Newspaper_Nick

Just don't get it infected. If it gets infected, go to the hospital right away. Keep the wound clean. A minor infection could escalate to scary outcomes. Open wounds should always been taken seriously.

PS: I see people recommending keeping the wound open. A big wound should never be left open. That is like a warm welcome to all kinds of germs and bacteria.

livedarklions

So basically, no matter what happened, it wasn't the ER's fault? Sorry, but that's a load of crap. She was turned away by the clinic because they determined she needed more diagnostics than they could provide. So now you are faulting people for skipping a step of being refused service because you know they're not going to want to treat you without xrays, etc.

Jicafold

She didn't need any xrays or CT or MRI or other advanced imaging. If so...the ER would have seen her in a more expeditious manner. They didn't because in triage they determined it wasn't needed. They could have eventually seen her at the ER if she continued to wait, but she left. Besides, urgent care has xray capability.

livedarklions

So wait, she went to the clinic who turned her away telling her she needs to be seen in the ER, so she goes to the ER who does a crappy job, then has to go back to the clinic when it gets infected, and your version is she should have gone to the clinic in the first place, which is exactly what she did!

And she did wait at the ER and was served--they "triaged" her too long to get the stitches that could have helped, and they failed to clean the wounds or tell her how.

In your book, literally nothing she could have done was correct.
"That's some catch, that Catch 22!"

Jicafold

You're missing the point. She did nothing wrong. The clinic should have done their job the first time she showed up...not the second. She wasn't seen at the ER because they were too busy saving lives.

Abrasions don't need stitches.

livedarklions

OK, I must have misunderstood who you were blaming for having the expensive state of mind. I don't agree she didn't need to be xrayed/MRIed for the simple fact that she had road rash on her ribs--that indicates a possibility for nonobvious but dangerous internal injuries if she landed hard on her chest. By her own account, she was seen at the ER, BTW. They just didn't do very much. If they had triaged her and determined they didn't have time to clean the wounds, they should have at least instructed her to return to urgent care to get it done.

Unca_Sam

+1
How would that work, anyway?

Milton Keynes

Lots of very very tiny stitches.

Dr.Lou

And an ice cream cone.

Turner2

Eight weeks ago I fell and got rash on my fore arm. I wore a hole through the skin about the size of a dime. They stitched it together to speed healing and I am very glad they did.

So yes, sometimes abrasions do need stitches.

Jicafold

An abrasion is not a hole. You didn't have an abrasion but an injury with actual depth.

eja_ bottecchia

You don’t want to get into most oceans with those kinds of open, festering wounds. And don’t go into any lakes either.

MoAlpha

Right!

Both sun and oceans are terrible for wounds. Google V. vulnificus and M. marinum! Denuded tissue has no, as in zero, protection from UV radiation, which kills cells rapidly.

Turner2

It is if the abrasion goes all the way through the skin.

Jicafold

Of course it goes through the skin. It "abrades" the skin away. It's still flat. You can't bring the skin edges back together...there aren't any. You can suture cuts, lacerations, deep wounds, etc. I've sutured countless patients in the operating room, emergency room, urgent care, and in combat. So yeah....I'm pretty sure. Abrasions, like the OP sustained, are treated with debridement and dressings, repetitively if needed, as others have stated. What you claim to have had was not an abrasion.

Turner2

Well that is exactly what they did to me. You stick the needle through the skin some distance from the ragged hole, go across the gap and stick it through on the other side, pull it together and tie. Repeat as necessary. That's what they did and it works.

Jicafold

I know how it works. Done it a million times. I'm not saying you didn't need sutures...but if you did, it wasn't an abrasion. You had a larger chunk of meat missing. I'm glad you did well.

Turner2

Of course is was an abrasion. I slid along the asphalt and the skin was abraded away till it was gone and and a ragged hole remained. I was there. I saw the wound. I know what happened. I'm sure glad you weren't on duty. My healing time would have been greatly extended because you would have said it couldn't be stitched.

Jicafold

Your definition of an abrasion is incorrect. If you had a "hole" you more than abraded your superficial skin and had missing underlying tissue. Depending on the depth and dimensions of said defect, you could require sutures or serial packing of the wound.

Turner2

So, the skin is being abraded away by the asphalt. Once the skin is gone it wasn't abraded away. So what is it now?

Unca_Sam

OOH! OOH! I vote for serial packing!!

Jicafold

This has really surpassed the scope of the OP's question, however, as stated in the prior message "If you had a "hole" you more than abraded your superficial skin and had missing underlying tissue" Use google for differentiation and education between a superficial "abrasion" and "soft tissue defect". I think enough has been said about this.

Unca_Sam

When pieces of you go missing, I want to say it's an avulsion injury, sometimes reaching the level of amputation. It's a Very Bad Thing, and it's good you sought medical assistance. Care depends on what you are missing, though first aid is the same: control the bleeding, but remember that the blood can act to force some debris and infectious agents out. A small enough avulsion can be stitched shut, with the limit being the elasticity of the skin. Do yourself a favor and perform a google image search for "avulsion". I promise a good time!

StanSeven

Closing. This thread seemed to have run its course. Nothing much but bickering the last several posts.
@leylou107, come back and update us in a new thread on how it’s going later.