FRACTURE OF LEG BONES, BETWEEN KNEE AND ANKLE.
First Aid Rule.—Handle very carefully; great danger of making opening to surface. Special painful point, angle or new joint in bone, disability, and grating felt will decide existence of break. Let assistant pull on foot, to separate fragments, while you examine part of supposed break. If only one bone is broken, there may be no displacement.
Put patient on back. While two assistants pull, one on ankle and one on thigh at knee, thus separating fragments, slide pillow lengthwise under knee, and, bringing its edges up about leg, pin them snugly above leg.
Prepare three pieces of thin wood, four inches wide and long enough to reach from sole of foot to a point four inches above knee. While assistants pull on limb again, as before, put one splint each side and third behind limb, and with bandage or strips of sticking plaster fasten these splints to the leg inclosed in its pillow as tight as possible.
In fracture of the leg between the knee and ankle we have pain, angular deformity or an apparent false joint in the leg, swelling and tenderness over the seat of fracture, together with inability to use the injured leg. Two bones form the framework of the leg; the inner, or shinbone, the sharp edge of which can be felt in front throughout most of its course, being much the larger and stronger bone. When both bones are broken, the displacement of the fragments, abnormal motion and consequent deformity, are commonly apparent, and a grating sound may be heard, but should not be sought for.
Fig. 27.
FRACTURE OF BOTH LEG BONES (Scudder).
This cut shows the peculiar deformity in breaks of this kind; see position of kneepan; also prominence of broken bone above ankle.