First Aid: Broken Bones

[Skitfaced]

How about having broken limbs and possibly chance of concussion resulting in game over. I remember bear attacks resulting in broken bones in some accurate survival movies. And I don't remember if the game really does have broken bone injuries.

Anyways We could craft splints using sticks or hardwood and guts, or maybe even plaster for making casts when mixed with bandages?

We could also have improvised splints like using cloth or hides, combined with guts or mountaineering rope. 

Or using other clothing to use. It could be a universal thing where any fabric/clothing could be used with cordage to make a splint.

They also could have a chance of just being rare medical items found in...wait for it...TRAUMA KITS. Found at specific locations?

Maybe not even just medical grade splints but, maybe air splints?

This worthy of some interesting speculation is it not?

 

*very energetic of this idea*

[Hotzn]

It would be cool if we could suffer long-term injuries and afflictions in the game.

[azeritto]

would be cool to make new difficulty level with such long-term injuries and afflictions.

[Boston123]

You do realize the game would be over if you broke a bone, right?

In real life, getting a broken bone in a survival situation will kill you.If not through crippling your movement or physical manipulator ability, then through infection.

Not to mention that it takes weeks, if not months, to actually heal a broken bone. Much less put a broken limb under traction.

[hauteecolerider]

Depends on the severity and location of the fracture.

Speaking from personal experience, I know it's possible to keep going with a broken little toe. Just tape it to the next toe, suck up a lot of ibuprofen, and rest that foot as often as possible. This was while I was in my senior year in vet school, and I couldn't afford to go to a Dr. or take a day off.

Open fractures and compound fractures of the long bones of the legs (and possibly the arms) can result in death.

Fractures of the long bones that sever the femoral artery or the brachial artery (both possible without breaking through the skin) can result in bleeding to death. You just won't see the blood because it is trapped between the muscles of your limb. But it's going to be painful as hell. That's why fractures need to be wrapped ASAP.

Broken ribs have the potential to puncture lungs, liver, and yes, even the spleen. Punctured lungs can lead to respiratory collapse; punctured liver and spleen can lead to death by hemorrhage.

Fractured skulls are pretty obvious. Fractured jaws, however, can be survived, as long as one has the ability to make tons of soup and soft stews!

That's just a small fraction of the complexity that is covered by the word/phrase broken bone . . .

[Boston123]

3 hours ago, hauteecolerider said:

Depends on the severity and location of the fracture.

Speaking from personal experience, I know it's possible to keep going with a broken little toe. Just tape it to the next toe, suck up a lot of ibuprofen, and rest that foot as often as possible. This was while I was in my senior year in vet school, and I couldn't afford to go to a Dr. or take a day off.

Open fractures and compound fractures of the long bones of the legs (and possibly the arms) can result in death.

Fractures of the long bones that sever the femoral artery or the brachial artery (both possible without breaking through the skin) can result in bleeding to death. You just won't see the blood because it is trapped between the muscles of your limb. But it's going to be painful as hell. That's why fractures need to be wrapped ASAP.

Broken ribs have the potential to puncture lungs, liver, and yes, even the spleen. Punctured lungs can lead to respiratory collapse; punctured liver and spleen can lead to death by hemorrhage.

Fractured skulls are pretty obvious. Fractured jaws, however, can be survived, as long as one has the ability to make tons of soup and soft stews!

That's just a small fraction of the complexity that is covered by the word/phrase broken bone . . .

I am not just referring to death via infection, or bleeding out.

I am referring to death due to lack of mobility, and lack of function. 

Break your ankle, or your leg, and you won't be walking anywhere. If you are stuck in a cabin, even with wood and food and water, enough for a few weeks, it is going to be very rough. Break your ankle/leg and you are out in the wilderness, suffering from exposure? Yeah, not likely.

A toe is survivable, but moving will be painful. If you have to run on it, or even travel across rough terrain, your chances of survival are severely hampered.

An arm basically limits you to one hand. There goes using a bow, or even a rifle with any degree of accuracy. Les Stroud did an episode where he pretended to break his arm, and he had extreme difficulty.

[SteveP]

1 hour ago, Boston123 said:

I am referring to death due to lack of mobility, and lack of function

If you have enough food, you can last long enough to heal an arm. You could still fish with a broken arm and I suppose snare rabbits. Damage to a leg you could hobble around using crutches and you could crawl back to your base. It's an interesting idea. Wolves would likely get you if they sensed your weakness but with a horse, you might get by. It would be up to the devs to compensate for the possibility of recovery and it would depend if you could get assistance I suppose. Perhaps you'd have to carry some type of signalling device or send up smoke signals!

[SteveP]

5 hours ago, Boston123 said:

Much less put a broken limb under traction.

