How can you help someone whose leg has been torn off by a shark?
An Australian study published Thursday, September 23 unveils a new first aid technique to stop the bleeding and reduce fatalities.
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Find the midpoint between the hip and the genitals, make a fist and push as hard as you can: according to Nicholas Taylor, Dean of Medicine at the Australian National University (ANU) who conducted the research, this compression technique is much more effective in stopping bleeding than traditionally used tourniquets. His study, published Thursday in the journal
Emergency Medicine Australasia
, shows that by clenching a fist and pressing on the femoral artery, 89.7% of blood flow was stopped, compared to 43.8% using a plank leash. surf as a makeshift tourniquet.
Much of the fatal shark wounds occur in the legs, leaving the victim to bleed out, even if they manage to make it back to shore. “
I knew from my experience in emergency medicine that with heavy bleeding from the leg you can push really hard on the femoral artery and you can pretty much cut off all the blood flow to the leg that way.
The doctor said in a statement released by the ANU on Friday. The technique works equally well with or without a wetsuit.
Nicholas Taylor hopes this technique will be widely known to some 500,000 Australian surfers, for whom shark encounters are no longer so exceptional.
“
I want posters on the beaches.
I want it to be broadcast in the surfing community.
I want people to know that if someone gets bitten, you can pull them out of the water, push as hard as you can in that central place and that can stop almost all the blood flow
, ”he said. .
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Shark attacks are rare but on the rise in Australia, largely because more people are swimming.
