Miriam: Foreign. Hello and welcome to Live like the World Is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm Miriam, your host for this episode. Today I will be talking with James about protest, health and safety. How to keep yourself safe in the streets out there, how to keep your friends safe, how to keep Rand people standing near you safe. But first, we'd like to celebrate being a member of the Channel Zero network of anarchist podcasts by playing a little jingle from one of the other podcasts on the network.
James: You gonna. You'd sing the jingle?
Miriam: I. I was gonna let the jingle sing itself this time. Just this time.
James: Okay. It's going down and you're invited for what they selling we ain't buying There is no running There is no hiding there's only fighting or dying it down and you're invited for what they sell it we ain't buying There is no running There is no hiding there's only fighting or dying.
Miriam: It's Going down is a digital community center from anarchist, anti fascist, autonomous, anti capitalist and anti colonial movements. Our mission is to provide an autonomous and resilient platform to publicize and promote revolutionary theory and action.
James: Go to it's going down.org for daily updates. Check out our online store for ways to donate and rate and follow us on itunes if you like this podcast.
Miriam: We're back. Anyway. Hi, I'm Miriam. She or they pronouns. James. What's up?
James: What's up? Well, things are up right now. My feelings are up. I'm upset. But I'm glad to be here making a podcast, which is something I do a lot these days.
Miriam: Yeah. I feel like right now you are here to make podcasts and breathe tear gas and you're all out of tear gas.
James: Yep. Well, I'm sad to report, Miriam, that the Los Angeles Police Department are not all out of tear gas. I think they got some more. I think so.
Miriam: Shit.
James: Yeah. Sad. Don't know who bought it for them. Maybe the people who are closing all the libraries. Maybe those people.
Miriam: Yeah, I think some of that library money might be going to militarized police forces. I think there's a chance.
James: Yep. Yeah. Did see a lot of cops.
Miriam: Did you see any libraries?
James: There is a library down there somewhere. Good luck accessing it right now. Cause the cops have shut off all the. All the ways to get on or off the freeway there. But, you know, maybe you could hike into the library.
Miriam: It's. It's terrible. It's what they do. But I mean, the cool thing is there's people out in the streets and they're standing up for their neighbors and resisting deportation. And that's great. And I'm hoping that we can give people some information on how they can be a little bit safer than they would otherwise be in that admittedly dangerous situation.
James: Yeah. So the way I thought we'd approach this is I will talk about stuff, and then you can talk about first aid and some of the skills that people might need.
Miriam: Yeah, I think before we do that, though, one thing we should touch on is a little bit of information about stuff people shouldn't say in public or in writing or online for safety reasons, not for moral reasons, not for, like, these are bad things to say reasons. But, like, first of all, things you should say to a cop, if you are interacting with a cop, the safest thing to say to a cop is, am I being detained? And if the answer is yes, the safest thing you can say is, I am going to remain silent and I want to speak to a lawyer. If the answer is no, the safest thing you can say is nothing. Because if you're not being detained, you are walking away.
James: Yeah.
Miriam: So there's that. Speaking to a cop, obviously the most dangerous situation. But speaking to the Internet, also not super safe.
James: Yeah.
Miriam: Any thoughts on what people should or shouldn't be saying on the Internet?
James: Yeah, I would only say things on the Internet that I would be willing to have read back to me in a court. I think that's a pretty good kind of line to draw. Look, a lot of people are very new to protest movements, and that's wonderful. Right. It's great to see people engaging. It's great to see people caring, and it's great to see people doing something. Uh, but, like, posting is not praxis, and. And people have been posting stuff that will get them in trouble, that will make no material difference to anyone's situation other than their own when their ass is in jail. And it's not very smart. And I would suggest, if you're interested in. In, you know, remaining free, that. That people stop posting things which they don't want to have written back to them in court.
Miriam: Yeah. And I just want to say, like, that goes for your encrypted signal chats, too. It goes for kind of anything in writing or in a large group. And like, you may trust everybody in your signal chat, but that doesn't guarantee that somebody's phone will not end up in the hands of law enforcement against their will, for example. So just. Just be thoughtful about that, Be a little bit careful about that. Do not write anything down that you don't want to hear a prosecutor say to you.
James: Yeah, like, I've, Yeah, I'm a journalist. Right. My job is to, to look at stuff and learn about stuff. And the amount I see in court documents of like, people's Facebook rants, it is a lot. And like, a lot of people are very upset for very justifiable reasons. Just don't be making threats on Facebook. It's silly. Or like. Or don't.
Miriam: What are you doing on Facebook anyway?
James: Yeah, just don't be on Facebook. There's nothing good there. But yeah, I've seen people saying things which they probably had no intention of doing, but nonetheless, like, were like, construed as threads and like, can be used to prosecute them. So don't do it.
Miriam: And I'm not like saying that it's good and right that people should have to like self police in this way. You know, I want a world in which people can say whatever dumb thing they. They are.
James: Yeah, right.
Miriam: Yeah, but these. But what we're talking about here is like the reality of what constitutes a risk. And just as attending a protest, like, puts you at risk of injury when it absolutely shouldn't, saying things that other people can see puts you at risk of prosecution when it shouldn't.
James: Yeah, absolutely.
Miriam: We're gonna talk about avoiding head injuries and that's what we're gonna say about avoiding prosecution.
James: Yeah, we have a whole episode on security culture. Or the one that's a couple of years old now, but still very good.
Miriam: Yeah. So speaking of avoiding head injuries.
James: Yeah. Let's talk about brain injuries. Facebook, I'm sure, injured your brain in a certain way, but I want to talk about other things that can enter your brain. So I guess to ground this, I'm a journalist, right. I've covered conflict, protests, a wide range of situations, some of which are dangerous, many of which are not. When I go to a protest, I'm going as a journalist, right. And I'm visibly credentialed as such. My experience might be different from yours. You might also be a journalist. I don't know. I'm just speaking into the Internet. So when I go, I make an effort to stay safe. Right. Being a journalist in this country is absolutely no guarantee that you'll not be targeted by the cops. Right. We've seen that this week. Someone from the BBC has come out of surgery now having a less lethal round removed from his leg where it was embedded. We saw an Australian news report to get shot as well with a less lethal Round. Right.
Miriam: So shot on camera while doing a piece to camera.
James: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think, I mean both of those people, I think lived and worked in the U.S. it takes a while when you come to the U.S. as a journalist to, to accustom yourself to like how likely you are to be targeted as a journalist here. Because you are. Right. And that's like you said, it's not, not a risk going out to these things. So how do I minimize that risk? I'm just going to start from the top, I'm going to go down and I'm going to talk about protective equipment that I wear. Anything that I suggest here, you're going to need to check the specific laws in your state. Right. And laws that may pertain to you. It's not a good idea to be visibly doing the crime by wearing something that, that might be a crime. Right. So I believe New York has tried to outlaw body armor, for example. So like the juice probably isn't worth the squeeze on wearing it in that situation, you know, so don't do that.
Miriam: And also it's, it's worth pointing out, I think even if things are legal, that doesn't mean that police will not arrest you or mess with you for doing those things. For instance, the wearing of masks is, is legal in many places where people will still get arrested because they are wearing masks. That means that the charges likely won't stick. But getting arrested will fuck up your whole day. Yeah. So pay attention to both laws and patterns of what is going on and take that into account when making your plans and figuring out how you're going to approach this. It's just part of the risk analysis.
James: Yeah. And everything you do. Right. There's a balance between trying to keep yourself safe to exercise your. Like what in the United States like. It's not just something that we should have, in theory, something we do have. Right. Your right to freedom of speech, your right to like peacefully or your right to assemble and speak and protest, which you know is being assaulted right now. That doesn't mean that you're not going to get in trouble for doing it. So how do I go about this? So I wear a helmet because I've had a lot of brain injuries and I don't want anymore. Helmet wise, there are kind of two options. You can go with a bike helmet or climbing helmet or kayaking helmet, something like that. Right. An outdoor sports helmet or you can go with a ballistic helmet. This country with a lot of guns, there's always a danger that someone will be shooting one But I would caution you against getting a big heavy ballistic helmet because if you're not used to having that much weight on top of your head, it can be very painful on your neck. And extra weight on top of your head can also make head injuries worse. Right. If you get pushed and shoved, it increases, you know, think about the. Think about having like a pendulum, right. Or a heavy thing on the end of a string swinging that like that's what's happening to your neck. What you're looking for is some protection against impact, right? Against specifically like I saw less lethal weapons punching out reinforced glass windows at head height this week. If that goes into your head or your face, that could cause a life altering brain injury. Which is why I prefer to always wear a helmet, personally. I have one that is more like outdoors focused. It's a search and rescue helmet. Actually. Use it for climbing, use it for kayaking, use it for work.
