surgical principle number 3: all bleeding stops

this is not originally my principle, but it is so true that it somehow found its way into the surgical principles of bongi.

i first saw this principle in action many years ago when i was a community service doctor in qwaqwa. i was doing a call in casualties. actually, the way it worked there meant i was doing more than just a casualties call. i was also the anaesthetist on call and the overall backup for the two interns. for any big surgery we'd call the cuban surgeon out. otherwise we were it. the interns would do the caesarian sections. i would dope the patients and resuscitate the baby if needed. the interns would also do the debridements and ectopics. here i would dope and give useful advice about what to cut off and out and how. anyway i digress.

one of the hospitals that referred to us phoned. the guy had a stab wound neck. he told me it was bleeding profusely and he wanted to send it for surgery. i naturally accepted the patient. but i told him to somehow apply pressure to the wound to control the bleeding for the trip (his hospital was about 40 minutes away). i actually suggested he send someone with a bit of savvy who could put their finger in the wound to directly stop the bleeding.

once i had gotten off the phone i got casualties ready for a big resus. in qwaqwa this took some doing. the charge sister had to unlock the cupboard where the drip needles were kept (they tended to go missing leaving the hospital with no means to put up a line). i checked the intubation equipment and discovered the batteries in the laryngoscope were not working. this resulted in a protracted search through the hospital for either batteries or another laryngoscope. finally we found a working one. i soon gave up on getting a working defibrillator, although some nurses said they heard there was one somewhere on the second floor. i then phoned the surgeon to give him a heads up. he told me to phone back once the patient arrived. then we waited.

about an hour after the initial call, an ambulance came tearing in. the paramedics jumped out and came rushing in with a patient on a stretcher. the patient was tubed. one paramedic was bagging him. another was giving chest compressions. but there were two other things i noticed right away.

the first was that the neck wound was open with no clear signs of any attempt made to stop the bleeding. the second was that the patient was not bleeding.
"when you left the other hospital, was the patient bleeding?" i asked.
"yes!" replied the guy pumping the ambubag. "he was bleeding like crazy!" he seemed to be the one in charge.
"and when did he stop bleeding?"
"about five minutes after we loaded him."

i called it right there, thereby saving everyone a whole lot of paperwork.

and thus i learned that all bleeding stops....eventually.