Should you ever be so misguided, or insuch a dire emergency, that you must stitch yourself or others, read this first. Pretty well done: just hit the 'next button' 'til done.

http://cal.vet.upenn.edu/surgery/index.htm

[Sorry: original link failed. I hope this one is better.]

Link?
I have sutured actual people, and don't relish the idea of doing it in the woods somewhere.
And no way could I suture myself!

This is my answer to the dangers of self-stitching.

I have used these many times on cuts for which any doctor would have recommended stitches assuming you could get to a doctor while the wound was still fresh. I have had great experiences with these. After cleaning the wound and stopping the bleeding then I pinch the wound closed and apply the strips then cover with a gauze or something similar to protect from dirt, debris, etc. They hold amazingly well and tend to do just a well as sutures for minimizing scarring... at least in my experience. Pretty easy to apply one-handed as well, which is helpfull for me since I seem to often be treating cuts to my hands and arms.

I'm having a hard time imagining a situation where you should suture an injury. The combination of original wound contamination plus the high probability of further contamination due to improper material handling and lack of hygenic facilities makes me shudder.

I would prefer to clean the wound as best I could, then bandage it to prevent further contamination, and get the victim to a medical facility, even if it was several days away.

Sue

That is the best plan, Sue.
You are more likely to close some infectious material in the wound, and cause more problems in the short and long term.
Steri strips are great as noted above, and we use them in the hospital for the same thing.

Some hypotheticals:

You fall on your knife, tearing a 3" gash in your thigh. You are two miles away from your vehicle. Your cell phone has no signal. You are bleeding badly and are starting to get light-headed.

Same scenario, except you have just fired your 30.06 hunting rifle into your calf after dropping it crossing a fence, hitting the bone. (yea-it could never happen to you, except it has, and now you have to get your ass out of this nightmare and survive.)

You are alone in both cases. How do you seal up the wounds long enough to get out?

If you are bleeding that badly, you will need a tourniquet. Especially in your 30.06 situation. Or, even better, I would try the QuickClot first if you had it available.

Sutures are for closing wounds, not stopping massive bleeding. If you are all ready lightheaded from bloodloss, it's a little late to be thinking about preforming minor surgery on yourself. Sealing up the wounds won't help, the bleeding will continue. So anyone that carries a knife or firearm, needs to carry FAK stuff to deal with any potential wound. But it does happen, a few years ago my buddies came upon a lone hunter. He'd shot his foot with a 7mm rifle and laid down to die. They managed to save him, and it took a LOT of gauze to get the bleeding stopped. He was flown out and lost half of his foot, but lived.

Dave

Anyone that has had lots of sutures will tell you (as would any doctor) that you can only suture a wound within about 8 hours after the bleeding stops. The only way around this is for the doctor (and I have only had this done once out of many many trips to the doctor for sutures) to reopen the wound intentionally, then suture it. So if your doctor is more than 8 hours away, visiting him may still be a good idea for getting some antibiotics to prevent infection, but he/she won't be doing any suturing. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Exactly... If the wound is clean and the bleeding has stopped then your work is done. Closing the would via tape, glue, sutures, staples or whatever else only serves two purposes that I can think of. 1) It makes the wound less likely to repopen. 2) It minimizes scarring. Reason 1 (preventing the wound from reopening) is my primary reason for carrying the butteryfly strips (and sometimes glue) with me in my kits, though the secondary effect of reducing scarring is nice too.