Miriam: James is holding up a cool looking helmet.
James: Yep. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for the description. And then I also have a ballistic helmet which I also just this one, you know, just use for work, really. Mine's sprayed blue. This is the standard for press. Right. And on both of those I have impact resistant goggles attached. People lost their eyes in 2020 to less lethal weapons. Right. I have seen people using military surplus gas masks a lot. We'll talk about gas masks in a minute here. My concern with those is that a lot of them are either not ballistically protected or have very old glass inserts or are lacking the ballistic protection outsets which is required to make them ballistically protective. And what that means is that the lenses can shatter and you don't want shattering glass right next to your eyes.
Miriam: I don't.
James: Professionals will tell you, yeah, it's generally not preferred. If that's your thing, I guess, go for it. But the relevant safety rating here is ANSI 78.78.1 impact rated goggles. So that's what I have. There are hundreds of different models. I'm sure you can get them pretty quick, cheaply. And if you are concerned about chemical irritants, you don't want those goggles to be vented. I also have a gas mask. Again, your concern here is that the lens doesn't shatter primarily. Right. Being tear gas sucks, being maced sucks, but losing your eyes will probably suck a lot more. And so you do not want to be using a gas mask which is of spurious quality in terms of the eye shield. Right. Because having something in front of your eyes that could shatter is bad. Don't be buying Soviet surplus gas masks either, because a lot of those filters contain asbestos, which is that. Is that good for you guys? We will ask our new FDA to rule on that soon. If you take a little bit and then a little bit more and then a little bit more and a little bit more, I think you can acclimate to the asbestos. I think that's the latest. No, that's not true.
Miriam: Sorry. Just for people who have trouble parsing sarcasm. That was a joke.
James: Yeah, yeah.
Miriam: Asbestos is very bad for you.
James: Yeah. Do not breathe asbestos. Do not put asbestos near your body. Just leave it alone. Don't. Unless you're an asbestos handling professional. Call an asbestos handling professional. Do not buy a thing to attach and breathe through that has asbestos. And yes, you could use an adapter to convert those old gas masks, use a new filter. But when you've spent that much money, you could just buy a modern gas mask that doesn't have a carcinogen in it. So if you are concerned about either your respiratory health from a Covid or other infectious disease perspective or a chemical irritant perspective, especially if you're someone who has asthma or some other respiratory condition. Right. Where it could be really serious if you were to breathe tear gas or other chemical irritants, I think a half mask is just fine if you have those goggles. Right. That's a mask that covers your nose and mouth, doesn't cover your eyes. You have goggles for your eyes if you want. And a P100 acid gas filter is going to be sufficient for most of the irritants that you will encounter and also sufficient for concerns you have about infectious diseases. Right. Like the novel coronavirus. You want to make sure it fits well. You do that by doing a seal check. You can look for. It's much easier for you to look for a video online than for me to explain via this audio medium how to do that.
Miriam: In work situations I've been in where we've used P100 because of chemicals we were working with, a very standard test was to open a jar of coffee and. And see if we could smell it. I don't know if that's like real, but that's what we did. And if you couldn't smell the coffee that was supposed to indicate that the mask was working.
James: That's a pretty good one. Yeah. You can also just block off the two. The two filters and give a suck in. And if it sucks into your face, you know you got a good seal. Some of the 3M ones also have Like a seal check button that you can just press. These things have to fit, right? So there are sizes and you're going to take the measurements required that you will find on the Internet before purchasing one and get one that fits you. Everyone should have one of these anyway, to be honest. Like I use them all the time when I'm epoxying wood. When I'm like dealing with other nasty chemicals in my day to day life. They are, I believe the air that you breathe out is not filtered. So in coronavirus terms, you could maybe put like a piece of cloth or like a little bit of N95 over that out. That out breathing thing. But, but I think most people in most crowds are not wearing masks at all these days. I think folks who are concerned are masking themselves. So like it's not quite such a big issue as it is. It was in 2020 when like Covid numbers were even higher and everyone was very concerned. It seems like a lot of people are very comfortable not wearing masks outside, which.
Miriam: Which they shouldn't be if they're at a protest, both for health reasons and for face identification reasons. There's a pandemic and a panopticon out there. Please just wear a mask.
James: Yeah, just wear one. Lots of people will be happy to give you one. I found often I like. So I had some KN95s that I just like to wear in big crowds. Right. You know, don't particularly want to get Covid again. And I'd end up putting on the gas mask and losing the KN95 and people gave me one when I took it off again, which was kind of them. So it's a good way to look out for one another is to take a few more and keep everyone safe.
Miriam: One other thing about those, about the gas masks that you're talking about the P1 hundreds. So these are the ones with the filters that click into the mask, correct?
James: Yeah. So we can talk about filter standards if you want.
Miriam: I less want to talk about filter standards than to remind people that if you're using a mask that has those filters when you're not using it, you should be unclicking those filters and putting them in a sealed plastic bag. Because the passive passing of air through that filter is. Reduces the. The life of that filter. Just, Just as a practical consideration when it's not in use.
James: Yeah, yeah. I will say also, if your thing has been exposed to chemical irritants, just bag the whole thing.
Miriam: Yes.
James: You don't want to bring that back into your house. You don't even want to really bring that into your vehicle. Certainly you don't want to bring that to a mass transit. It's not fair on everyone else.
Miriam: It is not a good way to make friends bring chemical contaminants onto a public transit.
James: Yeah. So just get a big, you know, one of those zip seal bags and seal them up, put them in there and you should be good to go. There are different standards for filters. So you know, buy the filters with the mask or from the same brand who makes the mask and you should be good to go. You can buy adapters. So let's say you have a military style gas mask that uses a 40 millimeter. You can buy a 40 millimeter to 3M converter to bayonet called bayonet mount, the 3M one. And so that would allow you to use the slightly cheaper P100 filters as opposed to buying like a CBRN filter. Right. Like chemical, biological, radioactive and nuclear. I think you don't need all those things. Right. You just really need the. What you're concerned about is the particles at a P100. That's what that's filtering. Right. All of the particles.
Miriam: Yeah.
James: I would.
Miriam: If there's nuclear material at these protests, then things have escalated, shit has gone south.
James: Yeah. And at that point, the gas mask ain't the only thing you need. Right. Like that stuff gets in your skin, it's a bad day for you and probably the end of days for you.
Miriam: Live like the world is dying.
James: Yeah. Indeed. I would say even if you think the military filters look cool or whatever, they are heavier and there is more again attached above your neck. Right. So like think about weight. Unless you've practiced with this stuff, having a lot of stuff attacked, it's not comfortable and it can, it can make head injuries worse. Like I said.
Miriam: Yeah.
James: So like do be thinking about like it's tempting, I'm sure, for some people to buy a helmet and then buy the helmet rails and then put a little light on there and then put a little blinky light on there. Put earphones on there. If, you know, if, if you do like laughing or something or air softing, go wild with that. But if, if you don't, and this is new to you, like just be cautious of putting extra wear on your.
Miriam: Head you and things like reduced field of vision as well.
James: Yeah.
Miriam: Being able to see what's going on around you and react to it quickly is a huge safety factor.
James: Yeah. Especially with cars being ubiquitous in violence in this country. Foam earplugs are going to Be just fine. Don't need to spend your money on active electronic ear protection. So sometimes see me, you'll see me using active electronic ear protection. That's because I use it for work. Right. I need to be able to pass through my headphones to my recorder to hear what my recorder's hearing. That's a relatively niche concern most of the time, if I'm honest. I either have those on or don't have ear protection in. I have significant hearing loss. I know it's cumulative. I just can't hear out of one side of my head. Like it's not really, you know, like it sucks. I would advise you wearing foam earplugs and not having that. But I am being something of a hypocrite there. Like, but the loud noises, right? Like especially you're someone who is sensitive to them. Things like flashbangs, things like fireworks. Fireworks were going off while I was in downtown la. Those are loud and it sucks. And the, the tinnitus isn't fun. So little foam earplugs. I think I like a brand called Heroes. They look like they're like blue. They seem to go in better and conform better. Obviously there's a trade off there with your situational awareness. Right. You can't hear other people as well. But yeah, loud noises suck. So those are good things to have to keep with.
