Lexy writes random shit

So, pretty frequently writers screw up when they write about injuries. People are clonked over the head, pass out for hours, and wake up with just a headache… Eragon breaks his wrist and it’s just fine within days… Wounds heal with nary a scar, ever…

I’m aiming to fix that.

Here are over 100 links covering just about every facet of traumatic injuries (physical, psychological, long-term), focusing mainly on burns, concussions, fractures, and lacerations. Now you can beat up your characters properly!

General resources

WebMD

Mayo Clinic first aid

Mayo Clinic diseases

First Aid

PubMed: The source for biomedical literature

Diagrams: Veins (towards heart), arteries (away from heart) bones, nervous system, brain

Burns

General overview: Includes degrees

Burn severity: Including how to estimate body area affected

Burn treatment: 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degrees

Smoke inhalation

Smoke inhalation treatment

Chemical burns

Hot tar burns

Sunburns

Incisions and Lacerations

Essentials of skin laceration repair (including stitching techniques)

When to stitch (Journal article—Doctors apparently usually go by experience on this)

More about when to stitch (Simple guide for moms)

Basic wound treatment

Incision vs. laceration: Most of the time (including in medical literature) they’re used synonymously, but eh.

Types of lacerations: Page has links to some particularly graphic images—beware!

How to stop bleeding: 1, 2, 3

Puncture wounds: Including a bit about what sort of wounds are most likely to become infected

More about puncture wounds

Wound assessment: A huge amount of information, including what the color of the flesh indicates, different kinds of things that ooze from a wound, and so much more.

Home treatment of gunshot wound, also basics More about gunshot wounds, including medical procedures

Tourniquet use: Controversy around it, latest research

Location pain chart: Originally intended for tattoo pain, but pretty accurate for cuts

General note: Deeper=more serious. Elevate wounded limb so that gravity draws blood towards heart. Scalp wounds also bleed a lot but tend to be superficial. If it’s dirty, risk infection. If it hits the digestive system and you don’t die immediately, infection’ll probably kill you. Don’t forget the possibility of tetanus! If a wound is positioned such that movement would cause the wound to gape open (i.e. horizontally across the knee) it’s harder to keep it closed and may take longer for it to heal.

Broken bones

Types of fractures

Setting a broken bone when no doctor is available

Healing time of common fractures

Broken wrists

Broken ankles/feet

Fractured vertebrae: Neck (1, 2), back

Types of casts

Splints

Fracture complications

Broken noses

Broken digits: Fingers and toes

General notes: If it’s a compound fracture (bone poking through) good luck fixing it on your own. If the bone is in multiple pieces, surgery is necessary to fix it—probably can’t reduce (“set”) it from the outside. Older people heal more slowly. It’s possible for bones to “heal” crooked and cause long-term problems and joint pain. Consider damage to nearby nerves, muscle, and blood vessels.

Concussions

General overview

Types of concussions 1, 2

Concussion complications

Mild Brain Injuries: The next step up from most severe type of concussion, Grade 3

Post-concussion syndrome

Second impact syndrome: When a second blow delivered before recovering from the initial concussion has catastrophic effects. Apparently rare.

Recovering from a concussion

Symptoms: Scroll about halfway down the page for the most severe symptoms

Whiplash

General notes: If you pass out, even for a few seconds, it’s serious. If you have multiple concussions over a lifetime, they will be progressively more serious. Symptoms can linger for a long time.

Character reaction:

Shock (general)

Physical shock: 1, 2

Fight-or-flight response: 1, 2

Long-term emotional trauma: 1 (Includes symptoms), 2

First aid for emotional trauma

Treatment (drugs)

WebMD painkiller guide

Treatment (herbs)

1, 2, 3, 4

Miscellany

Snake bites: No, you don’t suck the venom out or apply tourniquettes

Frostbite

Frostbite treatment

Severe frostbite treatment

When frostbite sets in: A handy chart for how long your characters have outside at various temperatures and wind speeds before they get frostbitten

First aid myths: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Includes the ones about buttering burns and putting snow on frostbite.

Poisons: Why inducing vomiting is a bad idea

Poisonous plants

Dislocations: Symptoms 1, 2; treatment. General notes: Repeated dislocations of same joint may lead to permanent tissue damage and may cause or be symptomatic of weakened ligaments. Docs recommend against trying to reduce (put back) dislocated joint on your own, though information about how to do it is easily found online.

Muscular strains

Joint sprain

Resuscitation after near-drowning: 1, 2

Current CPR practices: We don’t do mouth-to-mouth anymore.

The DSM IV, for all your mental illness needs.

Electrical shock

Human response to electrical shock: Includes handy-dandy voltage chart

Length of contact needed at different voltages to cause injury

Evaluation protocol for electric shock injury

Neurological complications

Electrical and lightning injury

Cardiac complications

Delayed effects and a good general summary

Acquired savant syndrome: Brain injuries (including a lightning strike) triggering development of amazing artistic and other abilities

we’ve all read that prompt where someone is smirking, cocking an eyebrow and tossing their hair every other word. it’s annoying and it’s overused, not because they’re moving too much, but because nobody actually does that. rather than making your character repeat the same three actions on loop, spice things up! here are some helpful starting points

anger: 

curling and uncurling fists

sharp exhales

rolling eyes

cracking neck 

setting jaw

grinding teeth 

pursing lips

boredom/impatience: 

scratching neck/back

tapping or drumming fingers on something

tapping foot

changing position repeatedly, as if to get comfortable

leaning back 

kicking feet or putting them up

looking around 

nerves: 

looking around but, like, different

hands in pockets

fidgeting with an object

biting lip, inside of cheek, or nails 

tapping or drumming fingers on something

“Oh no, not this time silly! I like having you try and stop me everytime, it’s nice!” She said before giggling and pulling on a rope that spiraled up into the darkness of the cave. I jumped to the side in case something were to fall on me. Something did fall this time, a bag.

“No dragon this time?” I inquired. She enjoyed dragons.

“No, I can’t have you being a crisp, silly goose!”

“Right. Can we get this over with? I need to go get new black boots seeing as my other ones got melted.”

She gasped and put her hand to her chest, “Are you calling me a jerk? You are aren’t you!”

“Well you have taken candy from a baby before…”

“Excuse me? First of all I took it from a toddler and secondly you knocked them over!”

I leaped forward trying to cut off one of her fingers, but I fell short.

“Tsk, tsk. Don’t attack me! Attack that thing!”

I turned my head to see what she was talking about but I was knocked over. She was standing over me other my own sword pointed at me. She stepped on my ribs slowly crushing me with a smirk n her face.

“Don’t look away from someone as beautiful as me. Only look away from someone killing someone else you good little goose.” She chuckled a bit before continuing, “Never thought that it would end like this….”

I tried to push her off but my sword almost grazed my throat.

“Oh? Trying to start your own demise sooner?”

“No, I don’t want to die.”

She sat on me instead, I was never that strong so I can’t push her off.

“You don’t want to die? You always talk about it. Why not experience it?”

“I only started doing this for my sister. You hurt her badly I couldn’t just let you get away!”

“Well then this is for her!”

I’m very excited to present my third youtube video! This one is on creative writing warm ups with three examples based off of visual learning, auditory learning, and kinesthetic learning styles

Person A, sees someone doing something idiotic: Oh God what an idiot