The Woodsman's Journal Online

Sunday, December 14, 2025

Severe Bleeding, STOP the Bleed – Direct Pressure©

Author’s note – If you do not like gore, be warned due to the subject matter, some of the photos in this article are graphic.
Also, I hope that you enjoy learning from this resource! To help me to continue to provide valuable free content, please consider showing your appreciation by leaving a donation HERE. Thank you and Happy Trails!

Step One: Observe the Scene

First, ALWAYS, observe the accident scene and make sure it’s safe for the rescuer. One casualty is bad enough, two is worse, especially when one is the rescuer.

If the scene is safe, find the source of the bleeding. You might have to open, remove, tear, or cut away clothing to locate the wound. Observe the flow of blood, look to see how the blood is spilling out. Locate the specific area that is bleeding most heavily. Blood that flows continuously, or spurts out, is a sign of severe, life-threatening bleeding, and must be controlled FAST!

Step Two: Apply Direct Pressure

A typical blood pressure of 120 mm Hg signifies a forward pressure flow of blood through your arterial system driven by the heart's pumping action, pushing blood from high pressure in the aorta to lower pressure areas. Putting it in more practical terms, that forward pressure represents about 2.5 pounds per square inch, which is a very minimal pressure. Failure to control bleeding is rarely related to the amount of pressure required to occlude the bleeding blood vessel but rather getting that minimal pressure to the source of the bleeding.

To get enough pressure to the point of bleeding often requires much larger pressures on the outside of the body, so by the time the outside pressure dissipates through the overlying soft tissue and muscle, there is still enough pressure deep down to close the bleeding vessel.

Direct pressure can be applied either with your hands or if the wound is large or deep by packing the dressing into the wound first, before applying pressure, then pressing down. This helps to focus the pressure on the bleeding vessel deep inside the limb.

To reach the necessary level of pressure, make sure the injured body part is on a hard, flat surface, and push down hard, using your body weight if needed by kneeling and leaning over the wound.

If there is not a flat, hard surface to push against use the ‘clamshell direct pressure’ technique, where your fingers are interlaced. This method when used over the wound is very effective, quickly applied, needs little training, and requires no additional equipment. You can stop severe bleeding in nearly any limb, you can get your fingers and hands wrapped around, with this method.

Whichever method you use continue the direct pressure, DO NOT peek to check if bleeding stopped; keep pushing down hard for at least 3-5 minutes, until bleeding stops, a tourniquet becomes available, or help arrives and emergency responders take over.

Also, if possible, elevate the limb by raising the injured arm or leg above the heart to help slow blood flow, ONLY if it doesn't cause more pain. This works well with the ‘clamshell’ technique.

Direct pressure is the primary way to control severe bleeding of the limbs, groin and shoulder regions, or when a tourniquet isn't needed or immediately available.

·       Apply steady, firm continuous, direct pressure directly onto the wound, with one or both hands.
·       Place gauze dressings or any clean cloth on or in the wound. If available use a hemostatic dressing, over the bleeding site. If no dressings are available, use your bare hands.
·       If blood soaks through, DO NOT remove saturated dressings, that just removes any clotting that might have started, keep adding more layers on top and keep pressing down on the wound.

To wrap up, if there is an accident first check to make sure the scene is safe. Then, if there is evidence of severe bleeding, immediately apply direct pressure to slow or stop the bleeding, while emergency help is called and supplies are gathered or prepared.

Don’t forget to come back next week and read “Severe Bleeding, STOP the Bleed – Tourniquets©”, where we will talk about using a premade or improvised tourniquet to stop severe bleeding that direct pressure cannot stop.

I hope that you enjoy learning from this resource! To help me to continue to provide valuable free content, please consider showing your appreciation by leaving a donation HERE. Thank you and Happy Trails!

I hope that you continue to enjoy The Woodsman’s Journal Online and look for me on YouTube at BandanaMan Productions for other related videos, HERE. Don’t forget to follow me on both The Woodsman’s Journal Online, HERE, and subscribe to BandanaMan Productions on YouTube. If you have questions, as always, feel free to leave a comment on either site. I announce new articles on Facebook at Eric Reynolds, on Instagram at bandanamanaproductions, and on VK at Eric Reynolds, so watch for me.

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

Disclaimer: All content and media on The Woodsman’s Journal Online is created and published for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice and should not be relied on as health or personal advice. Use of the information on this site is AT YOUR OWN RISK, intended solely for self-help, in times of emergency, when medical help is not available, and does not create a doctor-patient relationship. Always get professional help if available.