Miriam: Yeah. In terms of loud noise safety, one thing that I haven't heard being used in la, maybe, maybe it has. But the LRAD or sound canon.
James: Yeah, they'll use LRAD to announce an unlawful assembly. But they won't use, they don't weaponize them.
Miriam: Yeah. So in a situation where they are weaponizing them, foam earplugs will not provide sufficient protection in the zone of basically impact from those weapons. But so what you need to remember for those is to get away from them. Don't run away like in a straight line with the LRAD behind you. Walk at a 90 degree angle to the LRAD. Get out of the projection of sound that it is projecting. There's basically an outgoing V shape emanating from the lrad and you're going to get out of it much more quickly by going to the side than by going away. And I think that is the single most important piece of safety information about sound cannons. For ear protection in that zone, you would need very serious industrial ear protection, which probably isn't worth it. As you were saying, when just getting out of there safely is about knowing where the sound is coming from and just walking away from it. At a 90 degree angle.
James: Yeah, 100%. That can be very difficult. Right. Like if you're trapped on a city block.
Miriam: Right.
James: And that sucks, but it's still get further away and then move laterally when you can. The same goes with tear gas. Right. Don't think that, like you're going to put this mask on and become impenetrable. It's going to soak through your clothes. It's going to make irritate your skin. I went to brush my teeth the other night and it was in my beard, like my fucking neck beard. How did it get from my neck beard into my mouth? I don't know, but my gums were bleeding and that sucked. So, like the situation is always to leave the thing that is damaging you. Right. Like it's just not getting hurt in that intervening time. Let's go on to the chest. I have always worn a plate carrier for this kind of thing. I don't know if I would suggest that to everyone, though. A plate carrier for those not familiar is what's colloquially, colloquially referred to as a bulletproof vest. Benefit of lyrium. And it's actually no one else. It looks like this.
Miriam: It says press on it, which I.
James: Think it says press. Yeah. If you're a really funny person and you love a laugh, you can come up and press me in the chest. Like.
Miriam: Like, I was wondering how many dads you had encountered in the streets.
James: One or two, let me tell you. Yeah, don't love that, actually. Don't. Don't press someone you don't know. Don't touch people who don't want to be touched. So that's what I wear, partially because it allows me to identify myself. Right. Both. So people could come up if they have something they'd like to share with me and because that's, you know, what's considered. I go to places where like, the bullets are not made of foam and people aren't supposed to target you. Does that mean you're not targeted? Sometimes. But nonetheless, like. Like that's why I wear the plate carry. It keeps. Keeps me safe in those situations. Right. Safer. I should say not. Not an inherently safe situation, I don't think. To be honest. I think people just turning up to protest. You risk being targeted if you're wearing that.
Miriam: Yeah, I. I agree and I would.
James: I'm saying what I wear because otherwise someone's going to respond on the Internet with a picture of me. Yeah, I get that. I think you will be just fine with a leather jacket or a motorcycle jacket. Something like that.
Miriam: Paint, you can, you can slip, you know, sheets of cardboard between layers of clothing, stuff like that as well. Like, is that going to prevent everything? No, but it's going to absorb some of the. Yeah, and yeah, I absolutely agree. Like, it's not just you might be more targeted by police, but if you're rolling up to a protest where you don't know a lot of people and you're the like tactical doubt person covered in, you know, plate carriers and stuff, people might be a little suspicious of you.
James: Yeah, I will be a little suspicious of you.
Miriam: Yeah. They might suspect that you're not, you know, if everybody else at the protest. It's a vibes thing. Right. If everybody else match the vibes. If everybody else at the protest is wearing a T shirt and you're wearing a plate carrier, you might be safer, but nobody might want to stand near you, which might make you actually more in danger.
James: Yeah, yeah. So I think for most people, like I say sort of a thick jacket is fine. It depends a little bit on the impact weapons. Right. Like I will say, when I've seen serious injuries from impact weapons, it is not to the torso, generally it is to the head or to the groin. So, yes, it hurts. Right? It hurts getting pepper balled. I've been pepper balled, been pepper board in places that were unarmored. And it sucks. But like you'll, you'll most likely get through it and you'll be, you'll get better. But yes, something to take the sting out.
Miriam: Yeah.
James: You know, is. Is not a bad idea.
Miriam: How do you feel about sports pads in those situations? Like maybe, you know, something I've seen certainly like athletic cups. I've also seen a lot of people wearing things like soccer or hockey, mostly soccer, shin guards on their legs and arms sometimes as like a little bit of impact absorbing. I think again, it's good for that to be under the clothes if you know, so as to not draw attention. But you know, rollerblading, pat, you know, knee pads, elbow pads, stuff like that. Stuff that is like more marketed for athletic situations than fighting situations or military situations.
James: Yeah, I'll wear a cup pretty much anytime I wanted. These things like, it's just like for you don't want to be taking a left lethal in the groin. It can be devastating. Like it can cause really serious injury.
Miriam: Yeah.
James: That's happened to people. You're never going to persuade me that the cops are not aiming at that area on people like that. It's not a coincidence. I have been shot in the groin with pepper balls. You're not going to tell me that the pepper balls are walked down towards my groin, were an accident. Painful?
Miriam: It's a small amount, a percentage of the overall human body and a disproportionate amount of injuries from cops go to that location. So, yes, I think they're doing it on purpose.
James: Yeah. It's also something that's relatively like unobtrusive. Right. So, yeah, go ahead with that. I think you could wear like rollerblading pads. You know, I saw people who rollerbladed to the protest.
Miriam: Then definitely. Then definitely you should be wearing all rollerblading. Safety.
James: Yeah, it's very, very Southern California thing to see. I'm impressed. Like, I would be on my art in five minutes if I tried that. Yeah, you could. I think again, it's just a trade off. Right. Like, you have to match a vibe like you said. But like, if you rode your motorcycle and then kept your jacket on, I wouldn't keep your motorcycle helmet on. It's a lot of weight. It's a lot of hot. One thing I will say here, it's.
Miriam: A lot of weight. And I actually, I used to run with somebody who did wear a motorcycle helmet for a while. And it had vents in it.
James: Yeah.
Miriam: And the cops did target this person pretty consistently. And what they would do is actually just grab like a bowling ball. They would use the vents to grab that person by the head. This happened to them multiple times and they ended up with some. Some pretty serious injuries.
James: Yeah. The other thing is, like, certainly if you're in Southern California, it's hot in the middle of the day, and the more crap you put on yourself, the harder is to shed heat. Right. And like you, for all the risks that are out there, like, heat injury is a risk too. Dehydration is a risk.
Miriam: Yes. I have helped carry a person who wore full plate carrier and helmet on a day when no guns were deployed. But it was 95 degrees and like, guess which of those things ended up being a problem.
James: Yeah. 100%. Like, this is a thing that happens the world around. Right. Like, it's very tempting. You feel safer and you underestimate the environment, environmental threats.
Miriam: Yeah.
James: So let's bring some water and bring.
Miriam: A way to drink the water, stay hydrated.
James: Yeah. So I always have a little. It's not actually a camel pack, it's a hydra pack because they have a amazing warranty. Ooh. Yeah. I have used hydropacks for years. I've broken them through, like, sheer volume of usage and they've Always replaced them, even 10 years later, which is cool. Yeah, it's nice.
Miriam: We are not sponsored.
James: No, we're not sponsored by Hydropack. I'm just. I'm just like, if you're spending your money, money, that's a nice way to know that you'll have a thing. The. Yeah. So I. As we move down in terms of clothing, right, if we talk about trousers, it is really nice to have, like, little knee pads, but I don't think you need to be going and like, strapping on tactical knee pads over your knees, like, because they make it harder to run and. And moving out of the threat area is always going to be safer for you. But if you have to render first aid to somebody. For me, I kneel a lot to take photographs, so I like to have little foam D pads and I have trousers that can accept them inside and they're not particularly visible if you. You. You might have a double knee. Car hearts already. And they're nice thick anyway, so they take a bit of sting if you do get hit by something. So something like that, I think is a good idea. Moving down to the feet, I think your friends here are boots. I. Sometimes less lethals will skip along the ground and that is a lot of impact for your toe to take. And the toe is a sensitive little guy. And so, like, keep them safe, give them something. Put something in between your toes in the world. I love a sandal, but not the place for a sandal in terms of.
