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Writing Traumatic Injuries References

So, pretty frequently writers screw up when they write about injuries. People are clonked over the head, pass out for hours, and wake up with just a headache… Eragon breaks his wrist and it’s just fine within days… Wounds heal with nary a scar, ever…

I’m aiming to fix that.

Here are over 100 links covering just about every facet of traumatic injuries (physical, psychological, long-term), focusing mainly on burns, concussions, fractures, and lacerations. Now you can beat up your characters properly!

General resources

WebMD

Mayo Clinic first aid

Mayo Clinic diseases

First Aid

PubMed: The source for biomedical literature

Diagrams: Veins (towards heart), arteries (away from heart) bones, nervous system, brain

  Burns

General overview: Includes degrees

Burn severity: Including how to estimate body area affected

Burn treatment: 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degrees

Smoke inhalation

Smoke inhalation treatment

Chemical burns

Hot tar burns

Sunburns

  Incisions and Lacerations

Essentials of skin laceration repair (including stitching techniques)

When to stitch (Journal article—Doctors apparently usually go by experience on this)

More about when to stitch (Simple guide for moms)

Basic wound treatment

Incision vs. laceration: Most of the time (including in medical literature) they’re used synonymously, but eh.

Types of lacerations: Page has links to some particularly graphic images—beware!

How to stop bleeding: 1, 2, 3

Puncture wounds: Including a bit about what sort of wounds are most likely to become infected

More about puncture wounds

Wound assessment: A huge amount of information, including what the color of the flesh indicates, different kinds of things that ooze from a wound, and so much more.

Home treatment of gunshot wound, also basics More about gunshot wounds, including medical procedures

Tourniquet use: Controversy around it, latest research

Location pain chart: Originally intended for tattoo pain, but pretty accurate for cuts

General note: Deeper=more serious. Elevate wounded limb so that gravity draws blood towards heart. Scalp wounds also bleed a lot but tend to be superficial. If it’s dirty, risk infection. If it hits the digestive system and you don’t die immediately, infection’ll probably kill you. Don’t forget the possibility of tetanus! If a wound is positioned such that movement would cause the wound to gape open (i.e. horizontally across the knee) it’s harder to keep it closed and may take longer for it to heal.

  Broken bones

Types of fractures

Setting a broken bone when no doctor is available

Healing time of common fractures

Broken wrists

Broken ankles/feet

Fractured vertebrae: Neck (1, 2), back

Types of casts

Splints

Fracture complications

Broken noses

Broken digits: Fingers and toes

General notes: If it’s a compound fracture (bone poking through) good luck fixing it on your own. If the bone is in multiple pieces, surgery is necessary to fix it—probably can’t reduce (“set”) it from the outside. Older people heal more slowly. It’s possible for bones to “heal” crooked and cause long-term problems and joint pain. Consider damage to nearby nerves, muscle, and blood vessels.

  Concussions

General overview

Types of concussions 1, 2

Concussion complications

Mild Brain Injuries: The next step up from most severe type of concussion, Grade 3

Post-concussion syndrome

Second impact syndrome: When a second blow delivered before recovering from the initial concussion has catastrophic effects. Apparently rare.

Recovering from a concussion

Symptoms: Scroll about halfway down the page for the most severe symptoms

Whiplash

General notes: If you pass out, even for a few seconds, it’s serious. If you have multiple concussions over a lifetime, they will be progressively more serious. Symptoms can linger for a long time.

Character reaction:

Shock (general)

Physical shock: 1, 2

Fight-or-flight response: 1, 2

Long-term emotional trauma: 1 (Includes symptoms), 2

First aid for emotional trauma

  Treatment (drugs)

WebMD painkiller guide

  Treatment (herbs)

1, 2, 3, 4

  Miscellany

Snake bites: No, you don’t suck the venom out or apply tourniquettes

Frostbite

Frostbite treatment

Severe frostbite treatment

When frostbite sets in: A handy chart for how long your characters have outside at various temperatures and wind speeds before they get frostbitten

First aid myths: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Includes the ones about buttering burns and putting snow on frostbite.

Poisons: Why inducing vomiting is a bad idea

Poisonous plants

Dislocations: Symptoms 1, 2; treatment. General notes: Repeated dislocations of same joint may lead to permanent tissue damage and may cause or be symptomatic of weakened ligaments. Docs recommend against trying to reduce (put back) dislocated joint on your own, though information about how to do it is easily found online.