Hmm, I wouldn't bet that there was never a case where someone reset their limb using traction. Toss a rope over a convenient support and tie one end to the limb and then hoist it into place. You need enough pain killer to get through the pain and wrap the splint or set the bones. It would definitely be a near death experience. Healing would be slow so it would take a long time to get back to 100% condition but I suppose you could function at 50% condition with difficulty to get food. Everything would take longer until you were at 75% and only then could you lift heavy things such as your pack.

Setting your own broken arm

[Sly]

On 4/20/2016 at 5:37 PM, azeritto said:

would be cool to make new difficulty level with such long-term injuries and afflictions.

On the top difficulty level maybe. But I would strongly oppose for light and mid levels.

On 4/20/2016 at 6:56 PM, Boston123 said:

You do realize the game would be over if you broke a bone, right?

In real life, getting a broken bone in a survival situation will kill you.If not through crippling your movement or physical manipulator ability, then through infection.

Not to mention that it takes weeks, if not months, to actually heal a broken bone. Much less put a broken limb under traction.

Agree.

On 4/20/2016 at 11:15 AM, Hotzn said:

It would be cool if we could suffer long-term injuries and afflictions in the game.

Not too cool actually. I`d left such things for high/extreme difficulty levels.

On 4/20/2016 at 10:46 PM, Boston123 said:

I am not just referring to death via infection, or bleeding out.

I am referring to death due to lack of mobility, and lack of function. 

Break your ankle, or your leg, and you won't be walking anywhere. If you are stuck in a cabin, even with wood and food and water, enough for a few weeks, it is going to be very rough. Break your ankle/leg and you are out in the wilderness, suffering from exposure? Yeah, not likely.

A toe is survivable, but moving will be painful. If you have to run on it, or even travel across rough terrain, your chances of survival are severely hampered.

An arm basically limits you to one hand. There goes using a bow, or even a rifle with any degree of accuracy. Les Stroud did an episode where he pretended to break his arm, and he had extreme difficulty.

I think the same!

[Baukster77]

I think broken bones would be too difficult to add to the game because like mentioned above, broken bones can be easy to heal, or very complex. But I like the idea of some long-term injuries. Always found it too easy to cure a sprained ankle or wrist with only some painkillers. It would be more realistic and more of a challenge if your mobility would be affected for a day or two.

[Hotzn]

On 21.7.2016 at 9:24 PM, Baukster77 said:

I think broken bones would be to complex to add to the game because like mentioned above, broken bones can be easy to heal, or very complex. But I like the idea of some long-term injuries. Always found it too easy to cure a sprained ankle or wrist with only some painkillers. It would be more realistic and more of a challenge if your mobility would be affected for a day or two.

This. Or a week.

[sir ice]

If your bone is broken your dead in nature. Broken bones are a death sentence. 

[continuity]

Yeah, a broken leg is going to be game over.  but maybe you could get by with something like a fractured arm. Still, there would be a lot of coding to get it to work right in game, and it would have to be very rare to be anything other than incredibly annoying... so almost certainly not worth the effort for the devs.  The alternative is a lite/gamey implementation which I think would be worse than nothing at all.

[Dirmagnos]

22 hours ago, sir ice said:

If your bone is broken your dead in nature. Broken bones are a death sentence. 

Not really, depends on a fracture type and location. In most cases proper splint would allow player to maintain some degree of mobility. And limping around for couple of weeks is better than instant death.

[sir ice]

54 minutes ago, Dirmagnos said:

Not really, depends on a fracture type and location. In most cases proper splint would allow player to maintain some degree of mobility. And limping around for couple of weeks is better than instant death.

I guess so but if its a leg your screwed. Also, the average person doesn't know how to put a cast on... Maybe in a future map there could be a hospital with medical books that could be read to learn how to use a cast though. 

[ethomas21]

On 7/21/2016 at 0:24 PM, Baukster77 said:

I think broken bones would be too difficult to add to the game because like mentioned above, broken bones can be easy to heal, or very complex. But I like the idea of some long-term injuries. Always found it too easy to cure a sprained ankle or wrist with only some painkillers. It would be more realistic and more of a challenge if your mobility would be affected for a day or two.

Maybe a future Feat or Badge or just an Achievement for suffering a broken bone (or other long-term, more serious affliction) and surviving.

[Sly]

On 7/25/2016 at 6:00 PM, sir ice said:

I guess so but if its a leg your screwed. Also, the average person doesn't know how to put a cast on... Maybe in a future map there could be a hospital with medical books that could be read to learn how to use a cast though. 

Of course everybody is screwed having ones leg broken. But the result will one survive or not depends more of time you could afford to rest with some immobilization of the injured leg without walking, working, walking even cooking. If one manages to last a month or something - the bone likely will consolidate (even if not ideally, then one leg will be some shorter and he/she unlikely become marathon winner) then he/she will be able to walk again and work and hunt. If the fracture is that severe one is need the hospital (open fracture = bleeding-hypothermia-death/infection-death)  - it is rather the end in matter of hours, maybe days without help.

