First of all, a sucking chest wound doesn’t require a blood transfusion, it requires a chest tube. It’s a conditition wherein outside air is pulled into the chest cavity but do9esn’t escape. It causes a tension pneumothorax, which is the most serious medical emergency possible. You have less than 4 minutes to treat before death. CPR does no good because the lungs are totally collapsed. Sealing the hole immediately will buy a little time, but, not much.
For an actual bleeding emergency, Airman Doors, USAF is correct, O neg blood is given until the type and cross is done, which takes from 30 minutes to 4 hours to complete. What you’re missing is ABO and Rh factors are not the only aspects that need to be checked. You don’t want incompatible blood, believe me.
And the type and cross is done by a lab tech not a nurse, the nurse is busy keeping you alive while waiting for the T&C.
Even if you had your complete HLA profile you’d still need a T&C since you could have developed new antigens.
I always heard that one tag went between the teeth, and one went in the boot (on on the foot if the boots were missing). That’s the explanation I’ve always been given for why there are two tags.
I have an inordinate amount of friends in the military and therefore having an even larger amount of acquaintances in the military. Let me tell you, nothing is funnier than the dumbasses who have “US ARMY AIRBORNE!” tattooed on them somewhere. Oh, or “Special Forces blah blah!”.
I always just look at them, shake my head, laugh, and wait for them to show up on the news as captured and killed. “No, Mr. Terrorist Interrogator! I’m not in the Special Forces- I swear! Pinky promise!” Dumbasses.
I’m pretty sure Pullet is talking about toe tags, not dog tags. Toe tags are (were?) put on bodies in morgues - like this one on John Dillinger. (Second photo down.)
As I was reading down through this thread, I was wondering what would be the more clever prank? A tattoo artist inking a bogus character, or a someone convincing the misguided that the character really meant something different.
Do any tattoo artists offer Klingon characters? Wouldn’t you like to be at a Trekkie convention and watch them argue over the meaning of a Klingon tattoo?
I hate to be a pain and hijack the thread, but could you please give me a little more info (or a link) about this? I’ve never heard of it, and I’m a blood bank tech. I’m curious to see how it works.
Chinese might be able to do better, but from Japanese the easiest, short version would be:
馬鹿白人
(Stupid White Person)
I can’t think of a short word for “Gullible” and the dictionary is only giving 騙されやすい which again, isn’t terribly short. And it sounds odd to add on “woman” at the end of “white person” so…
See, now I have to jump in the thread. I have two tattoos:
One is the kanji symbol for “courage”. At least, that’s what I thought. Turns out it’s gibberish, and the closest thing it resembles is the word “puppy”. :rolleyes: A coverup is in the works.
The second tattoo I have is three lines of Klingon “writing” from the Star Trek Encyclopedia. It was on a page with examples of writings from each race. While I knew there was no standardized alphabet at the time, I got the tattoo anyway. When people ask what it means, I just tell them it’s the last three lines from the opening of Star Trek “To explore strange new worlds…” in Klingon. For most people that’s enough, and they just roll their eyes and walk away. But twice I’ve been lectured on it, and have had to prove my trek cred.
You might be getting typing blood and cross-matching blood confused. It certainly takes longer to cross-match blood than it does to type it, but if you have a seriously bleeding wound requiring transfusions, you’re going to be getting cross-matched blood.
{Personal anecdote}
A guy with serious trauma came into emergency while I was the on-duty lab tech, and I stat cross-matched 26 units of type-specific for him. He died in the ER, unfortunately, but if he had made it through the original trauma, he wasn’t going to die from being given incompatible blood - every one of those units was compatible with his blood. Having the blood type tattoo might help, if the paramedic calls ahead so the lab tech can get type-specific blood ready, but you’re still getting typed and matched.
You don’t get transfusions the second you walk in the door, either - blood is kept in the fridge, or even frozen (plasma) - you’ll be waiting at least as long as it takes to get some units up to body temperature for your real blood. They’ll probably give you something to keep up your volume while you’re waiting.
This is why I love SDMB. I post two random thoughts from my twisted mind, and I’ll be darned if someone doesn’t come along who’s been there and done that.
