're going to have to cut your arm off if you leave it on for more than five minutes. So you should never ever use a tourniquet unless someone's just about to die. Totally flipped from that to, hey, turnicates can save lives. Let's teach everyone how to use a tourniquet,

exactly like they had a campaign about CPR. Well, you're right about the attitude towards tourniquets. I mean, the tourniquets have been used to control bleeding for centuries, And they've sort of gone from being reviled as the tool of the devil. Actually, that was a statement made, I think, in a British Army medical manual from World War I to being praised as a probable first course of action in any real severe bleeding episodes. But we've learned a few painful lessons in our armed conflicts recently that also have been evidence for tourniquets being part. of the deal for anybody's medical storage.

And so we believe that turnicates saved lives that would otherwise be lost to hemorrhage, and that is military, but also in civilian life. In civilian life, if you can use a tourniquet rapidly and effectively at the scene of an accident or at the scene of any situation, any disaster, well, it could give valuable time for emergency medical personnel to arrive. Not only that, but every drop in the person's body is blood carrying oxygen to the vital organs. Yes. The less blood, the less oxygen, the more tissue death that that person may sustain. So you want to keep every drop of blood that you can in the body.

And someone asked me on the phone yesterday, actually. I had a conversation. And he wanted to know, how do you know? when to put a tourniquet on. And I do think you should write an article, specifically just that one little question. Because I thought it was pretty interesting, and this is a guy who's pretty well trained. He might even be listening to this podcast. And it seems so clear to me, just, I guess, because I have medical background, that the simple answer is, if what you're doing isn't working in a very short period of time and for me it would be about 20 to 30 seconds tops if it just

seems like I'm putting my hands on the faucet and the water is not stopping that I have to put a tourniquet on because I need to keep the blood inside that body that's the thing you need to keep the blood and not inside the body soaked up in gauze but inside the body inside the blood vessels Right. That's where you want it. Right. Well, from my end, if I saw any arterial bleeding, that's bright red blood, that's pulsing out. Key number one.

You know, that is, for me, assigned just. Right. Red alert. And you use your tourniquet as a first course of action there. If the bleeding is just a cut on the skin, even though it could be bleeding some, then you could use some direct pressure. And direct pressure works. most of the time. You have to have a pretty significant injury or it just has to be in the right place. It shouldn't say significant injury, but it just has to be in the right place because you can't

put a tourniquet on, but you could have a not too deep cut in the neck and actually hit an artery. Right. Easily. And bleed out very quickly. So it doesn't have to be a deep, horrible wound. It just has to be in the wrong, I don't want to say the right spot, the wrong spot. So if you're seeing a lot of blood, what you're doing isn't working, and obviously if it's an extremity, you can't put a tourticket on the neck. There you go. The key is to do no harm. Right.

Remember that. Rule number one. Rule number one. So, again, so what you said, if it's arterial bleeding, bright red, and it's just kind of pulsing out, pumping out, pumping out, pumping out. And you're putting direct pressure. some material between your hand and the wound, and you're putting direct pressure, it's just not working.

You're going to be going for that tourniquet. Don't keep piling. I know they used to say, just put more gauze, put more gauze. If you have a tourniquet or an ability to McGyver in appropriate width of a tourniquet, then try to do that. Don't just keep piling more gauze on because even though you don't see it,

if you know that blood is still gushing in there and it's not working, you've got to move on to the tourniquet. Don't be scared of tourniquets. They can be taken off in the emergency room. When the emergency room doctor is standing there, maybe they have put them in the OR to do it under a surgical situation and then they take it off. So they are prepared to repair and stop bleeding in a perfect environment. So don't be afraid to put it on. It probably won't be on very long if we have modern medicine. Right.

Well, remember that it usually just takes a few minutes for emergency personnel to arrive in normal times. And those few minutes, since an arterial bleed can make somebody have real problems in just a few minutes. Right, fast. Right. What you need to do is to give some time for emergency

personnel to arrive. They're on their way. They'll be there pretty fast in normal times. Knock on wood. Right. But you can really help hold on. Right there you go. That's wood. You can really help by making sure that you intervene and you

do something right away. I mean, direct pressure for venous bleeding and I think immediately a tourniquet if you happen to have one for arterial bleeding. It doesn't doesn't take, by the way, off the grid, it doesn't take a Navy SEAL corpsman to know that having tourniquets in your medical kit is not a bad idea.

