MercTech
Posts: 3706
Joined: 7/4/2006 Status: offline
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Coming at the question from a first responder paradigm with some hospital tech mixed in.... The old medical plaster casts take a half hour to set and several hours to fully cure (overnight is a good guideline for fully cured). Plaster is a chemical reaction with water not actual drying. A> the skin should be shielded from the plaster. Gauze wrapping, cotton wrapping, knit sleeving, etc. The plaster mix is mildly caustic and can cause a rash. Applying the cast requires protective gloves. (plaster sucks the water out of the skin and leaves it dry and there is a risk of chemical dermatitis giving you a bad peeling rash) unless you have a surgical saw available for cutting the cast off. Removing a cast is more of a hazard to the person than putting it on. When removing with a saw; you have to carefully cut down to the fabric, then crack the cast at the cut line. For the most part; plaster casts have been supplanted by fiberglass casts. You can actually take a shower and rinse the inside of a fiberglass cast so the abominable itching is not as bad. Inflatable splints are good for immobilization prior to transport to emergency facilities. They can be inflated with an air pump but most commonly in an ambulance load out is a CO2 cartridge inflator. Any low pressure gas source will work if you have a compatible nozzle. You can blow them up just like you would a kid's pool toy as they are made similarly. They tend to degrade in storage so I'd go with a flex wire splint for a first aid kit. The old school wire splints were of hardware cloth strips covered in duct tape. (Vietnam war era field expedient stuff) Today, you can buy the wire mesh splints with colorful foam plastic coverings. A medical supply will sell them to you for about $45 if you buy in bulk. But, for your personal kit; put up with the long shipping time and order from China, https://www.wish.com/search/splint#cid=57cfebd822164758cbc90db5 That's it for the old fart's brain dump on the subject. Feel free to message with questions if any pop to mind.
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