Sources

American Red Cross; “Bleeding, Life-Threating External”, © [2025 The American Red Cross], https://www.redcross.org/take-a-class/resources/learn-first-aid/bleeding-life-threatening-external?srsltid=AfmBOoruukIMCkbnGCNWGd3QY5C2xHdip6lYe1NlsTuzRMF7j7trgnYI, accessed December 6, 2025

Shertz, Mike, MD; “Clamshell Direct Pressure: A Simple, Hands-On Hemorrhage Control Technique When Tourniquets Aren’t Available”, [©2025 Crisis Medicine], https://www.crisis-medicine.com/clamshell-direct-pressure/?srsltid=AfmBOopsv8B-c8iZd8We8JIfkUlBULjWi5-BfPjislJqLFPq5I-rUtHC, accessed December 13, 2025

Vuković, Diane; “How to Treat and Pack a Bullet Wound in the Wilderness”, September 11, 2023, https://www.primalsurvivor.net/treat-gunshot-wound/, accessed December 6, 2025

Sunday, December 7, 2025

Severe Bleeding and You©

Author’s note –I hope that you enjoy learning from this resource! To help me to continue to provide valuable free content, please consider showing your appreciation by leaving a donation HERE. Thank you and Happy Trails!

Severe bleeding either from a penetrating gunshot wound, a knife slash, an axe chop, or whatever, KILLS, and if you don’t STOP it fast, it can kill QUICKLY!

Sure, but ‘normal’ people don’t have to worry about getting shot or hurt so badly that severe, uncontrolled bleeding is a concern. Right?

Wrong! Let’s do the math, in 2017, CNN replicated an analysis by the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, and found that 39,773 people died by gunshot wounds (source HERE) and since 60% of gun deaths are from suicide, that leaves 37% that are from accident or from violence, and this number includes the 1% of mass shootings (source HERE). This mean that in 2017, approximately 14,700 people died of gunshot wounds in the US. That’s about 40 people dying from bleeding or the other effects of gunshot wounds every day!

Exsanguination, bleeding out, a loss of blood greater than 40%, which for the average adult takes between three to five minutes, and is a major cause of death for penetrating trauma victims. Specific percentages vary from study to study, but some show that over 50% of penetrating injury deaths, which don’t affect the heart brain or other vital organs, are due to severe bleeding and its accompanying shock, hypothermia, and acidosis.

Many of these deaths could have been prevented if someone knew what to do to control the severe bleeding associated with wounds, in the minutes before EMS arrives. Just like we learn CPR and the Heimlich Maneuver, we need to add stopping severe bleeding to the required list of basic first aid skills that everyone needs to know.

What is Severe Bleeding

Volume or amount and the flow are two ways to tell if bleeding is severe.

Volume is the amount of blood present. Think about a soda pop-can. Bleeding may be life-threatening when the amount of blood is equal to about half of what a soda pop-can contains, 6 fluid ounces or 178 ml. In children or infants, bleeding may be severe at a much lower amount.

The size of a 6 fluid ounce puddle of blood, if the victim is bleeding on a non-porous, flat surface, like tile, linoleum, or glass, which allows the blood to spread out more thinly, covering a larger area, around 12 to 16 inches (30 to 40 cm) long or in diameter. This will make the volume seem more than it is. On porous absorbent surfaces, like carpet, fabric, or soil, the blood quickly soaks in, leading to a much smaller, more concentrated, and less spread-out appearance. This makes the volume seem less than it is.

Don’t forget to come back next week and read “Severe Bleeding and STOP the Bleed©”, where we will talk about what to do to stop severe bleeding.

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

Sources

Vuković, Diane; “How to Treat and Pack a Bullet Wound in the Wilderness”, September 11, 2023, https://www.primalsurvivor.net/treat-gunshot-wound/, accessed December 6, 2025

Thursday, November 27, 2025

It’s Thanksgiving, the time to give thanks for family and friends, and for Natures bounty.

Sunday, November 23, 2025

Samp...mmm...Good!©

Author’s note -- I hope that you enjoy learning from this resource! To help me to continue to provide valuable free content, please consider showing your appreciation by leaving a donation HERE. Thank you and Happy Trails!

It’s almost Thanksgiving, the time to give thanks to family and friends, and for Natures bounty. So let’s talk about a historic Native American food recipes, that is still commonly eaten food today, something that was on that first Thanksgiving table...Samp!