Miriam: Like, creating new risks. You know, if you come to a protest capable of being on your feet for hours and running several blocks at a time, and then you take a less lethal to the toe, you have severely reduced your ability to do either of those things. Right. You are now in more danger than you were before and your foot hurts, but, like, you're gonna have a harder time getting away from people who mean you harm than you than you were before. So, like, think about. Think about that.
James: Yeah.
Miriam: And. And boots also offer ankle support, which is also key.
James: Yeah. 100%. Something I saw a lot in LA, and it's no fault of anyone, so I'm not suggesting that it is. But a lot of people who are newer to protests and had been traumatized by things that they had seen in the past two days, very understandably. Right. There's no shame in that. Like I said, I attend wars for work and I still find it very traumatic seeing people get up in the streets of places where I live. People would be very afraid, so flashbang would go off and people would just be fucking running. And large groups of people running in small spaces can lead to people turning their ankles, standing on each other. Right? So a pair of boots is going to help you be safer from some of that. I would also say try not to panic. Panic in large crowds is itself a danger. And if you can be a voice of calm or just a calm presence in those moments, calmly move to a safe place. Calmly move to a place where you are protected, maybe you're behind something, a bench or what have you, so that you're not actively exposed to impact ammunitions. And then calmly help others get to safe places and leave the area. You're all going to be a lot safer. When everyone turns and runs straight down the street, you continue to present a target and therefore people will panic more and that will cause people to fall over. Those people are in danger. They can get trampled on, they can get beaten up by the cops, they can get hit by impact munitions that skip along the ground. They could fall into tear gas, right into a cloud of tear gas. It's not safe. So one really important action you can take for your safety is to try and stay calm. I understand it's hard to stay calm when things are going bang and people are shouting, but calmness is going to really help. The last thing I will say, and I think this transitions nicely into the stuff you wanted to talk about, is it's good to bring some first aid stuff. I don't think you need one of those tactical Ifaks that, you know, like, it attaches to your plate carrier via pals webbing. I have a purple, pink, blue and green fanny pack that has been to more war zones than your favorite racist YouTuber. And it's great. It does. It carries all the stuff I need and it doesn't make me look like, like a cop or a soldier. It's very obviously just a fanny pack, but I have my first aid supplies in there. I only have the stuff that I know how to use, that I've trained to use and that I'm confident using on myself or somebody else. And that fits very nicely in there. And that again, makes me look a bit less threatening, both to anyone there. Right? Like, I don't want people to feel part of my job is talking to people. And so people are not comfortable approaching me because of the way I'm presenting. Then that's. That's contrary to the reason I'm there. And so I try and be pretty approachable. And part of that is my fun multicolored bum bag and you can put, you can put snacks in there if you want to. It's good to bring a snack, actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm a person who's vegan and, you know, LA is not. There were lots of nice vegan things that I was able to eat, but it took me a while to find some food and I was out there for like 20 of the 24 hours of the day. And I just take these little peanut butter packets because they're small, but it does get old after a while. So good to bring some other snacks and bring some snacks for other people. Really easy way to make friends.
Miriam: Yeah. And like, often, often people's judgment and like, ability to be calm and all of those things suffers when they are hungry. And, you know, having some food available can be really helpful for the whole, the whole community, the whole group.
James: Yeah, yeah.
Miriam: I'm actually not against people having first aid gear they don't know how to use because something that can be useful sometimes is like just somebody showing up and being like, I have a kit. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah. It's, you know, just don't.
James: Decompression needle someone. If you.
Miriam: Oh, God. Listen, if you don't know how, if you are not trained in decompressioning a chest, a pneumothorax, then the medical term for what you are doing is stabbing.
James: Yes.
Miriam: Yeah, you are stabbing someone, don't do it. But if you don't know how to use a tourniquet and you have a tourniquet and somebody is screaming, we need a tourniquet. Yeah, you might be a match made in heaven.
James: Yeah, yeah, you can help someone with that.
Miriam: Let's, well, let's talk about, about first aid now if you are down for that. You mentioned not panicking, and I think that that's really important because the sort of common denominator of all police weapons is fear. The goal is to create fear and to discourage people from being out and doing what they're doing. And the ways to combat fear are information, preparation and courage. And we can't give anybody courage, but I think we can help with. We, you know, we need, we're working on giving ourselves courage over here. That's an ongoing battle 100% of the time. But information and preparation can do a lot and sort of demystify some of this stuff. So all of the weapons that police use are going to cause injury direct, directly if they, if they impact you. And that is going to be things like blunt force trauma from, you know, batons and nightsticks. It is going to be chemical weapons like tear gas and pepper spray. It is going to be injuries that we can actually be prepared for and we can have just some very basic information to help treat and like, get people to safety. I want to start with chemical weapons because I think there's sort of the most mythologizing around this.
James: Yeah, that is the thing that is true. Unfortunately.
Miriam: The chemical weapons that police use tend to be tear gas and pepper spray. There are some, like, different, you know, variations on that, but we should treat them the same way. In terms of first aid, basically, first thing to, to be thinking about is, is there anybody here in respiratory distress? Is somebody struggling to breathe? Yeah, those are the first people who need help. People who have things like asthma or other respiratory conditions will have those exacerbated, made worse by chemical weapons. Help those people get to fresh air and help them decontaminate first. If you're not sure if somebody is in respiratory distress, a really good thing to look for is what is called the tripod position. Now if you think about, like, what you personally would look like if you ran as hard as you could for longer than you really wanted to and then stopped, you would bend down, put your hands on your knees and try to breathe deeply. That is called the tripod position. And it is what people naturally do when they are experiencing respiratory distress. It is actually helpful for opening up the airway. If somebody is doing that, help them get to fresh air. Ask them if they have asthma. Ask them if this, if this has happened before. If they have an inhaler on them, help them use. Is not, generally speaking, a good idea to give somebody an inhaler that is not theirs. But if they have an inhaler and they need help using it, they need help getting it out of their bag or whatever. Help them with that and then we can focus on decontamination. The first thing to do once you are in fresh air, think about which direction the wind is blowing. If you, if you can.
James: Yeah.
Miriam: And get upwind of chemical weapons. If that's a safe place to be. Right. Obviously, if the cops are standing upwind, don't go upwind. You know, if the person is. Has a lot of like outer layers of clothing on, those are likely to be contaminated. If they have maybe like a scarf or something around their neck, around their face, it's probably a good idea to take that off temporarily. Now you should always be asking permission to interact with somebody physically in any situation.
James: Yeah.
Miriam: This holds especially true in all of the situations I'm going to be talking about here, because these are all people who have been definitionally assaulted, right?
James: Yeah.
Miriam: They have been brutalized by state actors. And part of responding to that is to be like, hey, I'm going to treat you like a human being and not like an object to be brutalized. So ask permission. Do not touch people without their consent. If you can bring some nitrile gloves if you're going to be interacting with. If you think you might be interacting with chemical weapons just to avoid contamination yourself. Once you get sort of the outer layers away from a person's face, you may want to also help them tie their hair back. If they have long hair, you don't want that going into their face. And then you're going to want to do an eye flush. An eye flush is the use of clean water to remove chemicals from the eyes. I'm taking a deep breath.
James: What if I use milk instead?
Miriam: Please don't.
James: But baby cows love it. Why would I not?
Miriam: Yeah, baby cows love drinking it. Why wouldn't it be good in my eyes? There are really persistent sort of home remedies and myths about other substances that can be used for pepper spray and tear gas. All of them are contingent on the idea that there is, like, a chemical reaction you are supposed to be doing. My eyes are not a great site for chemical reaction. I actually don't want that happening there. And these chemicals are also not functioning by being acidic, which I think is part of the myth, too. And you don't need to introduce a base. You just need to get it out of the eye. If you have ever taken a high school chemistry class or worked in any kind of, you know, shop that does metal work or woodwork or anything like that, there's probably been an eye flush station in the corner of that room. It does not dispense milk water.
