Excessive bleeding can be caused by a range of factors and can lead to serious health risks. Healthcare professionals use scales to classify bleeding severity, with major blood loss potentially leading to hypovolemic shock and organ damage. First aid for bleeding includes applying pressure and monitoring the patient’s airways and respiration.
Bleeding is excessive bleeding that can pose a health risk due to the volume of blood lost or the location of the bleed. It can have a wide range of causes, from a ruptured arteriovenous malformation in the brain to a serious injury in a car accident. When a patient is bleeding, healthcare providers must locate and stop the bleeding, address complications, and keep the patient stable. Some blood loss can be fatal due to the volume of the loss.
Healthcare professionals can use a series of scales to classify bleeding according to severity. Some systems range from one to five classes, while others have only four. On a scale of five classes, the classification ranges from the lowest class, one, with about 7% of blood volume lost, to the highest, five, in which the patient has lost 40% or more of his blood volume. Generally, a minor hemorrhage results in a loss of less than 15% of blood volume. Leaks of 15% to 30% or 30% to 40% are more serious, while 40% or more are a major cause for concern.
A potential complication is hypovolemic shock, in which a patient goes into shock due to the massive volume of blood loss and may begin to experience organ damage and eventual organ failure in the body. With internal bleeding, blood can pool and bruise or put pressure on organs that can cause them to malfunction. In the brain, this is of particular concern, as space for pressure in the skull is limited and blood can cause damage to the brain. The patient’s blood loss also damages brain cells that won’t get enough blood and may be at risk of serious complications.
Patients may be bleeding due to severe injury near major blood vessels, rupture of fragile blood vessels, or slow bleeding that is not identified early because symptoms may be subtle. In any case where a patient appears to have internal injuries, the doctor may want to perform an evaluation to check for internal bleeding. Head injuries, in particular, are carefully monitored for signs of bleeding because the margin for error is not very forgiving.
First aid for bleeding in the field includes applying pressure to stop the bleeding if the source can be located and this is feasible. The patient’s airways and respiration should also be closely monitored. Hypovolaemic shock can lead to shallow breathing and artificial respiration may be required. It is also not recommended to move the patient or remove any embedded foreign bodies, as this could put him at risk of re-injury.
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