Most of my readers are probably wondering, “Samp? What’s samp?” Native American samp is a delicious dish made of dried corn (maize, for my European readers). The name for this food originates from the Narragansett word ‘nasáump’ but it was anglicized and known as ‘samp’ by the early colonists of America.

Historically samp was the daily gruel, the technical name for any cereal grain boiled in water or milk, which sustained the agricultural Northeastern and Southeastern Native Americans cultures. In the United States it is sometimes also known as ‘mush’, though a narrow definition of mush, refers to a pudding or porridge made of corn/maize, and not samp.

But before we can talk recipes, first we must talk corn and corn meal and the many ways it was prepared by Native Americans before the European arrived. Native Americans cooked with fresh (green) mashed corn or dried and ground corn. The dried corn kernels could either be ash-treated, roasted/parched or simply dried before being stone ground or pounded and cracked with a mortar and pestle.

Unlike today where most commonly grown type of corn, is ‘dent’ or ‘field corn’, historically Native Americans grew what is known today as ‘flint’ or ‘Indian’ corn. Unlike dent corn, zea mays indentata, which has a higher soft starch content, causing the kernel to indent as it dries; flint corn, zea mays indurate, has a hard flint-like shiny kernel made up of a outer layer of hard starch, protecting an inner layer of softer starch, making it more difficult to mill, but more resistant to storage pests, such as insects or rodents.

Traditionally samp was made with ash-treated or nixtamalized (corn treated with any alkaline solution) flint corn kernels. By ash-treating their corn, Native Americans created ‘rockamominy’, an anglicized version of the Virginia Algonquian word, ‘rokahamĕn’, which later morphed into moder word ‘hominy’ referring to corn kernels treated with an alkali to remove the hull. By treating their corn in this way, they improved the taste and texture of the resulting grain and avoided pellagra, a disease caused by a deficiency of vitamin B3 (niacin), common in diets of mostly untreated corn. Making corn into hominy increases its nutritional value for humans, since humans are unable to easily digest corn as it is. Treating the corn kernels with lye and softened or slipped the pericarp, or hull, from the kernel, and helped to make the grain more digestible to humans. releasing lysine and tryptophan amino acids, and the hemicellulose-bound niacin.

By tradition hominy corn was cooked into a porridge or soup with the addition of whatever you had at hand, like common beans, such as kidney, navy, pinto, lima or cranberry beans, various roots, squash and/or fresh or dried meat, fish, shellfish, or after the arrival of the Europeans, pork.

Bon appétit!

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

Sources

Morse, Alice Earle; Home Life in Colonial Days, [The Macmillan Company, New York, 1898], page 131-132, https://books.google.com/books?id=E1dHAQAAMAAJ&pg=PP1&dq=%E2%80%9CHome+Life+in+Colonial+Days%E2%80%9D+%22Alice+Morse+Earle%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjctqfei4aRAxXJhYkEHbesMdoQ6AF6BAgIEAM#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9CHome%20Life%20in%20Colonial%20Days%E2%80%9D%20%22Alice%20Morse%20Earle%22&f=false, accessed November 22, 2025

Bigelow, Edwin Victor; A Narrative History of the Town of Cohasset, Massachusetts, [The Committee on Town History, 1898], page 80, https://books.googleusercontent.com/books/content?req=AKW5QafiNIWfDx4v77LojKf8YmqFwwNJtchNH_1sHaBlUi4BGZOU2aFTEHOBv0YSmqEU6Wht02io7oEma0cGY5wDLfD2dzT8ndRmhQR0gUNzEuGQADsreliAG_09o4kk16OZUrpiaan7JOWxwq5oUFHRy7PaO-hGhxJUnXCx9k8QNsacUJqnEQRjjfzuW0OXhGGJg1ptfZm1wHIfb2zQWtDC_0uAteqX9x5Kc4kVnIVOCYbU04281nzJIQ0lHzRWb2R3k9g6RllfZeGVWX2AqKDhlwBSNFVAsg, accessed November 22, 2025

Diemer-Eaton, Jessica; Sofkee and Samp: Staple Dishes of the Eastern Woodlands, 2016, http://woodlandindianedu.com/sofkeeandsamp.html#:~:text=Haudenosaunee/Iroquois%20samp%20was%20(and,%2D%2D%2D%2D%2D%2D%2D, accessed November 22, 2025