Right. So you've got to have that. That's part of your medical kit and you need to have multiple turnicates. You can't just have one. Now for years, the Committee on Tactical Combat Casualty Care, that's the TCCC or the T3C, has approved a small number of commercially available turnicates. These guys decide what the military uses. And I'm sure many of you out there have some of these in your medical kit.

They include the combat application tourniquet or cat tourniquet and the Special Operations Forces Tourniquet, the Soft T. These are the turnicates that many of our military have trained with. And if you've trained with a particular tourniquet, you're probably going to want to have it. In our medical kits, we have these tourniquets and we also have the SWAT tourniquet as a secondary tourniquet, mostly due to its versatility to act as a tourniquet, to function as just a pressure dressing, and also to help stabilize splints. So actually pretty versatile stuff

that you wouldn't be able to use some of the military-style tourniquets with. So the TC-3, I say T-3C-3, T-3, T-3, T-3, T-3, it's T-C-3. I know it's because the three in the C... T-C-3. Are rhyming. There you go. Well, actually, yes.

You should put the C first, technically. But you can make up whatever you want, honey. TC3 committee. Funny thing is that I actually started calling it that and somebody corrected me. So I'm okay with either one. I hope you guys are flexible out there. So now the TC3 committee has widened the range of options that are acceptable for the effective control of bleeding. and that is pretty amazing.

One of their additions is the Sam XT, Sam extremity tourniquet, and produced by the venerable Dr. Sam Scheinberg of Sam Medical. Sam made its name on producing malleable splints that are useful for, gosh, a number of orthopedic injuries, and now their tourniquet is considered acceptable for even military and law enforcement purposes. So look for a video in near future about the Sam XT,

and Amy's going to be demonstrating that on a dummy, an extremely old dummy. Well, looking forward to that, believe me, oh boy. I won't make it too tight, though. Well, the Sam Ex-C wasn't the only addition to the medical woodshed for the committee on tactical combat casualty care. The official list includes, of course, the cat tourniquet, both the Generation 7, which is the current generation and the older generation 6. the soft T tactical tourniquet, especially the wide one. The new ones are the ratcheting medical tourniquet, the RMTTT, the tactical tourniquet, the T-Mtacchanical

T-Mtanket, and the TX2 and TX-3 tourniquets. The numbers are just mean the width of the actual tourniquet itself. So we'll be looking at some of these. We actually have some of these, but we'll be looking at all of them and seeing how they function and seeing what makes the most sense for us as a prepper or a preparedness

community. Absolutely. There are also, by the way, tourniquets that are inflatable or what they call pneumatic in nature and the TCC approves of the Delphi DELFI Emergency and Military Ternicate

that's the EMT and the TPPT that is the tactical pneumatic tourniquet two. For specialized tourniquets for junctional areas, junctional areas are like your armpit and groin areas, areas where the standard tourniquets really don't fit. There is the combat ready clamp or the crock is what they call it. They're a CROC.

The SAM Junctional tourniquet, Sam JT, Sam already had an approved tourniquet there. and also the junctional emergency treatment tool, the jet, J-E-T-T-T. Dang, got to love those acronyms, huh? I know. Acronims here and acronyms there. Military loves acronyms. There you go.

And I get it because otherwise you're saying a lot of long words when you need to just get to the point, get to the point. Get me the jet or get me the crock. Get or done. You know, just act. There you go. Not talk so much. So anyhow, look for future videos from us in the near future demonstrating the use of some of these things.

In the meantime, we'll be adding the Sam XT Turniket to our product line eventually at store.dumbloom.net. Because I am a distributor of Sam medical products. And I know Sam. We met him and his wife. They're so nice. Yeah, good people. Keep in mind that just because the tourniquet is approved by the TC3, it doesn't mean that it would be effective in the hands of an untrained

individual. For the military, that training is part of the deal. I mean, you get that training, but for civilians, it still makes the most sense to use a tourniquet that you are accustomed to. So if that's the cat tourniquet or the soft tourniquet for you, soft tea for you, don't feel like you need to run out and buy these other ones. The bottom line, if you can't use it rapidly, effectively and safely, well, you know what? It's not going to do much good in your medical bag. That's right. Don't feel like you have to run out and buy all. of these new ones. No, use what your brain will remember.

That's right. The brain. It's a miracle organ. Hey, we learn as much from you as you do from us, probably more, honestly. So, come on, connect with the geyser and the goddess. It's easy, and here's Nersamey to tell you how. Absolutely. You can

contact us by email at DR Bones Podcast at aOL.com. Find us on Facebook at our group, Survival Medicine, D.R. Bones, and Narsamey. And, of course, the one stop place to be on Facebook is Doom and Bloom. You can also follow us on Twitter

at Prepper Show. And don't forget our YouTube channel, DR Bones, Nurse Amy. And one more thing. Instagram. If you want to see... Yeah, we have a new Instagram. Kind of more of a day-to-day life of Dr. Bones and Nurse Amy.

