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I remember the
days when my first aid kit at home wasn't a box on the wall, it had long
outgrown that, - it was a trunk. Open the lid and you saw bandages,
slings, gauze, bottles of various unguents (mostly congealed), packages
containing 'who-knows-what', safety pins, packets of medicine, scissors, a razor
blade or two, eye bath... you know the story. There was enough stuff in
there to fix the wounds from a small war.
The only
trouble was that there was so much that you just couldn't find anything. If
you happened to get a really bad cut from, let's say, a circular saw -
a lovely thought - then you'd be dead from loss of blood before you
could find the right things to fix it with. Something had to give. But
it didn't. That first aid kit just got bigger and bigger.
I remember once,
when I hurt myself, going to the local hospital Emergency department as
it was easier than delving into the medicine box. And you know how many
hours you can spend in one of those places - when you finally get out,
fully repaired, the day has gone, night has fallen, and you've a serious
case of numb bum, from hours on those hospital waiting room chairs.
Around
that time, my first aid kit was known locally as 'the last aid kit' or,
alternatively, 'the black hole'.
Well, the
answer was simple: start moving some of it to the boat's first aid kit.
Start with a few plasters; follow up the next weekend with some bottles
of this and that, and a pillbox or two.
That went well,
for a while, and the house kit gradually got weeded out to a sensible
size. But it was about that time that something strange happened to the
trim of the boat. Where it had sat happily on its marks, winter and
summer; rain or shine; crates of beer and cases of baked beans totally
ignored; now the bow was depressed a couple of inches, and the transom
stuck up in the air.
"Hell, it must be taking water up at the front. No,
there's no water in the bilge, it can't be that. What the?" And there it
was, lurking in the lockers, overflowing from the cupboards, filling the
pilot berth, even in the galley lockers and parts of the bilge - The
First Aid Kit From Hell.
What did it
weigh? A lot. And worse than that, it was useless. You just couldn't
find anything. One day, when I cut myself badly; was bleeding
everywhere and trying to find a bandage; in desperation (and, truth to tell,
with perhaps a tiny bit of influence from the copious ship's supplies of
Rioja wine), I squeezed the wound together and glued it up. Well, it was that
or lose all that useful blood in my alcohol stream.
After that, I
never looked back. As I became more familiar with the extraordinary
healing ability of superglue, I ditched more and more of the medical kit
and gained more inches on the waterline. Think I'm kidding? OK, maybe
just a tiny bit about the waterline - but certainly not about the
superglue. Oh no, I'm a dedicated fan of cyanoacrylate and yes, that's
without sniffing it.
Perhaps you didn't know that surgeons use it extensively for the temporary suturing
of wounds, even in brain surgery. They use a BP preparation (British
Pharmaceutical); or the
equivalent presumably in other countries; but I can't see how you can
make something 'safe' with ingredients that appear as toxic as those in
superglue. Perhaps as it's only liquid while in contact with you for a
second or two, no harm results.
When you think
about it, superglue sticks to skin better than anything else. If you're
trying to glue up a broken cup, chances are you'll stick your fingers to
each other, or the cup, before you glue the cup successfully. Even so, the
great thing about it is that it comes off in two days, three at the
most. Imagine the worst thing that could happen - somehow you stick an
eyelid shut by mistake (Eh?). Don't worry, in two days it comes unstuck.
This is as a result of the natural loss of surface skin cells as they are
replaced.
 If you have a
really big, juicy, job to do - back to the circular saw theme - just dry
off one side of the cut, put a 'wodge' of sticking plaster on that side,
coat the whole 'bejasus' with superglue, pull the cut closed and stick the
plaster over to the other side. Sorted. In two days, the glue sloughs
off, and the cut is healing. Gaffer tape (Ed: duct tape) is better than plaster, anyway,
as it's got a thousand other uses.
 So, now, my
first aid kit is a roll of gaffer tape, which is in the rigging bag, and
a couple of tubes of glue. Arm sling - what do you think gaffer tape's
for? Antibiotics? Borrow some from the guy on the next boat. Headache
pills? Get some from the woman who's diesel motor you fixed. Anyway, you can
pay them back when they cut themselves by fixing them up faster than they
have ever been healed before!
So, don't 'faff'
about, deep-six all that old witch doctor's outfit. Get one of those
little tubes!
(The Editors
would like to point out that this article represents the private opinion
of the correspondent, writing from his comfortable little padded room at
the Asylum for Disturbed Seafarers, and is in not endorsed by MarineZine).
Chris
Price
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