cotton wool
January 28, 2012
– Comments (6)
In the 80s I broke my leg skiing in the Alps at the age of 12 or so and it happened around a mile from the hospital of Schladming which apparently has doctors with huge experience in treating broken arms and legs, as the hospital was the hub for treating all the injuries from one of Austria's busiest skiing areas. Tibia and fibula of one leg were broken right above the boot ("Schuhrandbruch" <-> "edge of boot fracture") and the doctors in Germany later told me that it had been pretty audacious to not use any screws or nails or whatever standard procedure is to take care of such an injury. Without that stabilisation the risk of the bone parts getting out of the correct position in the first few days was, according to them, far too large. Those Schladming doctors had used the trick of dispensing with the one inch cotton wool layer and instead simply wrapping the leg with something like toilet paper and thus leaving almost no room between muscle and cast. No space to move, no nails. Maybe zzlangerhans can tell me whether the German doctors were simply amateurs, or whether the Austrian one were really professional in the art of casting. I think they still used chloroform at the time and I was supposed to count from 1 to 100 (maybe from 100 to 1) to see whenI would stop and they could start. I still remember not being fully narcotised yet and noticing them beginning todo their work and begging them to give me more of the chloroform. I think I told them they should give me the dose for grown ups or as much as one could possibly receive. Really scary, hehe.
The "investing edge" of the story, I guess, is that far too many people have never heard of the toilet paper trick and are still using the one inch cotton wool layer and nails ...
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