Instagram. Doom and Bloom Medical. One whole word. Doom and Bloom medical. I show you garden pictures. Speaking of which. Vacation pictures. I wanted to ask you if you put any pictures of the corn

that we just harvested. Yes, there's corn pictures. Believe it or not. No, you recorded one of those. You did a little video. I put that little video of me opening one of them up outside. Oh, that is awesome. Well, you know, we have glass gem corn. Yes. This is like Indian corn except shiny

and really beautiful stuff. But what's from Indian Heritage Corn. Yes. Right. And it was just awesome. You may think it's a little weird that in early May we're talking about harvesting corn. But down here, winter is our agricultural summer in South Florida. So we managed to get some corn. And corn is just awesome. You should take some more pictures and put those up because those are great. Well, anyhow, you know that last week, wouldn't you know it, after talking about fractures and brain? breaking bones in our last week's show. And after a lifetime of not breaking a bone, I probably broke a toe on the last day or so before

we left Gatlinburg to head back to South Florida. Now, I say probably because I didn't bother to go get an x-ray. We talked about this last week on the show. With that, my toe was swollen and it was bruised. Yes, but I was still able to move the joint. Oh, that's right. Okay. But your toe got more bruised, but that's what happens as it heals.

It was just amazing. I don't think it was broken. You know what I... I'm fine now. I think it was dislocated. I think it was a little dislocated. Could be jammed. Yes.

You heard of toe jam. To jam. You don't have toe jam, honey. You may have jammed a toe, but you don't have toe jam. Well, last week we talked about the amazing way that a broken bone heals. A miracle, really. I want to just talk about... Yeah, it is.

I just want to say it again because it just freaks me out a little bit as to what an amazing. thing the body. It is a miracle. You know, when a fracture occurs, the body begins to form a clot within a few hours right around the fracture from little blood vessels that are around the area. And then special immune cells called phagocytes start cleaning up the bone fragments and the debris and whatever germs actually might get in the way of healing. And the interesting thing is phagocyte or phagocyte is the Greek word for cells that eat.

That's exactly what they're doing. they're eating up all the junk that may impede your ability to heal. Then they have cells that form fibrous sort of cartilaginous kind of tissue. Those are called chondroblasts. And they make a connection to the broken ends of the bones, if they are at least aligned. And that's called the soft callous. That takes a few weeks to form, maybe two or three weeks to form, and at least gives you a connection. It doesn't give you much support, but gives you a connection.

And then the bone cells come in, and they create. create new bone, adding minerals to strengthen the healed area or the healing area. That's called a hard callus. It appears like a thick bump on the bone. And after a few weeks, sometimes, well, it depends on the bone, six to 12 weeks. The bone begins to remodel itself in such a fashion that it wants to resemble what the original bone look like, whatever the original structure looked like. And they have even different cells that come in to do that. And they may work for years to try to achieve a final result.

looks very much like the original bone. Now, what we didn't talk about last week is how to treat a fracture when you don't have a hospital to take your victim to. And so let's talk a little bit about that. Basically, what you need to do is you need to determine the extent of the injury. Of course, if the injury occurs in an unsafe area, remember, your safety is paramount. So always remember, a medic first priority is self-preservation. Safety.

But assuming that, it was just some out. accident that happened, what you would do is you would use bandage scissors or an E&T shares to cut away the clothing so that you can get a better idea of the extent of the injury. And after you control any bleeding, well, the medical treatment of fractures involves a fundamental rule, that the broken pieces have to be put back into position, their original position, and prevented from moving out of place until they're healed. Now, in many cases, the medic has to actively work to restore the bone to its original position. Oftentimes, there are muscles,

these muscles that were traumatized also, they're swollen, and it can be difficult to get a bone back in its normal position, or at least to keep it in that position. Now, that procedure is called a reduction. And it's very painful. As a matter of fact, in normal times, most of these are performed under general anesthesia.

