“During
one summer, I had an opportunity to try out a QuickClot
sample that was given to me.
“It was
a hot day in July when my husband decided that he would
replace all of the gutters around the house. He
had finished the 3rd story drainage system and was
working on the 2nd floor when the ladder he was standing
on slipped. He landed on the roof of the first floor and
then fell onto the air conditioning system on the
ground. The fall from the ladder to the roof was at
least 12 feet, and another 15 feet to the A/C unit
before he hit the ground.
“My
husband is on coumadin,.a blood thinner, and is not
supposed to be doing anything that might require him to
get hurt and bleed, especially on a ladder. I
arrived about 15 to 20 minutes after his fall, to find
him lying on the ground, unconscious. I had no
idea how long he had been unconscious, but the blood on
the ground was an even bigger concern. I called a
friend of mine who is a paramedic like me to come and
help me with him.
“I
cleaned his face above his left eyebrow where a lot of
blood was coming from, and applied pressure to aid in
the clotting. His legs were abraded, and numerous
lacerations noted to his upper thighs, just not bleeding
quite as badly as his head. I cleaned the wounds
and placed 4x4's on his legs. I saw that blood
still was coming from his right leg, laterally, and
noticed a large deep laceration.
“With
pressure applied, the bleeding slowed down. My friend
arrived and took over the pressure for me to go and get
more supplies. I grabbed a backboard from his SUV and my
jump bag. We placed him on the LSB and secured his
neck with a c-collar. I was dressing the wounds and
remembered that I had the bag of experimental clotting
material in my car. I grabbed it, returned and
placed it on his head, and on the large wound to his
leg. To my surprise, the bleeding stopped and
formed what I call a ‘scab-like’ layer on him. I
was completely amazed about how fast this worked on him
especially since he is on coumadin.
“We
loaded him into my friend's SUV and took him to the
hospital. X-rays and an MRI revealed a cut
requiring nine sutures to the left eyebrow, Steri-strips
to both upper legs and 22 sutures to his right calf. For
all that, I considered him and me extremely
lucky.
“When
the doctor questioned me about the clotting agent used,
I told him it was just some of our "EMS Magic Medicine,"
and he said, "Everybody on coumadin needs that magic
medicine."
“Thanks
everyone for saving my husband's life…because even
though we laugh about it now, he really could have died
from bleeding to death if it had not have been for the
QuikClot.”
Supplied to Best Glide A.S.E. by Z-Medica,
L.L.C.
