until after the fight. As he peeled the pant leg away to examine the wound, it began to hurt like hell.
Kane is, sadly, quite familiar with pain. He has been stabbed, sliced, abraded, bruised, contused, and concussed, and suffered a wide range of injuries from martial arts training, physical confrontations, a hunting accident, and a few run-ins with wayward power tools. He has been a bit of a klutz at times too, yet he knows how to ascertain the seriousness of an injury and what to do about triaging it. Good skills to have if you’re in the martial arts business.
He immediately went limping into the house covered in blood, hobbled over to the first aid kit, and patched things up as best he could. Unfortunately, he also found that he had used up the last of the necessary supplies. Given the holiday, he was not sure how long stores would be open, so without taking time to change is bloody clothes he drove down to the local Target department store to buy more.
While knife slashes tend to cause more bleeding, stab wounds are oftentimes more serious. This partially healed injury was photographed about two weeks after the incident.
Picture this: he’s got two days beard-growth, he’s dusty and grimy from the shop, and he’s got a massive blotch of fresh blood (not dried yet) surrounding a hole in his pant leg. He’s also got blood all over his shoes and socks. And he’s limping slightly.
So he went in through the parking lot, past the security guy at the front of the store, and then limped past close to a hundred customers to the back corner where the first aid supplies were kept. He packed a handcart with bandages, gauze, tape, antibiotic ointment, hydrogen peroxide, and the like, and then hobbled back up to the front of the store where the cashiers were located. He must have passed another hundred customers on the return trip.
Sensing nothing wrong, the cashier asked him how he was doing. “I’m fine,” he lied. She then asked him, “Did you find everything you were looking for?” to which he replied, “Yes.” She proceeded to try to sell him a Red Card (Target’s store brand Visa credit card), which he politely declined, yet she still had not noticed anything amiss even though she was looking right at him while they talked.
With the transaction now completed, she told him to have a nice day and he mumbled something along the lines of “You, too.” He then hobbled past the security guard at the entrance, back out into the parking lot, past a roving police patrol car, and over to his truck. He climbed in and drove home. During all that time, no one had noticed anything wrong.
While it wasn’t terribly funny at the time, he found this incident highly amusing in retrospect. That was by far the worst situational awareness he had ever experienced—both on his part for walking into the darn blade in the first place and everyone else’s for not noticing the “stupid bleeding guy” wandering around in the parking lot or the store.
Awareness is important at all times. Pay extra attention whenever you are around anything or anyone dangerous. Staying calm in a crisis is paramount. Sooner or later, you’re going to get hurt doing something stupid. You may do it to yourself or the other guy may do it to you, but either way it takes only a microsecond to get severely injured. How you act after it happens can make all the difference.
Kane went to the doctor when his office opened a couple of days later after the holiday and got some antibiotics and a tetanus shot. Although he also got yelled at for not going to the emergency room in the first place, the wound fully healed several months later, leaving nothing worse than a small scar.
There are two important lessons here.
• Awareness is important at all times. We’ve already beaten you upside the head with this concept, but seriously pay, extra attention whenever you are around anything or anyone dangerous. It doesn’t matter how you get hurt; it’s the wound you have got to deal with.
• Staying calm in a crisis is paramount. Sooner or later, you’re going to get hurt doing something stupid. Maybe the pain will come from some other guy’s fist yet it just as easily could come from your vehicle, a power tool, or a kitchen knife. How you act after it happens can make all the difference.
It takes only a microsecond to get hurt badly, whether in a fight or in an accident. How you act after it happens makes all the difference. Interestingly, it’s much tougher to work through an identical injury if it came from another person. For example, a broken leg suffered in a fall on the ski slopes is much less psychologically traumatic than an identical injury caused by some street thug with a baseball bat. Regardless, you must remain calm and focus on the task at hand. Resolute determination can help you achieve what you need to do.
This is what the Japanese call
When your life is on the line, fight not only for yourself but also about those who care about and depend upon you—your family, your wife or girlfriend, your kids, and your friends. In the heat of battle, you will not have time to think of anything beyond the immediate but it is wise to consider beforehand what will happen to your loved ones if you do not make it. Sometimes the impact to others can be even more motivating than the impact to yourself. You must make a wholehearted commitment to survive. This same indomitable spirit is necessary throughout the entire encounter—from first contact with an adversary to the closing gavel in the courtroom (if it gets that far).
Staying calm in a crisis is paramount. Sooner or later, you’re going to get hurt doing something stupid. You may do it to yourself or the other guy may do it to you, but either way it takes only a microsecond to get severely injured. How you act after it happens can make all the difference.
Know How to Perform First Aid
Triage and battlefield medicine are not addressed by either Sun Tzu or Miyamoto Musashi. While ancient warriors certainly learned these vital skills, they were beyond the scope of books on strategy at that time.
Even if you don’t expect to get into a fight, it’s a good idea to know what to do if you or a loved one becomes injured. The Red Cross and Red Crescent provide relatively inexpensive, comprehensive first aid and CPR classes throughout the world so access to quality training is rarely a problem. Once you have received training, it is important to keep emergency supplies in your home and carry a first aid kit in your vehicle. After all, it’s pretty tough to patch yourself up if you don’t have the proper equipment available. Be sure to include rubber gloves to protect yourself from blood-borne pathogens (such as hepatitis B, hepatitis C, or HIV/AIDS) if you have to treat others as well.
If you or another person with you has been injured in a fight, controlling bleeding must be your first priority. The Red Cross suggests a (1) check, (2) call, (3) care approach, performed in that order. First, discern the safety of the scene and the condition of the victim before doing anything else. Make sure that the fight is truly over and that it’s safe to lower your guard. Next, call 9-1-1 (or the local emergency number) to notify authorities about what happened, asking them to dispatch an ambulance with professional help. The faster the paramedics get there, the better the victim’s chances of survival. Only after these first two steps have been completed do you begin to care for the injured victim yourself.
Once you have taken care of your own life-threatening injuries, you will also want to treat your opponent. Remember that your goal in applying countervailing force is to keep yourself safe from harm. If your adversary is disabled and no longer a threat, it is both prudent and humane to try to keep him from dying from his wounds. It may play well in court too. Whenever possible, wash your hands before and after dealing with another person’s injuries, even when you wear disposable gloves.
Even if you don’t expect to get into a fight, it’s a good idea to know what to do if you or a loved one becomes injured.