But off the grid, if you don't reduce the deformity in the bone, if you have somebody with a arm that's just pointing in the wrong direction, you've got to fix it, and so that it's realigned so that the victim retains part or all the function of the injured extremity. And the longer you delay to do this, the more swelling that occurs and, well, the more difficult to become. Now, after reduction, and even after reduction, the broken ends may not stay in place without special effort. So you may have to use something called traction, and that's something that's maybe required. to maintain the normal physician. And in normal times, modern orthopedists will put metal pins and screws and all sorts of

crazy stuff to insert into the bone to try to stabilize the broken ends. Then they rig up pulleys and all sorts of traction systems. And a lot of this can actually be done on the grid if you are creative about improvisations. So these are things that need to be done. And let's say it was a forearm that was fractured. Basically, what you would do is you would hold the upper arm stable. In other words, whatever is closest to the torso on the extremity that is not broken, you hold that stable in place, and then you take, let's say, the forearm,

and you have to use some downward pressure to pull the lower arm broken ends until they actually are together and they're aligned again. Now, you may have help for this, and it's best done with two people. If you don't have help, you can even use it. a fork and a tree if it's at the right level to provide support while you exert traction. In any case, boy, this is going to hurt. Ow. It is going to hurt like a son of a gun.

It hurts me just thinking about it. Remember we took a picture of you in the tree like that with me pulling? Yes. For one of your magazine articles. Yes, that's right. I think that was in Survivor's Edge or American Survival Guide. Both of these are great magazines, by the way. Make sure you subscribe to us.

You know, let's try to find that picture. We could put that up on the blog. blog talk pictures. Yeah. Rotate. Yeah, that would be pretty awesome. I'll have to look for it. I don't know what you called it.

Now, the thing is about reduction is that it's not without its risks. So you have nerves and blood vessels that are around the broken bone and they indeed can be traumatized. So you have to attempt this only in situations where there is not any access to modern facilities. And what I talk about that, I mean for the long term. I'm not talking about for an hour. So the important thing is that you always try to maintain circulation, so you should always check for pulses after you perform a reduction, and you show us check sensation beyond the level of the injury after you do it too, just to make sure that there's still the sensation there. All you have to do is basically just sort of poke it with a twig or something like that or a pen, whatever you might happen to have. Now, once the broken ends of the bones are together again, ice packs, elevation, stabilization,

these are the things you need to do to reduce swelling and prevent re-injury. The extremity has to be immobilized. I'd use a Sam splint, which is something that we have in a lot of our kits. Yep. Or an improvised splint, as we've talked about in the past with, you know, sticks and strips of T-shirt. Just don't tie those things on too tight. Right. Because, again, we want to keep the circulation.

That's right. So after you put any of these on, just like if you were putting on the regular Sam splint or the malleable aluminum padded splints that they make, always check the pulses below that. Check the color of the tissue below or beyond is another good word. Beyond. Beyond where you have put the splint. So let's say you did use sticks, but all you had were some sort of cotton ties from a T-shirt you tore up. And you've tied that on. You want to make sure that that cotton T-shirt material or gauze or whatever it is you used didn't push into the tissue too much.

Right. So you're not trying to put it on really, really tight. Hopefully they're not using that to walk on. You just want to kind of stabilize it. Right. You're not putting this on to say, okay, now we're going to walk out of the forest. even though you've got this fracture. That's not going to be possible.

So you're going to put it on loosely just to stabilize it. It's not so they can now walk upon it. Right. There are a lot of ways to transport a victim of trauma like that. And we've got to definitely check out our articles and our videos on patient transport. Yes. We talk about a lot of different ways that you can do that. When you split an extremity, you want to do it in the normal position.

Now, a normal position is different for each extremity. An arm, for example, should be splinted at a 90-degree angle at the elbow. The leg should be straight with a slight bend at the knee, and the fingers should be splinted if it's a broken finger, as if the victim was holding a glass of water. So these are things that are important that you want to do it in as normal position as possible, so there's the least amount of strain. You know, we always appreciate suggestions from our readers and viewers and listeners, And our good friend James C suggests getting a supply of paint stirring sticks at Home Depot or Lowe's. He says that they're free and that they would make useful splitting materials, even though you might need a few of them for any fracture of a large bone.

But certainly for, let's say, a forearm or a wrist, things like that, certainly would be useful to give some support. Now, if you're going to use them, though, make sure that you put padding. Right. And I think you're going to talk about that. Exactly. Pad anything that comes in contact with the person's skin. Absolutely right.