James: Thinking of having, like, a cow, just, like, just the udders in.
Miriam: Yeah, that's the OSHA cow.
James: Yeah. Just kind of milk them straight into the face. Raw milk. That is the problem. Raw milk is great for the eyes. It's a pasteurization process. I'm lying.
Miriam: It has the. Has the RFK Jr. Seal of approval. No, you want to use water. You want to use a forceful stream of water. So I like to use a water bottle with, like, what's called a sport tip, you know, which. Which creates, like, kind of a good stream of water. You can buy these at any store. And they will. They will work. You can refill them from the tap. That will work, too. I don't drink out of a water bottle that I am going to do this with. And the number one thing you got to do before you start flushing someone's eyes, check that they are not wearing contact lenses. If they are wearing contact lenses, those need to come out first. It is a myth that the contact lens can go, like, all the way behind the eyeball. That's not a thing. But it can cause damage. It can trap chemicals against the eye. You want it to come out nine times out of 10, if somebody has been exposed to tear gas or pepper spray, contact lens coming out is the first thing that happens because their eyes are tearing up a lot. But if they are still in there, a great thing to do is to help them take them out. Not by jamming your fingers in this person's eye, Please don't do that. But if you have those gloves that I mentioned, nitrile gloves, as opposed to latex, just because some people have latex allergies, just take a nitrile glove, open up the part that opens, and put it over their index finger and middle finger. So take two of the fingers of their hand, shove it inside the, like, palm part of the glove. Don't try to get them to put the glove on correctly. It might be the wrong size for them. We don't have all day here. But with two fingers inside a nitrile glove, a person can stick their gloved fingers in their eye and sweep out their contact lenses easily. That's a great way to get that lens out quickly. If the person is like, I need my contact lenses. I need to be able to see. That's a conversation to be had later. These lenses are garbage now, I promise. But you can say, like, okay, I'll hang on to them and we can talk about that in a minute. Don't argue with this person right in this moment. They are very distressed once their lenses are out, if they have glasses, they should be holding their glasses in their hand. And what you are going to do is take a. Take your thumb and forefinger, ideally gloved, and pinch the person's eyebrow and lift it up and this will open their eye. If you do it on yourself right now, if you just while listening to this in a public place, hopefully pinch your eyebrow, lift it up, you will find that your hand is stronger than your face muscle there. And you won't be able to close your eye while somebody is doing that. You need to do this because when somebody has been exposed to tear gas or pepper spray, they are instinctively going to squeeze their eyes shut. And that is One of the main sources of danger because they can't see. Now if you can, then do a quick eye flush. Just spray water from the bridge of their nose to the outer corner of their eye while you hold their eye open. Do it twice and then tell them to blink. Tell them not to rub their eyes. They will want to rub their eyes. Getting them to stick their hands in their pockets can be useful or sit on their hands or something can also be useful that way that also sitting on their hands also will bring their head down to a level that you can do an eye flush on. If they are taller than you, repeat with the other eye and their eyes will still hurt.
James: Yeah.
Miriam: This is not going to fix it. It is not going to make their eyes not hurt. What it will do is hopefully allow them to keep their eyes open so that they can safely navigate out of the situation. Your eyes are going to continue to hurt for a while. It's going to burn. This stuff hurts. I have two kind of mantras that I use about this. One of them was taught to me by a friend who was at the Oakland port shut down over a decade ago, who had a great thing to say. The other was taught to me by a competitive spicy food eater I saw on YouTube one time.
James: Fantastic.
Miriam: The competitive spicy food eater said of eating spicy food, remember, it's pain, not damage. And that's kind of true and kind of not true because chemical weapons are sort of temporarily damaging your skin. They can cause essentially a burn. But, but that burning in your eyes, that's irritation. It will go away. It's pain, it's not damaged. Try not to be freaked out about it. It will get better over time. It sucks. It just straight sucks. And what my friend at the port closure said about being tear gassed was, it stings, it stops, you stay, you win. You just have to get past it sometimes.
James: Yeah.
Miriam: Your eyes might continue to hurt. And the fact that your eyes continue to hurt is why there are so many alternative, like use milk, use Malox cures out there. Because people want something that works instantly. Nothing is going to work instantly. I'm sorry, it's just going to hurt.
James: Yeah. It's designed to cause compliance through pain.
Miriam: Yeah.
James: And that is what, that is what the goal of deployment of tear gas is. Right. Like. And so unfortunately, there is going to be some pain. You are the one who gets to decide how you react to it.
Miriam: Yeah. And getting your own eyes or another person's eyes flushed out quickly can help you keep your eye, keep your eyes open and therefore Be able to navigate the situation more safely. And like, that's the important thing. As far as skin, which is also going to be burning and hurting, you want to use water and soap. Dish soap is good. Harsh soaps that you would not normally put on your skin can be good because you just want to wash that shit off. There's also Sudokon wipes, which is like the wipes that are sold specifically for this. I, I personally just carry like a bottle of dish soap and additional water. Obviously soap doesn't go in your eyes, it goes everywhere else. For things like your hair, I would say don't bother trying to wash your hair in the streets. That's a problem for when you get home. When you get home, what you should do is if at all possible, bag up your clothes before you go inside, you know, or at least the outer layers, put them in a plastic bag to be washed later. Turn on the shower to as cold as you think you can stand, like lukewarm. It doesn't have to be. I don't know if you're somebody who takes cold showers, I don't know. Go off, I guess, but you know, just not warm. The water shouldn't be warm. Turn it on while you're standing outside of the shower. Put your face in the water facing upwards. Soap up your face. Soap up your hair a lot more than you normally would. Rinse it. Rinse it a couple times. Do that a couple of times. Then get your whole body in the shower because I'm telling you there is more tear gas and pepper spray in your hair than you think. And it will burn all the way down your body. So try to wash that out before you get in.
James: Yeah. Same goes if you're like a body hair haver, like.
Miriam: Yes.
James: I'm like, my body just wants to be hairy. So like that, like arms down, legs down. Yeah, I like to cover my, my body when I can. I'm at these things. 8. I don't like to be having sun cream all the time because then that's just going to create a really nice paste. With any chemical irritants, it's kind of hard to wash off. So I wear often like a sun hoodie. But yeah, if you're, if you're out there, bare arms, then same deal. Washing down. Not like, you know, like not letting that drip back into your face or whatever.
Miriam: Yeah. And you know, other than that, like that's it, that's. It's dealing with the discomfort, it's dealing with the pain. You know, rinsing your Mouth out immediately is a great thing to do. That can help with discomfort a lot. People will want to, like, swirl water around their mouth, spit it out. Great. Do that. If you're feeling, you know, that respiratory distress, if somebody around you is just like, focus on breathing out rather than breathing in. That can be really helpful just as a. As a bit of a breathing exercise. But that's the basics of it. It doesn't have to be as scary as it is. Right. It can be very dangerous, especially for people who have underlying respiratory conditions. The solution is to get them out of there and help them decontaminate. That's it. It's not that complicated. And you don't need a lot of special equipment to. To help somebody decontaminate. You need water and soap. And you already have those things, probably.
James: Yeah. Yeah. And like, just like Miriam said, like, please don't be pouring anything else into someone's eyes. Like, I've seen it for 20 years.
Miriam: Like, the number of times I've been doing eye flushes on people and then like, turned around to find that, like, some helpful person has dropped off a gallon of skim milk.
James: Yeah. Milk is for calves. That is that. It's a use of milk. Yeah. I don't. I don't put milk anywhere near me. No. No one wants to be around me if I do, but certainly not. And I don't want to be making cheese on the eyeball.
Miriam: Consider also that some people have milk allergies. Dairy allergies are not unheard of. And if you run up to somebody and squirt an allergen on their face, that could end really badly for them and you would feel bad about that for the rest of your life. And you should, frankly, if you do that to somebody. So don't do it. Also, like, I don't know where you are, but it's over 90 degrees where I am. People listen. I don't know. I know where you are, James. I don't know where people listening are. If I were to run up to you with a pint of milk that had been in my backpack for four hours on a 90 degree day. Gross.
