DIY First Aid: I Sliced My Arm While Remodeling a Shower

Here's a scenario, you're working on a shower remodel, and you need to be able to extend the water lines just a little bit

So you turn off all the water to your house, and then you go and you cut the water line

But because you decided that you didn't want to take the time to look for the right tool for the job

you used a utility knife to cut said waterline, and in the process of doing so, you slice your arm open

What is your first move? This scenario was not just hypothetical. It's what happened to me about a week ago

And I wanted to talk about this day because I thought it was a really cool case study for preparedness

You see, preparedness is not just about having the right gear, having the right tools and having the right resources

That's all really good, important stuff. You don't have the right stuff

Oftentimes it's hard when situations arise. That said, probably the bigger half of preparedness is knowing how to use what

resources you have at your disposal to be able to handle whatever situations you're in

And that comes from learning and from experience. So, that's the scenario. I sliced my arm open

So you can see, this happened actually eight days ago. And it's already healing up really

really well. It's really closed. Not really that big of an issue. But I actually got lucky in this

situation. You see, I'm only about maybe half an inch away from the radial artery. And if I had

it hit that, I could have been bleeding all over the place. So here is what I did in this situation

and I think that this is in some ways maybe a good model of what we should do. So first, I assess

the situation. Immediately I felt the pain. I realized I'd whacked my arm with a knife. It was a

it was a brand new blade in my utility knife. So it cut very quickly. And so I quickly looked at the

situation and realized, one, it's a cut very cleanly through. Two, it's cut all the way through

the skin layer. And knowing that I've cut all the way through, now I know that I need to completely

close the wound. Just putting a band-aid on it, it's not going to heal very well. So I needed to close

the wound. That means, in most cases, go to the hospital and get stitches. But I also noticed a

couple of other things in my immediate assessment. One, all of my digits were working, which means

I hadn't done any real damage to the ligaments and tendons or even the muscles. Even if I did a little

bit of damage. It was nothing significant. All of the feeling was there in my hand, so I hadn't done any

major nerve damage. So it wasn't as serious a situation as maybe it could have been. I also noticed

that there wasn't a ton of blood, which meant that I hadn't hit that artery. So once again

I wasn't in any real significant danger, at least not in the short term. What that means is I just

needed to make sure it was good and clean. And two, I needed to close the wound and keep bad

crap from getting inside of it. Given that the water was shut off at my house, and

and that I couldn't turn it back on until I finished repairing the pipe. I decided that I really didn't want to have to go to the hospital and spend a couple of hours

and who knows how much money just to get a few stitches in my arm. So after making that assessment, I went over to our first aid stuff to see exactly what I had available

So first, I knew that I had some of these on hand. These are stare strips

They're made by 3M. There may be other brands, but 3M makes really good adhesive stuff

Steri strips they first of all sterile These are exactly what the surgeon used for my wife on her knee on the outside after the stitches And essentially what they do is they like a big butterfly band sort of

They're just kind of a piece of tape that you can stick onto one side and really stretch

across and pull onto the other side. And it's got a strong enough adhesive that it can hold wounds

closed pretty well. It's not as good as one of these, but those are pretty expensive, like

20 bucks for a single one. And I don't have a bunch of those on hand. Although after this, I'm thinking 20 bucks is a lot cheaper than an emergency room visit and way faster and more convenient

So I might get a few. Anyway, back to what I did. So I knew I had some of these, but they weren't going to stick very well on my arm because my arm is covered in hair

So one of the very first things I did was I literally grabbed my razor

I got some water on my arm and I just shaved a few little stripes and so that my arm was very, very clean right there

Just no hair, nothing, just skin. The next thing that I did was I wanted to make sure that it was very clean

I grabbed the rubbing alcohol that I have right there on hand, pulled it out, got a cotton ball

In fact, my wife helped me because one of my hands was tied up, right

So it's a little bit harder to do all this work with one hand and because we were moving kind of quickly

So my wife, she heard me make a little bit of commotion. No, I did not cry, but it's okay if you do when you get cut

I'm just not really like a physical pain crier. We'll just say that

So she got me a cotton ball. She got it all wet with alcohol and I took it and I started dabbing

Now, the other thing that I did was I used my fingers like this and I kind of open and close, open and closed, just a little bit, just a little bit and kind of squeeze this way

What that did is it sort of opened up those cut blood vessels and it allowed a little bit of blood to flow

This is something I learned a long time ago. I don't know if it's best medical practice

The idea is that if there was anything that got in when the cut happened, right

If there was any bacteria or any debris that got in, letting some of that blood that's right there on the surface kind of flow out

would help sort of flush things outward. So I let that happen and then, of course, continue to dab with alcohol

And I let that alcohol kind of be over the surface for like a full minute because that's what they do whenever they are going to stick a needle in my arm, right

They go like for a whole minute with an alcohol swab. And enough that I could sort of like squeeze it out of the cotton ball

and let it sort of drip down into the wound. It was going to be enough to get it clean

If I had iodine, iodine would maybe do an even better job. Another thing that I have that I used later on is this stuff

This is called hibocleins. This stuff is used for just on the skin

The reason I even have some is because previously after a surgery, that's what I was told I should use to clean the wound on the surface

Because it helps keep away any microbes and stuff that could lead to infection and it just helps it heal better

So I did use that later on once the wound had started to close itself up

So then what? Then I needed it to be very dry so that the adhesive would stick

Again, since I wasn't using stitches, I was adhering to the surface

I needed it dry. I just used paper towel. I figured that would be probably the most sterile

