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Maybe We Need To Rethink The "Combat Bra"? ------ not what ya think

Bruce Monkhouse

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http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2008/10/07/7004611-sun.html

Nursing assistant credited with saving man outside of nightclub

By DAVE DORMER, SUN MEDIA

The Calgary Sun     


CALGARY -- Using her bra to stop the bleeding, a Calgary woman is being credited with helping save the life of a man beaten unconscious outside a southwest nightclub.

Nicky Arsenault, 19, was leaving the Back Alley Nightclub with friends early Sunday morning when they saw two men who had been left unconscious and bleeding heavily on the sidewalk.
A nursing assistant at Bowcrest Care Centre, Arsenault jumped into action along with friend Paul Fitzgerald, a welder in the Canadian military.

"There were 20 or 30 people standing around but nobody was doing anything," she said.
"I saw he had a deep laceration on the left side of his head, but he was laying on the left side so the blood was pouring out.
"I got two people help me turn him to the recovery position, otherwise he would have bled out, then I took off my bra because nobody had anything else to use, and I held it against the laceration." 
While Arsenault helped one victim, Fitzgerald helped the other -- a 24-year-old male who had a broken right arm.

While she was performing first aid, Arsenault said the man she was helping stopped breathing at one point.
"He was breathing through his nasal passage but it was so blocked, it was really shallow, almost like snoring then he stopped," she said.
"So I opened his throat and cleared out as much blood as I could so I wouldn't have to give him CPR."
It was at that point, she said the man's pulse dropped from 80 to 60 BPM.
"That's pretty bad," she said.

Their actions garnered kudos from EMS spokesman Stuart Brideaux.
"Certainly any time anyone sees an opportunity to try to help the well-being of a patient before EMS arrives, we're very appreciative of them," he said.
"It's very noble for someone to stop to help when they can -- in a patient's mind ... if someone is there helping, they are not alone and are being looked after."
Arsenault said bystanders told her the unconscious pair had been flirting with the girlfriends of another group of men who took offence and laid a beating on them.

"They just turned around and started beating on them," she said.
"Once the guys were on the ground, one of them got booted in the head and that's what caused the lacerations, from the cement.
"Then the other guys just jumped in their car and left."


 
Hmm, yea, stuff them all with field dressing pads, yea, thats the ticket,.....
 
Kudos to the young lady for her quick thinking and action.  However, the use of a bra as the most readily available improvised dressing wouldn't have come to my mind.  The last time (decades ago?) that I was involved in the frenzied removal of a "young" nurse's brassiere, it wouldn't have been classified as a speedy operation (even though she was compliant and a very eager participant).  I guess my age must be showing; there used to be more layers of clothing that could be used as an improvised dressing before a bra would be the item closest to hand.
 
Ahh, clearly you haven't been to some of the fine drinking establishments some of us young'uns frequent these days.
 
Blackadder1916 said:
there used to be more layers of clothing that could be used as an improvised dressing before a bra would be the item closest to hand.

That's what I was thinking.  Wouldn't her shirt have been easier or was she wearing the kind of bra that she didn't want to be seen in public in (whether an old ratty one or a see-through one)?  ???
 
When I first read the thread title, I thought Bruce was referring to the old FN C2 magazine carrier that we used to have, the combat bra being one of the nicer terms it was called!
 
Perhaps she was thinking more along the lines of "elastic to apply and maintain the pressure to the wound, cotton in the padding to absorb the blood and seal the wound, etc." Perhaps maybe her shirt was made of a substandard material? Perhaps climate meant she would freeze her butt off if she took her shirt off?

Regardless, good job !
 
The location of the incident does lend itself to thinking about brassieres.  If there had been a requirement for more improvised pressure dressings, an abundant source was perhaps just across the parking lot from the nightclub mentioned in the article; "Hooters" is on the same lot.
 
Bruce Monkhouse said:
Come on, it wasn't a shotgun blast.....

spit.gif


New keyboard/screen please!!!
 
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