Chapter 232: Chapter 230: Self-Rescue After the Avalanche
"Argh!" Chen Xin opened his eyes, only to be met with excruciating pain in his head. As he tried to lift his hand to touch his forehead, a sharp pain shot through his arm.
"Damn it, what the hell happened!" The pain made Chen Xin curse out loud, but he strained to shift his gaze to his right hand, only to see a red blur. It felt like something was obstructing his vision, making it impossible to see anything clearly.
Chen Xin tried raising his left hand, discovering it was not in pain like his right hand. He used it to gingerly touch his forehead.
What he felt was a slippery sensation, and the area he touched also hurt.
It seemed he had hit his head. Chen Xin assessed the situation, concluding the red in his vision was likely blood covering his eyes.
Not sure of his own injuries, Chen Xin only felt a dull ache in his head. He was fairly alert and suspected the injury wasn’t too severe.
Judging by the blood he could feel, there wasn’t a substantial amount, and it hadn’t been long since the bleeding occurred as the blood hadn’t dried yet, and it had already stopped.
Nevertheless, it was important to deal with it promptly. After all, a head injury could lead to complications if not treated.
Thinking this, Chen Xin wiped his eyes with his left hand, and after restoring his vision, he surveyed the surroundings to discern what had happened.
He was still seated in the driver’s seat, slumped over the steering wheel. The cabin light was still on, but the surrounding windows were covered with snow, seemingly buried under it.
"So, I got buried by an avalanche? Just my luck!" Chen Xin looked at the snow outside the windows, quickly piecing together what had transpired.
He had encountered an avalanche and, after speeding away with a heavy load, got buried under the snow from the avalanche. The collision knocked him out, likely causing the head injury.
With this assessment, Chen Xin felt somewhat relieved, fearing a worse outcome. The situation wasn’t as dire as it could have been.
Fortunately, the vehicle hadn’t overturned, at least not completely. Chen Xin noticed the cup he had placed on the dashboard still held some water, indicating that the vehicle hadn’t flipped over. It had only tilted slightly, saving him a lot of trouble in getting out later.
However, escaping could wait. For now, Chen Xin needed to address his injuries. The vehicle was intact, the windows unbroken, and the heater was still running, so there wasn’t an immediate issue.
"System, self-check," Chen Xin managed to instruct the vehicle’s system, listening to the mechanical voice report the results of the inspection as he turned his attention to his injuries.
His right hand appeared broken, the forearm bent at an unnatural angle. Though there were no bloodstains on his sleeve, it seemed the bone was fractured from within. However, no external skin damage was present; otherwise, he might have bled out while unconscious.
As for other parts of his body, everything seemed fine. He tried moving his legs and didn’t feel any discomfort, and the rest of his body appeared intact.
He carefully left the driver’s seat and, using his left hand for support, moved towards the living quarters to address his injuries.
Broken bones were trickier to handle, especially without diagnostic tools. Attempting self-treatment could lead to improper healing, potentially rendering the hand useless.
While concerned about this, Chen Xin remained composed. The injury wasn’t life-threatening. In a worst-case scenario, he could amputate and get a prosthetic, or wait until advancements allowed for complete repairs in the future.
For now, addressing the head injury was more pressing. An injured head differed significantly from a hand injury, and treating it would be simpler.
In the bathroom, Chen Xin faced the mirror. His reflection revealed a face covered in blood, and a large gash on his forehead, though the bleeding had stopped. Besides the dull headache, he felt no other issues.
Using his left hand, he carefully washed the blood off his face, taking considerable time due to the one-handed effort.
He avoided directly washing the wound, fearing it might start bleeding again. Plus, using plain water wasn’t ideal—peroxide would be better to prevent infection.
Despite the low risk in such a cold environment, Chen Xin chose caution.
After cleaning his face, Chen Xin attempted to remove his clothing but found his broken right hand obstructive. Removing clothing required manipulating the sleeve, which would aggravate the fracture.
This wasn’t a major issue; it only meant sacrificing an outfit.
Chen Xin found the medical kit and took out the emergency medical scissors, cutting open his clothes directly.