Muscular strains

Joint sprain

Resuscitation after near-drowning: 1, 2

Current CPR practices: We don’t do mouth-to-mouth anymore.

The DSM IV, for all your mental illness needs.

  Electrical shock

Human response to electrical shock: Includes handy-dandy voltage chart

Length of contact needed at different voltages to cause injury

Evaluation protocol for electric shock injury

Neurological complications

Electrical and lightning injury

Cardiac complications

Delayed effects and a good general summary

Acquired savant syndrome: Brain injuries (including a lightning strike) triggering development of amazing artistic and other abilities

Please don’t repost! You can find the original document (also created by me) here.

Trowa (5'3''), Wufei (5'1'') , Quatre (5'1''), Duo (5'1''), Heero (5'1''), Relena (5'0''), Zechs (5'10''), Treize (5'11'")

(Heights are according to settei and art book accounts.)

Edit: thanks @lagrange-pts for pointing out Zechs is actually 184cm (6'0)

リリ様 by おさんぽがかり

Rashid: What do we say when someone disagrees with us?

Quatre: That’s homophobic.

Rashid: No.

Actually, now that I'm thinking about the concept of revolutions:

Many, many (probably most) revolutions/toppling of governments fail, either because they don't have the ability (military strength, finances, support, etc.) to meet their goal, because their goal is unclear to begin with, or because they can't maintain their success once they've reached it.

January 6, 2021, for example, was a small-scale attempt at overthrowing the U.S. government--but they didn't have the ability to succeed at killing members of the U.S. Congress or stopping the vote to ratify Biden as the new president.

In Egypt, they did manage to depose Hosni Mubarak, and the Muslim Brotherhood then took power, but they was removed from power by the military about a year later, and the current leader, el-Sisi, has shifted the Egyptian government back towards authoritarianism, which is at least in part what the original protests were about.

Many revolutions in stories end with them taking power (just as many romance novels end with them getting together), which is fine, but if you want to write past that, think about what actually makes a post-revolution government succeed or fail. Is it disagreements about who should be in charge or the type of government? Is it other political infighting? Is it the lack of an effective, respected leader? Is it a lack of ability to provide civil services? Is it lack of support by average citizens? Is it a slight towards authoritarianism?

But also think about the impacts of the revolution itself, especially if it was violent. Has infrastructure been destroyed? Who has died? Are services still being provided, and if so, is the provision of those services equitable?

Let's say the revolution in your story ends with a grand battle in the capitol building--can they still use that building to legislate from? Where do people literally go to work the next day? Do necessarily files still exist?

Are civil servants willing to work for the new government? Can they be trusted?

Who from the old regime is still around, and what happens to them? Do they go to jail? Are they banned from working in the government? Are they needed in the government because they make up the vast majority of the institutional knowledge? Are they likely to form an insurgency to try to take back the government (see: the Taliban)?

Is the revolution tied to a specific ethnic or religious group, regional group, caste, etc.? If they were previously marginalized or shut out of power, do they implement oppressive or discriminatory policies against the previous ruling class (e.g., exclusion of many Sunnis from Iraqi politics/government following de-Ba'athification)?

Will the revolution spawn (or continue) an ongoing cycle of violence?

Preventer Agent: Agent Barton is so cool. I saw him backflip off a moving car once.

Another agent: yeah, well I saw him take out 9 guys with his bare hands.

Duo: he also forgot how to spell his own last name yesterday. So keep that in mind.

Catherine: [takes a swig out of flask] You want some of this?

Trowa: Sure

Trowa: [takes a sip] …is this soup?!

You may be verified on Twitter, but are you verified in the eyes of God?

Duo as a priest

[aboard Peacemillion]

Wufei: What the hell are you doing?!

Duo, not looking up: I’m building a bomb.

Wufei: On the ship?!

Duo: I was gonna put it in a box.

Wufei: What’s a box gonna do?!

Unpopular opinion: despite the horrible characterizastion and stale plot threads, Frozen Tear drops did have some good and interesting ideas and could have added a lot to Wing's mythos if it had been handled better.

strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | strongly disagree 

You know what, despite my deep loathing for FT, I think you’re right. There were some things I liked about it, and it probably would have been a good addition to the AC-era series if it had been handled better.

this cat is also valid