Gunshot wounds

Video 22 of 55
2 min 34 sec
English
English
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Another type of wound that would not be commonplace but in service dogs or police dogs, in particular, we do need to consider would be a gunshot wound. Gunshot wounds can do one of two things: They can go in and then the bullet can get lodged in the body somewhere, or they may have an exit wound as well. You are more likely to notice the exit wound. The exit wound is going to be bigger and probably bloodier and worse than the actual entry wound. But the first thing you need to consider is what has just happened, where has that gunshot come from? Consider your own safety, survey the area and before rushing in to help the dog, make sure that you are going to be safe.

If you can access the dog and assess them and you see an exit wound, you should also be trying to look for an entry wound. And with any wounds, we want to make sure that we are preventing contamination and risk of contamination and also trying to stem any bleeding that may be going on there. So then we are looking back at how we are going to bandage that wound. Like I said, if you have got that exit wound and you can see that and you know you are having to treat that, you should also be looking for an entry wound somewhere else and doing the same, preventing contamination and trying to stem a blood flow that could be going on somewhere else in the body that is not initially obvious.

Another type of uncommon injury, but something that could happen would be a crossbow injury as shown here. With any kind of impalement, the main thing to know is that you do not want to remove that foreign body. In addition to that, as with all these other uncommon wounds where there could be a risk to your own life, you need to be assessing the area before you wash it and try and help your dog. With this kind of injury, if you can possibly shorten the arrow, please do. But it is going to be tricky to do that, they are not easily broken so you do wanna try and immobilise that as best as you can. They are quite mobile. So if possible and if it is safe to do so and your dog is not in immediate distress or immediate emergency, then you can try and place a dressing or packaging around here 'cause if you hold something around here, it is less likely to be able to move. However, if your dog is struggling to breathe, panicking, in distress, which it probably will be, then you are best not to do that, just try and get them to the vet as soon as you possibly can.