# Handy Trauma Shears



## Miss EMT (Sep 21, 2009)

I learned today that EMS skills taught me how to be really resourceful. I mean how many times out in the field have you needed something but didn't have it and had to make do with what you had? Well today I was out shopping and I locked my keys in the car. Im thinking "great what am I going to do now." See I drive an older car (1985 Jimmy GMC) and I usually leave my window down a little bit to let air in. Luckily I left it down just enough to fit something like a clothes hanger through it. Well I didn't have a clothes hanger I only had my purse. So I dug through my purse and found my trauma shears. So I took my shoe string from my boots I had on and attached it to my trauma shears. I slid the trauma shears through the window and on to the driver side seat where I left my keys. My keys are on a big key chain so it wasn't too hard to pick them up with the shears and slide them back through the window so I could let myself in my vehicle. So a few weird looks from on-lookers later I was able to get into my vehicle. See trauma shears come in handy. 

Anyone else have a story like this??


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## medic417 (Sep 21, 2009)

Well once I locked my trauma shears in my truck.  So I almost panicked. Then I took a deep breath and thought about what I should do.  Then it came to me use my keys to open the door and get my trauma shears.  You can not imagine the relief that flooded over me at that point.


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## akflightmedic (Sep 21, 2009)

The time I locked my keys in the car, I had to call AAA to send a locksmith out. Luckily, he got there just in time because it started to rain and I had left my top down.


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## ResTech (Sep 21, 2009)

Too funny


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## Jon (Sep 25, 2009)

you know.... I don't have a purse, but I would usually try to leave my keys in my purse... and not my trauma shears.

Trauma shears can be "dirty".... I wouldn't want that rattling around with whatever other "stuff" you women insist on stuffing into a purse.


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## medichopeful (Sep 25, 2009)

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8b_EDv8f4Mw[/YOUTUBE]

I had to...


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## bunkie (Sep 25, 2009)

akflightmedic said:


> The time I locked my keys in the car, I had to call AAA to send a locksmith out. Luckily, he got there just in time because it started to rain and I had left my top down.



*snicker* *giggle*


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## thowle (Oct 2, 2009)

bunkie said:


> *snicker* *giggle*



hmm, you may be on to something there... *SnickerGiggle Enterprises*


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## Tincanfireman (Oct 2, 2009)

Miss EMT said:


> I learned today that EMS skills taught me how to be really resourceful. I mean how many times out in the field have you needed something but didn't have it and had to make do with what you had? Well today I was out shopping and I locked my keys in the car. Im thinking "great what am I going to do now." See I drive an older car (1985 Jimmy GMC) and I usually leave my window down a little bit to let air in. Luckily I left it down just enough to fit something like a clothes hanger through it. Well I didn't have a clothes hanger I only had my purse. So I dug through my purse and found my trauma shears. So I took my shoe string from my boots I had on and attached it to my trauma shears. I slid the trauma shears through the window and on to the driver side seat where I left my keys. My keys are on a big key chain so it wasn't too hard to pick them up with the shears and slide them back through the window so I could let myself in my vehicle. So a few weird looks from on-lookers later I was able to get into my vehicle. See trauma shears come in handy.
> 
> Anyone else have a story like this??


 
If you could have figured out a way to include duct tape and/or a Swiss Army Knife into your story it would have made even Macgyver jealous. My hat's off to you for using your available resources to solve your problem!


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## mycrofft (Oct 3, 2009)

*Haha you're talking my game...*

1.Completely opened a can of olives with nursing Lister scissors (aka bandage shears, but littler than Tetrasnips).
2. Needed to fill cheerleaders' water bottles from a too-small drinking fountain, I disassembled my old red single tube stethoscope, and used the tubing to pipe water.
3. Used outdated but pliable fiberglass casting material to fix an office chair that kept lowering itself.
4. On a field support bivvy, made an impromptu baseball and bat from duct tape and the foot end stretcher bar from a GI cot. I used my Armee Suisse offier's knife to shave the ball smooth.
5.  Steristrips and superglue to fix broken eyeglass frames, broken plastics (like the inside of a PulomoAid compressor) or broken real fingernails in the field.
6. Otoscope to investigate a mysteriously locked locker without cutting the lock.
7. Medirip to make custom padding for a pen or pencil.
8. When the carbuerator throttle link in my '62 Dodge pickup wore out enroute, I pulled out my spiral bound flip pad, unwound the wire, and used it to jury rig the linkage back together and continue the drive. 
9. Windchimes made out of old sterling silver trache tubes and Tubegauze steel cage applicators.
And.......
10. Hard plastic serum aliquots with caps to hold and protect ammonia poppers in my trauma bag.

As for my car, while I used to carry a coat hangar straightened out under the bumper, but now I carry a spare key in my briefcase.


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## mycrofft (Oct 3, 2009)

*....What?!*

...........................


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