PSA for all y’all ‘Muricans out here:
We do not routinely re-attach blown up fingers and hands. Firework injuries are usually permanent. Now, there is some nuance here, so if you blow your hand up, seek care at an Emergency Room (not urgent care) immediately, but at the end of the day, most of the time your amputated part goes in the red bin, we bandage you up, and surgeon sees you next week to close up the hole.
Anyway, don’t be stupid.
Why is this?
I remember headlines in the 1970s about reattaching fingers
50 years later, is this STILL reserved for the elite?
Does it have something to do with covid levels being 140% of omicron today, and so many HCW out with long covid?
I wanted to ask whether this is a difference between clean cut amputation and amputation associated with lots of destruction on both sides, so will piggy back on your question.
@robryk @NilaJones yes and no. A perfectly surgical amputation, for instance from a very sharp knife, is certainly going to have a better chance of survival, but unless someone is a concert pianist or something, finding a surgeon willing to put fingers back on is a challenge. If I think the injury is life changing and the amputated part viable, I will always call the big trauma centers, but more often than not they do the same thing I do, and just close a flap over the wound.