If it came down to it, would you be able to perform surgery on yourself?
Although this video is in Russian, you can follow along pretty easily.
A man was hiking up a couloir in the mountains when he fell and got a nasty-looking hematoma. A hematoma is a collection of blood outside the blood vessels and can cause severe inflammation and swelling. The more it swells, the more it hurts.
To lessen the pressure of the blood building up under the skin an incision must be made.
Watch this Russian climber perform surgery on himself in the backcountry.
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
The man is extremely methodical; I don't think he flinches when he makes the incision. Or when he sticks his fingers into his leg...
Icing his leg with snow must have numbed it enough to lessen the shock.
This is why you ALWAYS need a full first aid kit whenever you are out in the backcountry. You never know when you need to perform surgery on yourself. This man looked to do everything correctly, from sterilizing the scalpel and needle on the burner to the hydrogen peroxide cleanse in the end.
From the looks of it, this guy made it out with hardly a scar and his hematoma looked like it healed nicely.
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