If I just used like the hand towel that was there, I'd get blood on the hand towel

but I would also get whatever's on the hand towel into my arm. So I used a clean paper towel and just dabbed at it until it was good and dry I even kind of wiped this direction which was sort of the cut was angled inward like this So kind of going that direction didn pull the cut open over and over and over again Then I took Sterry strips It took only like two on this one to cover most of it And really I just cut them to length So on this little card here there three individual strips I took off two of them cut them a little bit short stuck them on my arm And so then what I did is I stick them to length So on this little card here there three individual strips I took off two of them I took off two of them cut them a little bit short stuck them on my arm And so then what I did is I did is I

it on here and once it's adhered really well, then I kind of pulled it this direction so that

it would really close the wound really well, good and tight, and then I stick it to the other

side and kind of rub it down like this and then it's just stuck. Okay? So that closed the wound

but that wasn't going to keep other stuff from getting into it and it wasn't going to help

with some of the other issues. So then we just got a regular old gospad. You can pick them up

at any store that has a pharmacy area and laid the gosks, and laid the gosps

over the top and then I took a wrap or an ace bandage and wrapped it around the arm with a little

bit of pressure not so much that my hand was starting to go numb but enough pressure that I was putting

some compression over the wound that's going to help with the bleeding help it to stop a lot faster

but the other thing it's going to do is help keep swelling down whenever we have any sort of especially

with it when there's like contact made it was you know I kind of whacked my arm when this happened

but also even with lacerations, oftentimes swelling will come to the area

Swelling is intended to help you to be able to immediately use that part of your body so you can get out of a dangerous situation

But it also causes more long-term damage. So anytime there's any sort of swelling happening, minimizing that swelling is good

We minimize swelling by compression, by ice or cold, and also by elevating, keeping it above the heart so that you don't have as much blood and fluids draining to it

I just stuck with compression. That's what I did. That way I could immediately get back to work

and I could put that pipe back together and get the water to my house turned back on

Remember, I said that I shut off the water to my house and I couldn't use the water until I was done

until I put it back together. If I turned the water onto the house, it'd be shooting all over my bathroom. But fortunately, because we were turning off the water, my wife had warned our children

and they had filled up several cups full of water. So my wife went downstairs, got two big cups

a water from my kids that they had set aside. And that's what I was able to use to sort of rinse

out the wound. So I was able to do it with fairly minimal water instead of just running a bunch of

water over it from the sink. That was my immediate, we'll call first aid. First aid is typically

intended to be what you're able to do sort of in the field in your scenario until you're

able to get appropriate medical help. Now again, in this situation, I didn't feel like I needed

medical help. But because the cut had gone all the way through all layers of skin, my wife was

concerned. So she convinced me to let her call even a doctor who's a doctor who basically said

yeah, sounds like you guys did everything right. Probably get by without stitches. But another thing that

would help, this was his recommendation, is you can use super glue. Now, I've read articles where people

say, don't use regular super glue. The stuff they use in the hospital is different. And it is

It is different. But here's what my doctor friend told me I should do if I was just going to use regular

super glue, which we already had on hand. He said, make sure the wound is all the way closed. Hold it really

good and closed You do not want the glue to get down into the wound between the two sides because that would prevent those two sides from being able to make contact and heal back together So you trying to adhere to the good clean skin on either side of the laceration

So the glue just kind of goes over the top. Then he said he recommended still putting on the stare strips over the top of the glue after the glue had dried, just kind of for good measure to help hold it closed well and prevent pulling, right

If I hit it on something, I mean, I was still going to train in jiu-jitsu with this

thing. So we wanted to be able to keep it good and closed. Of course, I actually stuck with keeping

the wrap on it because once again, putting that compression on it helped to keep it closed

and help keep any strain off of it. A couple days later, I finally made it out to the pharmacy

and I actually bought some liquid bandage. This is a generic version of new skin, but basically

it's kind of like super glue, but it's antiseptic and it's just intended for that use

This does say it's specifically for small cuts and wounds. But basically

I was just using to help sort of keep it closed as well as keep stuff out of it

But I was also putting just a large Band-Aid over the top of the whole thing

mostly just to keep crud out of there before I put on the ACE wrap. Now a couple other things that I have

This is bleed stop. It's intended to be able to be used on small wounds up to large major wounds

And the idea is you basically pour the powder into the wound. It's like the stuff the military uses, although they have a lot of different applications

but it's intended to help that blood to clot really quickly and stop the bleeding so that you don't bleed out

I keep this stuff around. I have it in my car, have it in my first aid kid at home

I absolutely recommend keeping that around for those scenarios. Now here I am. It's just been a week. If I had gone to the hospital, I'd still have stitches in for two or three more days

But no stitches. The wound is closed up really, really, really well

And it's healing over really well. And at this point, all I'm doing, doing. I'm cleaning it. I wash it when I wash my hands and stuff. And then most of the day

I keep just some of this liquid bandage on it. And that's been enough to keep bacteria and stuff

from getting in and to kind of give it a little bit of help staying closed. I just wanted to share

that experience with you today. I think it's important that we think about the kinds of situations

we could be in and make sure that we have the knowledge and skills to be able to handle that

sort of situation. And to make sure that for the most part, we have the resources that we need

need. If I'd been in the mountains when this happened, could I have handled this in basically the

same way? Yeah. Because in my regular gear that's in my car or in my pack, I have pretty much all of

these things. I don't know if I had stare strips in my pack first aid kit, but now I will, because these

could be using a pinch in place of stitches. So think about how you can apply that to the kinds of

situations you might be in, whether it's first aid, whether it's a job loss where you're going to need

food to live on for a little while or it's another emergency situation. What gear do you need to

have on hand, but also what knowledge and skills do you think you may be lacking that you could

work on developing? I'd love to hear about it in the comments below because hopefully I can help

you develop those skills, either from things that I know or from other experts that I can bring here

on the channel to help teach those things to you. So, until we meet again, stay safe and stay prepared