Medical question for the f'list

[sholio]

For those of you with medical backgrounds - fanfic-related question! Let's say that you have a person who is in (mild) hypovolemic shock due to blood loss and is also chilled from exposure (but not severely hypothermic). You have a pint/liter of saline with you that you could give them intravenously, but it's also chilled because it's been outside along with you, while searching for them. Is it better to do nothing and focus on warming them up, or to give them cold saline and increase their blood volume while risking dropping their body temperature further?

Or is this one of those case-by-case things?

Comments

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

I have no idea about the answer, but am intrigued to see if anyone does.

From my first aid class, it was drummed into us that shock kills fast and unexpectedly, so I'd probably go for sticking the saline pouch under my own coat to warm it up while getting the person somewhere warm/secure, then getting it into them as fast as possible - they're not going to recover from the hypothermia at all if they're suffering shock.

Just my 2p's worth - will be watching to see what an expert says!

[sholio]

Yeah, and they're not really in a bad way as far as hypothermia goes -- just run down, tired and chilled. So I'm thinking that treating the blood loss first will probably be the way to go.