Broken Bone

A friend of mine broke his collarbone last Saturday. It happened while they were playing a game at the Sunken Garden. The bone was protruding and seemed bent although there was no break in the skin. There was an obvious deformity but it seemed like the bone was still intact and was probably just bent. I applied an underarm sling and a binder to immobilize and support the injured part.

We brought him to the National Orthopedic Hospital. After a quick x-ray my suspicions were confirmed, it was a greenstick or incomplete fracture of the right clavicle. This means that the broken bone was not completely separated. The attending physician just applied a collarbone support strap and he was told to come back in three weeks and then sent home.

We weren’t allowed to keep the x-ray but it looked something like the picture below.

The thing about this incident was it illustrated a lot of the theories that we have been teaching during First Aid Trainings. It also showed us what the injury really looked like and how the First aid procedures and techniques we have been teaching actually works.