A medical specialist recently posted on an extremely funny or one might say painful medical emergency which he witnessed. It was alleged that a soldier had a 20 gauge needle inserted into his kkj after other parts of his body could not receive any IV after numerous attempts.
Here is the full story.
During my days, I was a med spec for combat engineers. Among one of them was this extremely, to be polite, big-boned guy. I’m serious thus guy is so huge I’m wondering why isn’t he downgraded and sent to desk job. Let’s call him BB
Anywho, on an exercise during an extremely hot day, whaddayaknow, BB actually suffered heat exhaustion and fainted. We evac him to the nearest med centre, and protocol dictates IV and BCU, and then send to nearest hospital.
So when BB arrives at med centre, they turned on the BCU and the MO, TX IC, and TX 2IC was there.
They tried to IV him for a grand total of 11x at the usual spots – elbows la, wrists la, even ankles… No dice. In a state of panic, the MO took out a 20-gauge needle, and said “did you all know there’s a vein by the kkb?”
Yes, that’s how BB had his IV, a small drip fed via a small line into a small vein on his kkb. They even secured it with a cute butterfly tape. That way he stayed all the way even after he was loaded into the ambulance.
On hindsight, damn back then no camera phones were allowed in camp. What I would give to have a photo for remembrance’s sake.