James: Yeah. I don't want your street milk. Say no to street milk. And like, if you carry a clean bottle of water, like, you can use it for other things. Don't mix and match. Right. But if somebody may have heat excision.
Miriam: I always drink. Yeah. I always drink my flush bottles on my way home because I'm like, I don't want to carry this anymore and I'm thirsty.
James: Yeah. I like to have little sachets of the electrolyte stuff and then I can always dump that in there if I want some nice mango flavored water. And you can punch a little hole. If you want to make more pressure, you can just make a little hole in it and then it gives you pressure to be squirting away.
Miriam: Once you've done this a few times, you will be an expert. People become experts in this very quickly. So get a few nitrile gloves in your size, get some water bottles, have a little dish soap bottle, you're good to go.
James: Don't fall into the trap of getting black nitrile gloves. I don't know why they exist.
Miriam: No. Because they look cool.
James: Do they though? Because you look like you don't know what you're doing.
Miriam: Yeah.
James: You're sweeping for blood.
Miriam: You look like a tattoo artist.
James: Yeah, that's true. Yeah.
Miriam: And they are cool.
James: Yeah, they are cool. If you're sweeping for blood while tattooing someone, then maybe not such a great day at work, but yeah, for everyone else, obviously, like, especially at night, if you're sweeping for blood and you have black gloves on, doesn't really show up.
Miriam: And when James talks, says sweeping for blood, he means checking for bleeding on somebody's body by putting a gloved hand somewhere where you can't see very well and then looking at it to see if there is blood on it. Which is so great that you bring it up because bleeding control is actually the very next thing I'm going to talk about.
James: Outstanding. So.
Miriam: Web police weapons that cause bleeding include basically everything that isn't a chemical or sound weapon. So in terms of bleeding, obviously we want blood to stay in our bodies. That's where it goes. Contrary to, you know, 14th century medical theory. Yeah.
James: Always carry a niche.
Miriam: Yeah. Every good medic has a jar.
James: Yeah.
Miriam: Just in their pack. I think, like, blood is one of the scariest things for a person who is not accustomed to seeing blood to see when you see bleeding, you know something is wrong. Right. You know that this is a bad situation. The first technique for keeping blood in the body when the body has been injured is what we call direct pressure. So direct pressure is what it sounds like you should take. Gloved hands, gloved. Because you don't want blood that isn't yours on you. Right. If you do get blood that isn't yours on you, a good idea is to go the next day to a clinic or emergency medical facility and say, I've had an exposure to somebody else's bodily fluids and I Would like post exposure prophylaxis. You don't need to tell them what happened. You just need to say you had an exposure and you would like post exposure prophylaxis. They will give you a medication that will stop you developing HIV if you were exposed to that. So like that's good. It's cool that we can do that.
James: Yeah. It's free in some states for now at least. I believe you can get, I think in California you can get free prep at least.
Miriam: Yeah. Until it gets replaced with leeches.
James: Yeah.
Miriam: Prep and pep are actually the same medication, just in different doses.
James: Yeah.
Miriam: So do wear gloves. First thing you do is put absorbent material, ideally like clean or sterile gauze, but anything actually against the injury and put direct pressure. Direct pressure should be enough to slow the bleeding and stop the bleeding. In most cases it can take quite a lot of pressure. It can take leaning a significant amount of your body weight against an injury. The first layer that goes against the person's injury should stay there. It does not matter how dirty that thing is once it is in contact with the person. Two things are true. One is any pathogens that were going to be introduced to that person's cut have already been introduced, so taking it off won't be particularly helpful. And two, blood is starting to clot against that thing. So like let's say somebody you know sustains a terrible injury, they are bleeding a lot and the first thing they do is grab the single dirtiest piece of cloth in the whole town and they put it against their injury, the dirtiest possible cloth. When they've been injured, I don't know why do not take it off, put direct pressure on it. You can put more dressing on top of it if it starts to soak through, but you do not take off that bottom layer because that will increase bleeding. Infection is bad and it is a problem for tomorrow. A person who has a wound that is at danger, in danger of infection can and should seek medical care up to and you know, including antibiotics. Again, you do not need to tell anybody anything about how you got this cut. You just need to let them know that you're worried about an infection. I know that accessing medical care is a whole other can of worms, but it may be necessary in situations where an injury is particularly bad. If the injury, if the cut is not closing on its own, if, if the like sides of the wound are staying far, it probably needs stitches, which again you will need to seek medical care for. And if you haven't had a tetanus shot in the last 10 years, you are going to need a tetanus shot. Great thing about tetanus shots is you can go get one right now. Again, it's often free on most insurances and you can get it. Most places that you can get like a flu shot. Tetanus shots are great. Tetanus is real bad and you don't want it. It's rare, you know, it's not common. But anytime you get a cut, you are at risk for tetanus and you don't want it. I promise.
James: Yep.
Miriam: Now, if the wound is not improved, if the bleeding is not improving through direct pressure, you may need a specialized thing. Now, if this is on a limb, then what you need is a tourniquet. If you cannot get the bleeding under control through direct pressure, please do not apply a tourniquet casually. Please do not. There was a horrible video going around a while back of like, some people putting a tourniquet on somebody who had been injured in a protest. And it was basically a scrape on the knee. Don't do that. But if somebody is losing a significant amount of blood, if somebody has lost part of a limb, you know, like, let's say they. They had a foot and that foot's not there anymore, you probably do need a tourniquet and you're not able to. Or, you know, if they have a wound that you are not able to stop the bleeding through firm, direct pressure, they need a tourniquet. That tourniquet, you can buy these online. North American Rescue is a great source for first aid gear. The tourniquet should go a couple inches above the injury and not on a joint. If there is a joint, you need to go above the joint. And when I say above, I mean towards the person's body. What you should do once you get a tourniquet is go on YouTube and search for the training video that exists for that specific tourniquet, and they will show you how to use it. Once a tourniquet is on, it should not be removed until that person is in the hospital. And I don't think I need to tell you that if a tourniquet is in place, you need to get that person to the hospital. But I'm going to tell you that anyway. A tourniquet works by cutting off blood flow. You tighten it until the blood stops coming out, which means that blood isn't getting anywhere past the tourniquet. So that person needs immediate medical attention. If a part of them has become detached from them, bring it with them to the hospital, put it in A put it next to, but not directly against ice to keep it cold. The kind of ice that is made of frozen water, not the kind of ice that is fascists. Don't bring ice with you to the hospital.
James: Approaching them with a foot. Can I say my tourniquet spiel, please? Yeah. So you can pronounce it tourniquet if you want. That's the first thing. The second thing is that you can buy them on Jeffrey Bezos website and you should. Shouldn't. I have seen fake ones that look very real and I have seen them break. If you're using a tourniquet, it's a really bad day. And if it breaks, it is considerably worse. There will be people on the Internet who will tell you you can use a belt. I'm a person on the Internet who's telling you that he has seen an improvised tourniquet fail. And it's not a very nice thing to see to like, you know, skim over something pretty horrible. When you get them, they will come in various colors. There is no particular reason that you shouldn't buy an orange one if you're like a civilian in the United States because they're much easier to see. Especially like at night sometimes. Obviously, like if you're military, you'll be issued a black one. If that's what you have, that's fine. But if you're buying one, I don't see why you shouldn't buy an orange one. People think it's cool to rubber band them to the outside of their equipment. They do decay in UV radiation over time. So if you've had one on the outside of your rucksack for seven years, again, it's at risk of breaking if you're trying to decide what model to get. There is something called the Committee on Tactical Combat Casualty Care, which is a lot of C's and a T. And they, they have done some pretty good testing on them. I would suggest buying one of the models that is listed on their website. Again, not some fake one on Amazon. If you're wondering which of those models. It's the standard. Every course I've ever taken. Standardized on the. Standardized on the North American Rescue Combat Application tourniquet. I think the current generation is Gen 7, those that it wants to get.