Now, of course, when you think about a broken bone, you think about a cast, right? Maybe not on my toe, but certainly almost everywhere else when there's a broken extremity. Right. You need to immobilize the area around the fracture to allow the healing to occur. Remember, there's a formation of this soft callus over the course of time until it actually has real bone cells. in it, it's just sort of mushy cartilage and fibrous tissue and stuff like that. It is not giving you much support. You know what I could have done is I could have taken a tongue depressor,

wrapped some gauze around it, so it was padded, put it on the bottom, it was your second toe, put it on the bottom of your foot, and then maybe duct taped that padded tongue depressor just to the one joint. that we think was affected, but loose duct tape with padding around it. The only thing is that it would make it difficult, if not impossible, to wear shoes unless you had a bigger shoe than what you normally wear. If it was broken, I wouldn't have had you put a shoe on you to just lay around. I'd just be laying around my foot up.

I'm thinking about... Sounds good to me. Survival, darling. Well, it sounds great to me. I was just thinking about what we would do if it had been broken and we couldn't get to a hospital. how I would have stabilized the toe just was something I might have had. Because even the finger splint is a little too big for your second toe. But you can cut it.

Yes, you can't. Yes, you absolutely can cut it. But I was just thinking, what would I have had? And I have tongue depressors in our kits, especially the kit that I carry in the car. I carry that medium kit. And so I could have padded that with gauze. and then put tape around it just at that one joint. There are a lot of ways to skin a cat.

And it might have been pretty comfortable. It wouldn't have been too bad, I don't think. You know, it just amazes me how many different uses some of our items that our kits have. Especially duct tape. Oh, absolutely. And we have, you know, probably enough plastic bags in our big kits to put together like 50 chest seals. Oh, my gosh. Carry water in them.

Right. Use them for irrigation. If I didn't have irrigation syringes, I could put a little hole in one of them and squish the water out fast. And it's not going to be as good as a syringe. But, you know, any port in a storm, right? That's right. And we have syringes and a lot of our kids too. Use whatever I have at the time.

All right. So we're talking about casts. Yes. So you might consider including casting material in your medical supplies if you are going to be the medic off the green. because some disasters happen. They have those in kits. And they have those and kits. And when you have those.

Right, exactly. Now, there's different types of materials, casting material using plaster of Paris or fiberglass. They're pretty easy to obtain online for your medical storage. They last a long time. And I don't know if they have an expiration date, but I doubt that it would make much of a difference. They would. You would think they wouldn't. Because that's only activated when it's wet.

Exactly right. You know what I mean? Yeah. That's why I think it would last for me. many years. Yes. So what's the difference between plaster of Paris and fiberglass? Well, plaster is more pliable.

It hardens slower. So it gives you a little more time to apply the cast. And that's useful for people that don't have a lot of training. And mold it in the right place. Right. And hopefully you're not breaking bones every day in your survival community. That would be pretty terrible. So you might not have a lot of experience.

If you have somebody who's doing that, you need to just basically put them in a plastic bubble. Knee pads, elbow pads. Yes. Probably not a long-term solution. Helmet, put a helmet on them? Yes. Right. Fiberglass. Now, fiberglass is lighter and it's less messy to use.

And it comes all sorts of neat colors, and that's great for normal times. But I think a little bit too noticeable off the grid if you're walking in the forest with a bright orange or pink, bright pink cast. Well, probably not something you really want to do in times of. trouble. I'm pretty sure we saw those, I guess it's the fiberglass ones, come in the camo. I think they had a camo pattern. Remember? That's pretty cool. Well, you know, if you've got to wear a cast, you might as well make it kind of cool. Yeah. That would be awesome. Yes. Absolutely. So each fracture is casted somewhat differently and with various materials. I can't go into all the techniques used for each and every bone. But the basic principles, they're pretty much the same.

When you place a cast, you'll first go to start with a liner of cotton known as a stockinette, like a stocking, but a little stocking, called a stockinget. Now, these are available in rolls that you can cut to the length that you need. And so you can actually use it a number of times for a number of different injuries, so you should get a roll of stockingettes. The stockingette should be measured and cut several inches longer than what the intended cast will be, and you place it without wrinkling over the area to be cast. just like you would put on a sock.

Now, in a pinch, even a clean, long sleeve of a cotton shirt, let's say, would do in a pinch as a stockingette. Now, you don't wear the shirt again unless you want to make a very interesting fashion statement. With the arms cut off or just one arm cut off. Right, right. Well, then after that, you're going to need rolls of padding. You mentioned the importance of padding. Yes.

And that is so important. You need to form a barrier between the skin and the cast. And so as you have these rolls of padding, you're going to unroll it over the injured area. If you want to advance about one half of the thickness of the roll each turn as you go from below the fracture towards the torso. And the padding should be at least two or three layers thick, should extend about an inch or two beyond where the cast would end. So extra padding should be applied if you have to place them between fingers or over. a bony prominence like you have. Everybody has a bone that sticks out on the wrist.