[miah999]

On 7/25/2016 at 11:00 AM, sir ice said:

I guess so but if its a leg your screwed. Also, the average person doesn't know how to put a cast on... Maybe in a future map there could be a hospital with medical books that could be read to learn how to use a cast though. 

Not to mention material, how many folks have casting plaster and bandages lying around. If there was a clinic in the game maybe you could find some. But having the risk of such an injury, and a known location for the supplies to help, will lead to linear game-play. As players will bee-line straight for the clinic to make sure they're equipped for such an injury. I already feel having only one forge creates similar issues, as you know you'll eventually need new arrowheads. This forces you go to one location, to do one activity, it removes some degree of freedom from the game.

[sir ice]

16 hours ago, Sly said:

Of course everybody is screwed having ones leg broken. But the result will one survive or not depends more of time you could afford to rest with some immobilization of the injured leg without walking, working, walking even cooking. If one manages to last a month or something - the bone likely will consolidate (even if not ideally, then one leg will be some shorter and he/she unlikely become marathon winner) then he/she will be able to walk again and work and hunt. If the fracture is that severe one is need the hospital (open fracture = bleeding-hypothermia-death/infection-death)  - it is rather the end in matter of hours, maybe days without help.

Imagine sitting in a cave for days eating jerky, waiting for your bone to heal but you dieXD

[Dirmagnos]

On 7/25/2016 at 6:00 PM, sir ice said:

I guess so but if its a leg your screwed. Also, the average person doesn't know how to put a cast on... Maybe in a future map there could be a hospital with medical books that could be read to learn how to use a cast though. 

Again, not really.

If its an open fracture and/or you have internal bleeding, then sure. But if its closed one, player just needs to apply splint, severely restrict mobility and get a lot of rest. In couple of weeks hel already be able to move around relatively freely.

[cekivi]

I'm against this just because it is something that's way too context sensitive. Everything from you'd be fine (a clean break in a non-dominant arm) to death (compound fracture that pierced an artery) is possible as @hauteecolerider pointed out with "broken bones". It would be neat to have more persistent or longer healing injuries though. I think both @Dirmagnos and I have posted in the past how sprains should have a severity associated with them which would result in different levels of mobility loss and longer and more difficult treatments.

[sir ice]

On 7/29/2016 at 5:28 AM, Dirmagnos said:

Again, not really.

If its an open fracture and/or you have internal bleeding, then sure. But if its closed one, player just needs to apply splint, severely restrict mobility and get a lot of rest. In couple of weeks hel already be able to move around relatively freely.

Dude if I had a broken leg I wouldn't know what to do. Theres a reason we go to the doctor when we have a broken bone. 

[Majales]

20 minutes ago, sir ice said:

Dude if I had a broken leg I wouldn't know what to do. Theres a reason we go to the doctor when we have a broken bone. 

It's always good to know at least a little bit about first aid. There are situations, when rescue can be hours away or without immediate help someone dies.

[Dirmagnos]

56 minutes ago, sir ice said:

Dude if I had a broken leg I wouldn't know what to do. Theres a reason we go to the doctor when we have a broken bone. 

Except that in game you dont have that luxury. And people have survived horrendous injuries without modern medicine for a long time. Mortality rate was high, granted, but it is possible.

Or are to say to to me that if you were to break a bone in such situation, then you would just put a barrel of a gun in your mouth and pull a trigger ?

[Boston123]

6 hours ago, Dirmagnos said:

Except that in game you dont have that luxury. And people have survived horrendous injuries without modern medicine for a long time. Mortality rate was high, granted, but it is possible.

Or are to say to to me that if you were to break a bone in such situation, then you would just put a barrel of a gun in your mouth and pull a trigger ?

Yep. Coming from someone trained in Wilderness Survival, that is pretty much what I would do, based on the situation we see in TLD.

With broken bones, you don't just "apply splint", you actually have to set the bone back into place, where you pull on the limb and broken bone until the broken ends match up "like normal", then apply traction, when you put slight tension on the broken bone so it heals straight. Depending on where the broken bone is, the muscles around the break site can be extremely powerful (and will probably be spasming and cramping), making applying traction extremely painful and all-but impossible for a lone survivor to accomplish.

All of that has to be done before the weeks of healing can take place. Depending on what bone is broken, this could be as minor as an arm in a sling (making it all-but impossible to use a rifle or a bow, mind you), to suicide-worthy (broken leg).

Humanity existed in tribes and social groups for longer than we have been "modern" humans for a reason. "Solo survival" is almost infinitely difficult, mainly for the reason that if you get injured, you won't have ANY help, from helping treat the injury itself to keeping yourself warm, fed and watered during the healing process. Hope you have enough food, water and firewood to keep you for 4+ weeks in that cabin bed!

Yeah, no, anything more serious than a broken arm and I would seriously be considering suicide. It beats starving to death or dying via blood infection any day in my book.