3 Reasons Never To Perform Surgery In A Crisis

What would you do if someone in your group needed surgery? If you think performing surgery on your own during a crisis is an option, think again.

Surgery is risky enough during normal conditions, but lack of training and suitable supplies make surgery an even worse option during a survival scenario.

If you attempt to perform surgery yourself, you’ll most likely do more harm than good even if you’ve done some research on doing field surgery. You could even end up killing the person you’re trying to save.

Don’t believe me? Here’s three compelling reasons never to perform surgery in a crisis.

#1 Uncontrollable Bleeding

Here’s something most survivalists don’t think about. Cutting someone open is easy, but doing it in a way that’s safe and doesn’t cause more damage than necessary is extremely difficult. If surgery was as simple as cutting an opening, then anybody could do it.

In order to perform surgery, you’d have to cut through skin, muscles, and fat. Blood vessels are found in all of those tissues, and they’ll bleed when you inevitably cut them.

If you’re unfortunate enough to cut a major blood vessel, well, good luck stopping that without years of experience and proper surgical equipment.

Let’s say you were lucky and managed to avoid major blood vessels and had someone to help you control the rest of the bleeding. That’s great, but you still need to perform the surgery.

There will be a pool of blood obstructing your vision, and any slip up on your part will cause even more problems and the bleeding will increase.

The risk of massive blood loss can be a bigger threat than whatever injury you were trying to fix with surgery. It’s better to avoid performing surgery by yourself in most situations.

#2 Difficulty Cutting and Closing Wounds

The inside of the body is delicate. If you accidentally scrape an organ it will bleed or leak another fluid, creating an unsanitary mess.

You need to know exactly where to cut before you make any incisions, but the problem is that not everyone’s organs are in the exact same spot.

Sure, they’ll be in the same general area, but they could be an inch or two off point, or even rotated a different way.

Imagine the disaster that will result from puncturing someone’s organ because their organ was located slightly to the side of where the anatomy book said it was.

Closing wounds can be difficult and you may end up doing more damage than you fixed while attempting to close them. As you become frustrated you’ll make even more mistakes, putting your patient at even more risk the more time passes.

#3 Deadly Infections

Even if the surgery goes well, the patient is still in a huge amount of danger.

Infections from surgery are fairly common even when the surgery is performed in a hospital by a professional surgeon, and any surgery performed during a crisis by a non-professional will be even riskier.

Infections are dangerous enough under normal circumstances, but in a crisis they become even more serious.

Antibiotics are limited in supply, and there’s no guarantee they’ll successfully stop the infection. Plus, if you ever need to use antibiotics again they’ll be even less effective than the first time.

How to Prepare for Surgeries In a Crisis Ahead of Time

An amateur surgery performed in an dirty environment is practically a death sentence. In many situations it’s better to not perform an amateur surgery at all and simply let the person try to recover on their own.

That’s easier said than done. When you see a loved one in pain your natural reaction is to do anything to help, but the better choice is to refrain from surgery and instead comfort them while they recover.

The best option is to prepare for this situation ahead of time. Coordinate with like-minded people near where you live and try to add a doctor to your survival group.

A trained professional has the best chances of performing a successful surgery, and this will also take a lot of pressure off of you if the need for surgery ever arises.

Plus, they’ll have high-end surgical instruments and also know how to sterilize them effectively to reduce the risk of infections.

What if you don’t have access to a doctor and you absolutely must operate or else your loved is guaranteed to die? In that case you’ll want to give yourself the best odds possible.

At the very least, you’ll need sterile instruments and medical supplies to give your loved one the best chances as possible to make it though the crisis.

But remember, it’s usually better to go without surgery unless it’s 100% necessary and should only be done as the very last resort. Most of the time it’s just not worth the risk.

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