Yep. So you want to do that. Oh, by the way, here, James C sent us another suggestion. He says you can improvise a homemade cast padding as the liner just cut the arm off a clean sweatshirt. And so that can serve as padding. You can cut a hole in the cuff as a thumbhole. So that's something that you could do if you're doing it over the hand. And the sweatshirt arm is the perfect size.

and should provide ample padding. So if you want to improvise, you're going to end up with a lot of one-armed shirts and sweatshirts. Yes. But it would definitely give you the protection that you want. Now, at this point, you're going to take rolls of plaster of Paris

or fiberglass and you immerse it in cool water for about 20 seconds or so. Then you squeeze them to remove the excess water. Now, one thing that's very important, you've got to keep the end of the roll between your fingers. Otherwise, it's going to stick to the rest and it's going to look exactly the same as this ball of cast material, and it's going to be difficult to find.

So hold on to the end of the roll, put it between your fingers. You're going to begin to slowly wrap the casting material around the area of the fracture, and you're going to smooth it out as you go along, and advance, like you did, the padding, one-half of the thickness of the roll each turn as you go from below the fracture towards the torso. You want to avoid making it too tight. That's very important. You will want maybe three layers or casting material on the area

and more in places where there's a bony prominence like the wrists to deal with. Then what you want to do is you want to roll the ends of the stockingette and the padding back over the cast before the last layer is applied so that you can have some padding for the edges. Otherwise, it could be very uncomfortable. So stockingettes, padding, casting rolls, all these are available in different widths and lengths appropriate to the particular fracture.

And I'm going to put up an article about placing a cast with the video showing a cast being placed in the near future. So keep an eye out for it on the website. Now here's a word from our sponsors. Hey, Joe Alden, MD here. When it comes to survival and being prepared, we know the must-have items that immediately come to mind are a complete medical kit and a bug-out bag. Our friends at Goldwellf management remind us to have our bug-out bank in places. well. Your bugout bank should contain physical gold and silver along with three months of living expenses in cash. Call gold wealth management to get a free education about investing in gold and

silver. That current prices, the gold and silver market is on sale. Call 866-G-L-D-S-L-D-S-L-V-R, that's 866GL-SLVR or 866-453-7587. Preppernet, where preppers unite. Looking to meet other like-minded people in your area? Looking to start your own prepper group. Already have a group? Join Preppernet.com. PreperNet has gathered the biggest names in the industry to help unite preppers everywhere.

Join John Jacob Schmidt, Scott Hunt, Dr. Bones and Nurse Amy, Glenn Tate, Shelby Gallagher, Charlie Hogwood, Samuel Culper, Survivor Jane, Rick Austin, Franklin Horton, Ryan Mitchell and Brian Duff. Our team is united. Check us out at preppernet.com. Prepernet, where preppers unite. Prepernet.com. And we're back. So we've talked about fractures, but how can you tell a fracture from a sprain? Well, sometimes it's pretty darn obvious.

Those are the ones you cringe at for a second when you first see them. But other times, you know what, not so obvious. So it might be hard to determine which is which without x-rays or other modern diagnostic tools. Now, that's obviously not going to be available. if some disaster knocks you off the grids. So you have to go low-tech. Look for one or more of these signs. A fracture is probably going to be more pronounced

in terms of swelling and bruising than your average sprain. So this is something that you're going to find that there's a big swelling in an area where there is a broken bone, whereas a sprain, it'll be swollen, it'll be bruised, but usually not quite so much. Now, by the way, the pain is going to be a lot different too.

You can be helped off the field. You've sprained an ankle. You would probably have to be carried off the field if you broke your ankle. So this is something that's very important to know that there is a degree of severity in terms of pain, swelling, and bruising. Now, a fracture might have a deep cut in the area of the injury. Now, that would be a sign of an open fracture, and that's particularly dangerous because the skin has been broken. The skin is not supposed to be broken.

That's your armor. It prevents infection. And the bone is not always outside the skin. It may have gone right back inside after the original trauma. So always be suspicious if you see a cut in the area where there is a fracture or a sprain suggested. Now, a fracture also produces a grating sensation when you press down near the injury between where the two broken bones are. they will have a tendency to rub against each other and great and you'll feel this grating sensation. It sounds awful.

