A crucial a part of manhood has all the time been about having the competence to be effective on this planet — having the breadth of skills, the savoir-faire, to handle any situation you end up in. With that in mind, each Sunday we’ll be republishing one among the illustrated guides from our archives, so you’ll be able to hone your manly know-how week by week.
A sucking chest wound occurs when the chest cavity is punctured by some foreign object. Bullets and bits of shrapnel are common culprits.
Your lungs consist of delicate sacs that fill with air if you inhale. Your chest cavity, including your ribs, protects your lungs and maintains an open space for them to expand into. When something pierces your chest cavity, outside air can flood in and cause your lung to collapse. A collapsed lung will leave you gasping, or sucking, for air as your lung tries to fight against the increased pressure coming in through the wound. That pressure only builds as you are attempting to breathe harder.
Sucking chest wounds typically cause blood to foam or bubble near the wound site. Treating such a wound quickly is critical, so you must assume any severe wound to the chest is a sucking chest wound. Apply treatment immediately and get the injured person to medical attention as soon as possible. The important thing to treatment is to seal off the chest cavity to stop outside air from putting pressure on the lungs while still allowing air to flee because the lungs inflate. To perform this, you wish to create a valve that enables air to exit, but not enter, the chest cavity.