With the sharpness of the emergency medical scissors, the sleeves were easily cut open. Chen Xin didn’t hesitate or feel reluctant, cutting open all his clothes and then taking them off with his left hand.
This is actually part of emergency first aid. If you find injuries on the victim’s body, slowly taking off clothing one by one is clearly too late. Cutting them open with scissors is the simplest and most effective method.
Throwing the removed clothes to the side, Chen Xin returned to the bathroom again, standing in front of the mirror to check if there were any other wounds on his body.
Fortunately among unfortunate events, he did not have any other injuries on his body, not even bruises.
In other words, the only injuries Chen Xin had were on his forehead and right hand.
Taking out the hydrogen peroxide from the medical kit, with only one hand, Chen Xin laboriously opened the bottle, then found a cup. After pouring out half a cup of hydrogen peroxide, he took a piece of gauze, soaked it in the hydrogen peroxide, and cleaned the wound on his forehead.
The hydrogen peroxide reacted with the scab on the wound, continuously bubbling up while also stinging Chen Xin with pain.
But he had to endure it, needing to clean the wound thoroughly with hydrogen peroxide before proceeding to the next step of treatment.
Once the gauze had scrubbed sufficiently, Chen Xin looked in the mirror, picked up the hydrogen peroxide bottle again, and poured some over the wound for rinsing.
The piercing pain forced him to clench his teeth, taking a while before he could regain composure.
However, the wound was cleaned, and now there was a little bit of blood seeping out.
After taking a careful look and seeing the wound wasn’t too large, Chen Xin felt relieved, continued to take out a first-aid kit from the medical box, opened it, and after tilting his head, he sprinkled some of the included hemostatic powder onto the wound, then took a clean piece of gauze soaked with iodophor and covered the wound.
But it wasn’t over yet. Chen Xin then took a larger piece of gauze, folded it several times, and placed it over the piece of iodophor gauze on the wound, taping it down to secure it, thus completing the treatment for the wound on his head.
For now, Chen Xin could only treat his own wound this way. Although sewing the wound and using anti-inflammatory medication would be a more correct approach, Chen Xin couldn’t sew his own head, so he could only make do with the hemostatic powder.
Fortunately, this packet of hemostatic powder also had some anti-inflammatory properties, which were sufficient for emergency treatment.
Having treated his head, next was his arm.
The medical kit did have a bottle of emergency pain relief spray. Chen Xin sprayed some on the wound, and the cool sensation quickly relieved the pain in his arm.
However, for a fracture to heal, the most important thing is realignment and immobilization. Topical medication wouldn’t have much effect, only pain relief and bruising reduction.
Without the aid of X-rays, attempting fracture realignment was undoubtedly impossible for Chen Xin. He wasn’t a seasoned orthopedic doctor who could realign fractures correctly by touch with eyes closed.
Furthermore, fracture realignment would be excruciating. Even if Chen Xin could withstand the pain, he couldn’t position his arm correctly by himself.
So what he could do now was immobilize the arm. As for whether it would heal misaligned or not, that would have to be considered later.
He took a roll of splint from the medical kit, and with the help of his teeth, opened it before placing his right hand on it, which inevitably brought him another bout of pain.
Gripping his teeth, he endured, taking out a roll of bandage to wrap around his right hand, securing the splint and his right hand together, and then slinging his right hand over his neck, which temporarily completed the immobilization. As long as Chen Xin didn’t move this hand too much, it shouldn’t lead to complications or worsen the injury.
After treating both injuries on his body, Chen Xin finally slumped onto the sofa in the living compartment, releasing a long breath.
Once a bit more clear-headed, feeling a bit cold, Chen Xin remembered that all his clothes had been cut to pieces, and now he needed to find some clean clothes to wear.
Though the vehicle had heating, being shirtless would still feel somewhat cold, so wearing clothes was necessary.
However, when Chen Xin found clean clothes and intended to put them on, he discovered a serious problem: the splinted right hand made it impossible to fit into the sleeves, making it impossible to dress properly.
Facing this situation, Chen Xin could only helplessly find a thicker piece of clothing to drape over himself, then began to think about what he should do next.