And it is awful. Fingernails on a chalkboard. There's what it sounds like. And that's exactly what it is. Now, you can use a stethoscope and a tuning fork. The tuning fork that I got in medical school was 128 hertz and you place that on the bone just beyond where you think the fracture is and then you listen with the stethoscope above the level of injury, that is closer to the torso.

You compare that to what the bone is like on the other side. Now, if the bone is intact, you should hear a good vibration on the intact. On both sides. Equally. They should be equal. Right. If there's a broken bone on the questionable side, well, you may not hear anything or may be. much, much more muffled. So that's something that is an interesting way that not everybody

knows about to deal with sprains versus fractures. So those are just a few hints that might help you make the diagnosis there. Hey, you know, we're proud to be part of our good friend Jack Spirco's Survival Podcast Expert Counsel. And we get lots of interesting questions from his listeners as well as ours. And here is Nurse Amy answering some questions about face masks in times of trouble. something you definitely should have as part of your medical supplies. And here she is. Well, today's question for the expert counsel is from Luke in Michigan. He says, hi, Amy.

Could you explain the differences in N95 masks? Background. I've been reading both your Survival Medicine Handbook. Thank you so much. That's a side note. And Alton's antibiotics lately. and decided I really needed to add more N95 masks to my medical supplies. And while shopping on Amazon, I see that the surgical masks are cheaper than even the standard 3M N95 masks without exhaust fence.

If I'm looking for these specifically for cold and illness prevention, should I be concerned with any one type more than another? Well, there's a lot of great resources about face masks. You can find some on the CDC and also FDA. So you can take a look at that, and I did get some of this information from there. So if you want something written, that would be a great place to print it, or just sort of look at this again. Base masks and N95s are actually examples of personal protection equipment that are used to protect the wearer from liquid and airborne particles contaminating the face. They are part of an infection control strategy, and if you guys paid any attention whatsoever to when we had the Ebola outbreak, you definitely saw different.

kinds of face protection. They started off with generally these face masks, which we'll discuss in a second, moved up into a stronger protection, and eventually they had on these full ventilator mask that had filters and machines attached to them. By the way, those are super expensive. So, let's discuss the simple thing first, the face mask. That's actually a loose fitting, which is unfortunately one of the reasons why it is not great or perfect. for protecting you. They are disposable and they create just a physical barrier between the mouth and your nose of the wearer against potential contaminants in the environment that's just around you. Face masks are not to be shared and may be labeled as surgical, isolation, dental, or medical

procedure masks. They also may come with or without a face shield. Again, a lot of this has changed for your access. Normally those were hospital supplies that were hard to. to get. They're made with different thicknesses and with different abilities to protect you from contact with liquids. These properties can also affect how easily you can breathe through the face mask. You may see three-ply, which makes it a little bit easier to breathe, but it gives you a little less protection all the way up to, I've even seen six-ply. And it helps determine how well that face mask is going to protect you. If worn properly, in other words, with a good fit, a face mask is meant to help block large particle droplets, splashes, sprays, or splatter that can contain germs,

which you're talking about viruses and bacteria. Keeping it from reaching your mouth and nose, face masks may also help reduce exposure of your saliva and respiratory secretions, think coughing or sneezing, to others, so it blocks that. While a face mask may be effective in blocking splashes in large particle droplets, a face mask by design does not filter or block very small particles in the air that may be transmitted by coughs, sneezes, and certain medical procedures. Face masks do not provide complete protection from germs and other contaminants because of that loose fit between the surface of the face mask and your face. Face masks are not intended to be used for more than once. So no, you can't recycle them, you can't clean them, you can't reuse them.

absolutely to be disposed of after you use it. If your face mask is damaged or soil, or if breathing through that mask becomes difficult, you should remove the face mask and discard it safely and replace it with a new one. To safely discard your face mask, place it in a plastic bag and put it in trash. Always wash your hands after handling the used mask.

Now, 895 respirators are protected devices specifically designed to achieve a very close facial fit, unlike the surgical masks we were just talking about, and are also very efficient at filtering airborne particles. There are special tests to determine a respirator's level of protection, and that's where we're going to discuss this letter in and the number 95. And there's an institute that actually certifies masks to tell you what level of protection you're going to get from them, and that is the N-I-O-S-H. which is under the CDC Centers for Disease. They are the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

So that's what that means, N-I-O-S-H. And, again, it provides a certification. So you know what you're getting from the mask you're buying. And 95 medical masks are a class of disposable. They're called respirators. I know that sounds weird, but that's actually the name of this kind of mask. That have at least 95% efficiency against part of it. larger than 0.3 microns in size.