Miriam: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for the. The tourniquet. Tourniquet spiel. That's very good. Another piece of specialized equipment is a chest seal. You cannot put a tourniquet on a person's torso, obviously. And a chest seal is designed not just to help Keep blood in, but to keep air out. If air gets inside a person's chest cavity through means other than through their airway, it can actually prevent their lungs from expanding that. That air can actually be very dangerous. You want to keep air out of those wounds. Chest seals are another safety device that you can purchase on North American Rescue and other places like that. And they're just great to have and hopefully never need. They are the kind of thing that like, if you are using it is because somebody was shot or stabbed in the torso, which is a very bad day for everybody. But it is a much better day if you have a, a chest seal on you. They are small, they usually come as a, as a pair. Because it is common for a torso wound to have both an entry and exit wound if it comes from a gun. So carry that in your pack. It won't take up much space and hopefully it'll stay in your pack forever. Other than that, you're doing direct pressure. Now if a wound. Now those are all like life threatening, scary wounds. I was talking about smaller wounds, wounds that do not require that level of bleeding control or chest seals or whatever. But like, let's say, you know, you have a wound and it hurts and it bled for a while and now it's okay. Let's just talk a little bit about aftercare for that. So you are going to want to wash it as soon as possible. Now that will promote bleeding. If you do it in the moments after it happened, it will promote bleeding. You're not worried about bleeding to death if you're washing the wound out immediately. Right. So this is not one where you are losing a significant amount of blood. And then you're going to want to try and keep it clean, keep it wrapped up. You can put antibiotic ointment on it. Although the data is not suggestive of antibiotic ointment being more useful than just using something like petroleum jelly to create a seal over the wound. It's really just about keeping stuff out. Some people use honey. I don't have the data to like recommend that, especially because I think that the honey you get at the store might not be something that I would recommend putting on a wound. I would recommend using either petroleum jelly or antibiotic cream. Yeah, keep an eye on it. Things that are indicative of a problem include swelling, heat and discharge from the wound and a wound that is getting worse, not better. So if there's swelling around the wound in a day or so after it happens, keep an eye on that. Sometimes people will take a marker and Draw like out like trace the outline of that swelling and then take a look the next day to see if the swelling has gotten worse or better. If it is getting worse, that is an indication that you should probably go and get some antibiotics. You should probably go talk to a doctor and have them evaluate that wound. If it is getting better, that's good. I hope it continues to do so. Excellent work. While a wound is healing, you can wash it just as you would normally wash that piece of skin in the shower, except that you should not scrub at it because you don't want to knock scabs off. But you can let soapy water and clean water run over it just to keep it clean. Be very, very worried if you start to develop a fever or any other type of systemic symptoms. So like symptoms in the rest of your body, not just at the wound site and seek medical care if you are having those swelling going out from the wound, a red line moving up from the wound towards the center of your body is a very bad sign of infection. Plus please seek medical help if you are having that.
James: Yeah, real briefly with direct pressure. I forgot to say earlier, if somebody has an injury, especially to their pelvis where the bones are unstable, the thing called crepitus, don't be kneeling on said pelvis. People like to do that. They like to apply direct pressure with their knee. And I'm here to tell you not to because you can make someone say considerably worse if you move those pelvic bones around. Blood tubes going through there, various types and you don't want to make holes in them. So yeah, don't be the knee thing. I don't quite know where it came from, but it's better not to be using your knee I think in general, especially if the bones are unstable, which is often the case if someone gets hit by something like a car. Right.
Miriam: Yeah.
James: And I've seen that. And again, bad day. So best avoided.
Miriam: Absolutely. Actually this is a good moment to talk about not moving people.
James: Yes.
Miriam: So if somebody has an injury like that to their pelvis or an injury to their spine, that is somebody who should not be moved except by EMTs, paramedics, people who have these specialized equipment to. I'm talking here not about their training level but about the like equipment that they will have on hand. Things like backboards, cervical collars, things like that.
James: Yeah.
Miriam: If somebody has had a fall, either a fall from more than, from twice from like more than their own height. Like if a six foot tall person falls off a six foot tall wall or a Fall where they land badly, land on their head, land with their neck at an angle, or if they are impacted directly by a fast moving blunt force trauma type thing like a nightstick to their head or neck, or if they are struck by a fast moving vehicle or are in a fast moving vehicle, like a car or a bicycle that comes to an abrupt stop, like in a crash of any kind, they should not be moved.
James: Yeah.
Miriam: Now, I'm not going to be able to teach you how to stabilize a spine because you can't see me and we're not in the same place. But there is a really useful thing if you don't know how to do that. If there's somebody else who knows how to do that, great. But even if there isn't a really useful thing for bystanders to do when somebody is injured in a way where they cannot be moved, is to create a circle around them, to create a safe space for them to, to be kept still and for somebody to treat them. So what this looks like is grabbing a bunch of people, linking arms with them, and standing facing outward with your backs to the patient and the person providing care. If there, if there is one, you can help create privacy for that person. If, you know, press, not good ethical press like James, but like bad live streamers and stuff like that are trying to shove cameras in their face or just to prevent the crowd from trampling them. You may need somebody in that circle who is comfortable or willing to be the person who will like negotiate with the cops about the fact that this person needs to be not moved. That is a tough job, you know, but it might need to be done. You can recruit people to be in that circle and it can be really useful, not just to the patient, the person who has been injured and the person providing care, but it's actually useful to the whole crowd. Because when violence occurs, the thing that is often the most traumatic for people is not the violence itself. Itself is not like seeing somebody injured. It's the feeling of helplessness. It is the feeling of like, I saw somebody horrifically injured and I couldn't do anything. So when you grab 15 people and say, hey, we're going to make a circle to keep this person safe, you've just created 15 people whose memory of this event will not be, somebody was hurt and I couldn't help and it was awful, but whose memory will be, somebody was hurt and I stood by to keep the them safe while somebody treated them. And that's of huge benefit to the whole community. You, you are helping to like settle the outwardly moving ripples of trauma.
James: Yeah.
Miriam: And. And I think that that's huge. It's. It helps you, it helps the patient, it helps the pro. The person providing care, and it helps the whole community. Please do it. And you can also, like, somebody doesn't need to be badly hurt to need a circle like that. Maybe somebody needs to pee and there's a storm drain and they need a little privacy. Maybe somebody needs to change their clothes real quick. You know, many reasons why they might need that circle.
James: Yeah.
Miriam: So specialized injuries I want to touch on real quick. I know we are already going longer than we had planned to, but I think it's worth talking about. I want to talk about head injuries and eye injuries. Eye injuries, as James already mentioned, very common at protests. People have lost eyes at protests in alarming numbers. And those are from the projectile weapons that police use.
James: Yeah.
Miriam: Eye injuries and head injuries are the injuries where you should not use direct pressure. With eye injuries, the thing that you need to do is get this person to a hospital as quickly as possible, and you need to stabilize the injury, which in this case means you need their eye to not move. Now, the way the eyes work on a person who has two of them is that when one eye moves, the other eye moves. Which means if the uninjured eye is trying to look at something over there, the injured eye is also trying to look at something over there. So the best thing you can do for this person is explain to them, like, you need to keep your eye closed, your uninjured eye closed, and you need to, like, let us guide you around so that we can get you to safety. People want to be able to see, if they are normally able to see, it can be very scary. But creating. But covering their eye, their unin. When you also cover their injured eye. And the best way to do that is by putting something. Either something soft so you're. Because again, you're not putting pressure, but just a loose covering over the eye. One thing that people often will be taught to do is to use, like, a paper cup. Is to put, like, a paper cup over the eye. But the idea is that you are stabilizing it by not allowing it to move. You don't want this person looking around. Looking around will cause some further injury, help that person get to help as quickly as possible. Do not put pressure on the eye at all. And try to avoid having both eyes move by keeping both eyes covered. Head injuries, again, no direct pressure, a person may be losing what looks like an alarming amount of Blood from a head injury. Nobody is going to bleed to death from a head injury. They may die from a head injury, but it will not be because of an uncomplicated loss of blood that could be fixed with direct pressure. If a person's head is severely injured, then that means the integrity of their skull might be compromised. So if you are putting direct pressure, you are pushing pieces of skull potentially into their brain. And that's not good for brains.
James: They didn't like it.
