First Aid

Part of Phase 0: First 72 Hours

First Aid is the overview, and its own description states the real order: clean hands, clean water, and materials come before technique — bleeding control, splinting, burn cooling, CPR, and shock all assume that groundwork is already in place, with no hospital nearby to fall back on.

Bleeding Control, Improvised Tourniquet, Tourniquet Use, Wound Packing, Wound Management, Wound Closure, Suture Technique, Stitch Patterns, Infection Prevention, Antiseptic Sources, Bandage Materials, and Improvised Supplies cover the largest cluster: stopping bleeding and keeping a wound from turning septic. Ten minutes of unbroken direct pressure stops most bleeding, including many arterial wounds, and lifting the cloth to check is the most common fatal mistake. A tourniquet, built by the windlass technique 5-8 cm above the wound, is safe for six or more hours by military data, so hesitation is the real danger, not the tourniquet itself. Wound management runs a fixed order — assessment, cleaning, closure, dressing — and closing a wound too early, inside the six-to-eight-hour golden period before bacterial colonization, can trap the infection it was meant to prevent. A clean cut can turn lethal within 48 hours once bacteria take hold, which is why irrigating with at least 500 mL of cooled boiled water, then a 3-5 mm daily layer of raw honey, outranks alcohol — alcohol belongs on tools, not wounds.

Severity Assessment and Aloe, Honey Treatments cover burns specifically. Burn severity depends on depth and surface area, judged by skin appearance, blister pattern, and the rule of nines, with reassessment at 48 hours, and raw, unheated honey and aloe vera are both clinically documented burn treatments — heating the honey destroys the compounds that make it work.

Splinting, Rigid Splints, Traction Splint, and Joint Relocation cover fractures and dislocations. A splint’s one job is holding a broken bone still, immobilizing the joint above the fracture and the joint below it, and a broken femur lets thigh muscles pull the bone ends apart, tearing vessels for up to two liters of blood — a traction splint’s counter-pull is what stops that. A dislocated shoulder, finger, or kneecap can be relocated in minutes, though grinding at the joint signals a fracture instead.

Choking Response, CPR Technique, Recovery Position, Shock Treatment, and Medical Emergencies cover acute, immediately life-threatening situations. A blocked airway kills in 4-6 minutes, so back blows come before abdominal thrusts, and an unconscious person left on their back can choke on their own tongue or vomit within minutes, which rolling them onto their side prevents. Shock reroutes blood toward the brain and heart at the cost of limbs and skin; elevating the legs 20-30 cm redirects 500-750 mL back where it’s needed, and when several people are hurt at once, triage is what decides who gets treated first.

Heat, Cold, Water, Heat Stroke, Hypothermia, and Frostbite cover environmental injury. Without climate control, heat exhaustion, frostbite, hypothermia, and near-drowning become leading killers; heat stroke gives only 30 minutes to get core temperature below 39°C once sweating stops and confusion sets in, and hypothermia victims rarely notice their own decline, which is why mishandling a severe case risks cardiac arrest.

Illness Management, Fever Management, Fever Reducers, and Dehydration Treatment cover sickness that isn’t trauma. Without pharmacies, the diseases that kill are the ones that always have — diarrheal illness, respiratory infection, waterborne parasites — and a fever between 100.4 and 102°F is the immune system working as intended, managed with hydration and cooling rather than eliminated. An oral rehydration solution is just 3 grams of salt and 18 grams of sugar in a liter of boiled water.

Medicinal Plants and Wound Treatment Plants cover what grows nearby. Yarrow’s compound achilleine speeds clotting while plantain’s allantoin stimulates tissue repair, both applied as a chewed or crushed poultice directly onto the wound.

Stretcher Building and One-Handed Bowline Tie close the loop on evacuation. Two poles and a folded blanket become a stretcher holding roughly 100 kg with no knots at all, and tying a loop around your own body with one hand is a self-rescue skill for when a fall or a dislocated shoulder leaves the other arm useless.

Overview

Clean hands, clean water, and materials, before any technique below.

First Aid

Bleeding and Wound Care

The largest cluster: stopping bleeding and keeping a wound from turning septic.

Burns

Judging depth and surface area, then the two treatments that actually help.

Fractures and Dislocations

Immobilizing a break, and relocating a joint that’s merely dislocated, not broken.

Acute Emergencies

The minutes-matter situations: airway, heart, consciousness, and shock.

Environmental Injury

What heat, cold, and water do to the body without climate control.

Illness and Fever

Sickness that isn’t trauma, and the fluids and fever management that treat most of it.

Plant Medicine

What grows nearby that actually helps a wound heal.

Evacuation and Rescue

Moving an injured person, or yourself, when walking isn’t an option.

Explorer