I think few people understand just how tiny a micron is. There are charts out there. You should look it up because it's really interesting in how teeny, teeny tiny a micron is. But the N and the N95 stands for non-oil resistant. There are also R-95s, which are oil-resistant and P-95 oil-proof mass. So that's where you're getting those different letters,

the N, the R and the P's. And the R and the P's are mostly for industrial and agricultural uses. In 95 masks protect against many contaminants, but are not 100% protective. Although use less frequently in 99 mass, which again give you 99% effectiveness, and in 100 masks are 99.7. Not quite 100, but I guess as close as you're going to get, are also available. If properly fitted, again, very important, the filtration capacities of the N95 respirators exceed those of face masks. However, even a properly fitted N95 respirator does not completely eliminate the risk of illness or death.

You are not 100% protected. One thing that you have to remember about these masks is they're not designed for children or people with facial hair. So all of you folks out there with mustaches and a lot of beard hair, if you don't get a proper fit, you can't achieve the proper filtration. So if you're using it with smaller people or people with facial hair, you're not going to get the full protection. There is a way to check fit. When you put these masks on, usually they have a metal piece across the nose.

You're going to want to pinch that on your nose and fit that to the shape of the bridge of your nose, of your nose and across your cheeks. You're going to want to pull the mask down if it actually has like an accordion effect, down underneath your chin and onto your neck so that it's fully opened. You don't want to have a crunched up mask that is only barely covering your nostrils and your mouth.

You want to have it as wide as possible. You want to make sure that you put those. There are loops that you put them over the ears. And if there's ties, you tie the top one towards the top of your head and the bottom one towards the back of your head just above the nape of your neck. If you have properly fit your mask, you can breathe in and your mask will actually suck in.

You'll see it collapse a little bit if you suck real hard. If you breathe in real hard and you don't get that depression, that means you've got some leakage and you need to refit that mask and make sure it's on as well as possible. Now, the FDA has cleared certain filtering face-piece respirators for use by the general public. to work as expected, the N95 respirator requires a proper fit to your face like we've just discussed. Please make sure you're checking it, adjusted if you need to. The CDC does not generally recommend face masks and respirators for use in home or community settings. However, they may be appropriate for people for increased risk of severe illness.

Let's say, if you have some immune problems, or if you were just in a household or near people who may have influenza or other respiratory diseases. It can help. Again, you're not going to achieve 100%, but it definitely can help. So that's what they recommend for the public. There are higher grade masks that have vents in them. It allows for easier breathing. The one thing about the vents is if you need a sterile environment, let's say you're in a surgical suite, they don't allow those ventilated ones because they don't want you to exhale out of them. Therefore, preventing things from coming in. They're not as good for preventing things from going out. So if you're operating on a patient, they don't want the surgeon to be breathing into the patient's open cavity. So there are very,

very special ones for health care settings. So what's your strategy? You'll need both standard, the surgical mask, and some N95s as part of your medical supplies. I'd recommend getting a significant number of each. You can use them as bartering if you need to. I would say you can never have too many, really, extras again would be really great for bartering. There's no absolute standards in regards to who wears what in the sick room. What we generally recommend is that a person who is sneezing and coughing, in other words, the sick person puts on a surgical mask, either all the time, that would be difficult because they're already having trouble breathing probably from a stuffy nose or a sore throat or congestion in the lungs. But put that on when the caregiver is about to come in. That

will kind of help prevent some of those droplets from being thrown onto the caregiver. And then the caregiver should be putting on the N95 because again, you're going to get some filtration of those viruses from the patient who's sneezing or coughing so that they won't breathe it in. What you want to prevent is your caregivers from getting sick because they're the ones who have to take care of the sick people. So remember, your highest priority is to protect yourself and the healthy members of your group. plan out a sick room and we have talked a lot about a sick room you can look up articles and we've done podcasts on it it's even in our book look up sick rooms figure out where you're going to put that and also what other supplies you're going to need besides the masks think of gloves aprons

eyewear we discussed antiseptics and definitely pay careful attention to every aspect of hygiene because guys your survival might just depend on it thank you so much and please be safe and healthy. You've been listening to the Doom and Bloom hour with medical preparedness experts, Dr. Bones, and Nurse Amy. Check out our website at www. www. Doobin Bloom.

For hundreds of informative articles about survival medicine, gardening, natural remedies, medical supplies, and lots of other good stuff. Contact us, send your email to Dr. Bones Podcast at AOL.com or use a contact form on the main page of the website. See you next week.