Miriam: It's almost as bad as Fox News for the human brain. No, it's bad. So you're not putting direct pressure. Scalp injuries bleed like a son of a bitch. They bleed like crazy. It's a lot of blood. It can look very alarming, but you do not use direct pressure in determining if somebody needs to go to the hospital after a head injury. You want to look for a couple of things. Now, number one, if somebody has been unconscious after a head injury for any length of time, they need to go to the hospital. Now when I say they need to, I mean they are at risk of death if they do not. People can make their own decisions, but they should be aware that they are at risk of death. Hollywood has a lot to answer for in many, in many situations. But one of the big ones is the trope in movies and TV of like somebody getting tapped on the back of the head, being out of the story for 20 minutes and then popping back up. Yeah, that is not how it works. That person may very well have a life threatening brain bleed. And there is no way to tell outside of a hospital. So if they have been unconscious, they need to go to the hospital. If there is blood draining from their ears or nose, that is also a bad sign. I mean, if they're bleeding from their nose because they were punched in the nose, then that's, you know, not great. But it's different from if they are bleeding from their nose following a more generalized head injury. If there is bruising around their eyes, what's called raccoon eyes, that's a pooling of blood under the skin that is also a sign of a skull fracture. And if there is blood pooling, like bruising on the like behind the ears, that is also, that's actually called battles sign because the doctor who named it had the coolest possible name. And that is also a sign of a skull fracture. If blood is draining, there's a way to like, if blood is draining from the ears, that's bad. If there is clear fluid draining from the ears or nose, that is Worse, that is, that may. That is may well be cerebral spinal fluid, which is one of the many things that should stay inside the body. And that is a very bad sign. That is a sign of a skull fracture. This person will die, will likely die if they do not go to the hospital. Yeah, those are like the really, really bad signs.
James: Yeah.
Miriam: Other signs to look out for. So a lot of you listening have probably heard that somebody shouldn't sleep after a head injury, which isn't strictly speaking true. It's not that sleeping is itself dangerous. It's that in the 24 to 48 hours after a head injury, people should be monitored for signs of potentially. Should be monitored for potentially dangerous signs. Yeah, they would need to go to the hospital. Those signs include confusion, irritability, decreased level of consciousness. So late consciousness, nausea, vomiting, dizziness. And the one unifying factor of all of these symptoms is that you cannot tell somebody has it if they are asleep. So it is considered a good idea if somebody has had a head injury to wake them up, every evaluate them and make sure that they're not starting to show those signs. They might start to be irritated with you, but that is something to keep an eye on. There's so many reasons to be irritated in that situation. But the other thing about head injuries is a head injury, after a head injury is more dangerous than an initial head injury. If you have had a head injury, please go home. Even if you can't go to. Even if you can't or don't want to go to the hospital, please go home, please have somebody monitor you and please avoid substances that could mimic any of those symptoms I mentioned. So things that you might normally partake of that could cause you to be dizzy or nauseous or confused, for example, or lose consciousness or become drowsy or sleepy might be a bad idea. So recreational drugs of any kind, but alcohol in particular, promotes bleeding and should be avoided after a head injury. Please, if you have had a serious head injury, consider taking yourself out of the game for a few weeks. The reason that football players die young, and here I'm talking about American football players. I don't know the stats on real football players. The reason that so many of them die young is because they get repeated head injuries. It's bad. So a head injury is a really important thing to keep an eye on and to consider staying home. Now, I've mentioned seeking health care a bunch. I just want to be clear. I know that that's a fraught issue. People have every right to, you know, if you're helping somebody in the streets and they say, I don't want to go to the hospital. That is absolutely, absolutely they're right. You know, don't like, don't be a dick about it. But try to help people understand what they're risking. And you know, if somebody is scared to go to the hospital, consider offering to go with them or help them get somebody who can go with them. You do not have to tell the people at the hospital anything you don't want to do. Be aware if you come in with a, with certain types of injuries, mostly gunshot wounds, the police will show up. If the police show up while you're in the hospital, it's no different from if they show up anywhere else. You don't have to talk to them and you shouldn't. And you should say that you are going to remain silent and they can contact your attorney and then get an attorney.
James: Yeah.
Miriam: All right. That was a lot.
James: Yeah, that's a lot. That was, I would say, like, this is a lot to take in. Right. We're not saying don't go out. Like, I'm not. None of us are saying that it's too dangerous for you to go. We're helping you be safe. To do something that like in this country is very important right now that is perfectly legal and constitutionally protected and should be safe. But isn't. Your threats are not just the cops, but right now they're mainly the cops. Right. Like they're. In 2020, we saw lots of like non state violence as well. That's maybe a different thing, a different threat pattern that we can talk about another time. But none of us are saying don't go out. We're saying be aware of what you're getting into and approach it as safely as you can. Because if we all just stay home, shit gets dangerous anyway.
Miriam: Yeah. And like, like we've been saying the, the weapon of the cops is fear. And knowing a little bit about how to help when somebody's hurt should be something that makes you feel hopefully less afraid. I know. We've just like listed a bunch of terrible things that can happen to the human body. All of these things can happen, you know, mostly like, can happen in other contexts. Right. Like everything I've just told you about, you know, injuries could apply to a bike accident. It's good stuff to know.
James: I've had most of those injuries in a bike accident.
Miriam: Yeah. But you ride a bike in a, like a pretty specialized, dangerous way.
James: I've broken a lot of bones. Yeah. On the bicycle.
Miriam: But and you still ride a bicycle?
James: I still ride a bicycle. Yeah. I enjoy to ride a bicycle.
Miriam: And knowing that these things can happen and being prepared to help is like how we counter fear and how we counter injury and like how we keep each other safe when there are people trying to hurt us. And like, we need people out in the streets and we need people out in the streets who are watching each other's back and ready to help if somebody's hurt. So I hope that this was somewhat helpful. I also encourage people to get trained in whatever way they can. If there's like, do a CPR training, that's great. You know, do some first, do whatever. First aid trainings are available in your area.
James: Stop the bleeds are generally free. Stopthebleed.org if that's something you're interested in. Too interested in. Yeah, you can, you can find those online. And it's a good way to learn how to look at bleed. Blood loss is one of the things that kills people before they get to hospital a lot. It's one of the places where you can really make a difference in helping someone.
Miriam: Yeah. And, you know, we, we're the ones who are going to protect each other. We're the. We're the ones who are going to keep us safe. Yeah. And on that note, I need to thank people.
James: Yeah.
Miriam: Because not only do we keep us safe, but we keep us podcasting. And one way we do that is by supporting the Patreon of strangers in a tangled wilderness. If you support us, it helps us make things. And there's all you can look at our Patreon. There's all kinds of tiers where we'll give you stuff, including zines. Who doesn't love zines? And if you give us a certain amount, we will thank you on the podcast and it will sound like this. Thank you to Nicole and Tikva the dog Micaiah, Chris Kirk, Jennifer Staro, Chelsea, Dana, David Paige, S.J. hunter, Theo Boise Mutual Aid Millica, Paparuna, Allie, Janice and Odell Princess Miranda Community Books of Stone Mountain, Georgia Lord Harken Carson Marm Catgut Julia People's University of Palestine Eric Patoli E. Boldfield Portland's Hedron Hackerspace Appalachian Liberation Library Ephemeral Amber, Sunshine, Aiden and Yuki the dog Jason, Jenny and Phoebe the cats Sholva Blink Cats Ferrell in West Virginia, New Hampshire IWW the Massachusetts chapter of the Socialist Rifle association. The Canadian Socialist Rifle association, to my knowledge, no Affiliation Renegade Lens and Ink Astoria Food Pantry Karen Sir Reginald McLuffy Butt III and Madame Valentine Lancaster Chooses Love. Prodigal Maestro, Enchanted Rats of Turtle Island. Max Hyun Hee A Future for Abby Alexander Gopal the Encore Incredible Ren Arai the KO Initiative. Jonathan the Goose, Sarah Tiny Nonsense Mark and the Immortal Hoss the Dog. And thank you also to James, for taking time out of your busy schedule of witnessing and undergoing police violence.
James: Yeah, that's. It's what I do. It's fine. Yeah, it was really lovely. I will say, like, I guess right at the end here, if you're still listening, it was really lovely to run into people who were very kind and nice to me and gave me snacks. And I don't want anybody to think that it's always dangerous out there. Some very wonderful things happen out there, and that's nice to see.
Miriam: Yeah, it's. It's actually very beautiful out there, seeing what people will do for each other. And I hope everybody listening gets to experience that.
James: Yeah.
Miriam: All right.
James: Sick.
Miriam: That's it.
James: Sa.