Lower, Claire; “The Difference Between Cornmeal, Grits, and Polenta [© 2001-2025 Ziff Davis, LLC., A ZIFF DAVIS COMPANY], https://lifehacker.com/the-difference-between-cornmeal-grits-and-polenta-1848379579?test_uuid=02DN02BmbRCcASIX6xMQtY9&test_variant=A#:~:text=Conventional%20cornmeal%20%E2%80%94%20most%20of%20the,artisanal)%20than%20the%20standard%20stuff, accessed November 22, 2025

MacNish, Mark; “When the Days Grew Shorter, Samp Was on the Menu for Colonial East Enders”, November 19, 2022, [© 2024 Cutchogue-New Suffolk Historical Council & Museums], https://www.cutchoguenewsuffolkhistory.org/news/when-the-days-grew-shorter-samp-was-on-the-menu-for-colonial-east-enders/#:~:text=The%20name%20comes%20from%20the,wherever%20Indian%20corn%20is%20raised, accessed November 22, 2025

Muckenhoupt, Meg; The Truth about Baked Beans- An Edible History of New England, https://books.google.com/books?id=jxq5DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT63&dq=samp+recipe+new+england&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiX9r2iqYaRAxW31fACHV5oM-EQ6AF6BAgOEAM#v=onepage&q&f=false, accessed November 22, 2025

Rural New Yorker, Volume 59, April 7, 1900, page 256, https://books.google.com/books?id=e4UxAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA256&dq=samp+recipe+new+england&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwirgLPyqoaRAxXmjIkEHf87IBoQ6AF6BAgLEAM#v=onepage&q=samp%20recipe%20new%20england&f=false, accessed November 22, 2025

Sunday, November 16, 2025

Have you heard the old wives’ tale that if you put on socks, you warm up immediately? Yah...well it’s not true, it’s more perception than reality, and here is why.

According to SINTEF research scientist, physiologist and low temperature expert Øystein Wiggen, “Heat loss is all about insulation and is greatest wherever the skin is exposed. So, in general, it’s not true that any given part of the body releases more heat than any other part. But our sensitivity varies. We experience the same external temperature entirely differently though our fingers than we do through our legs. Our fingers will always feel the coldest even though they are not. Having said that, it’s still a good idea to wear a hat to keep warm”.

There are five ways the human body loses heat to the environment, and heat loss is proportional to the amount of exposed surface area.

In cold environments your body reduces blood flow to your extremities through vasoconstriction, to preserve the heat of the bodies core, in effect shutting off the blood flow to your arms and hands, and your legs and feet. Studies have shown that just like with your head, your feet (or hands) lose body heat to the environment in a similar percentage to their total surface area.

Since your foot makes up only about 1.5% of your body’s surface area, on average, the total loss of body heat for both feet should be about 3%. So just like the old wives’ tale about losing 40-50% of your body heat through your head isn’t true, because the surface area of your head is only about 9 to 10% of your body’s total surface area, the tall tale that “putting on socks will warm you up immediately” is also untrue.

Even though your feet are not a major source of overall body heat loss, reduced blood flow can make your feet and hands feel cold and icy. Also both feet and hands have less muscles to generate heat, are often in direct contact with cold surfaces, and are more sensitive to the cold.

Additionally, in biological terms, your feet and hands have a higher surface area relative to the volume ratio compared to the core of the body. The surface area-to-volume ratio is crucial for heat exchange with the environment. As body parts get bigger, their volume increases faster than their surface area, this larger volume generates more heat, but the smaller surface area relative to the volume means less of this body heat is exposed to the environment to escape through radiation or convection.

This lower surface area relative to the volume ratio means less of the body's heat is exposed to the environment at any given time, allowing the larger part to retain heat more effectively. Conversely a small body part, like your feet and hands have a large amount of surface area relative to their volume. This higher surface area relative to the volume ratio means more of the body’s heat is exposed to the environment at any given time, allowing the smaller part to lose heat more effectively.

So to prevent that icy foot feeling, wear socks, ... oh and put a hat on!

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

Sources

Benjaminsen, Christina; “The cold hard facts about your body and low temperatures”, Jan 23, 2023, https://norwegianscitechnews.com/2023/01/the-cold-hard-facts-about-your-body-and-low-temperatures/, accessed November 15, 2025

Stuff; “Ask a Scientist: Feet Keeps Us Warm”, July 1, 2012, [© Stuff Digital Ltd], https://www.stuff.co.nz/science/7205016/Ask-a-scientist-Feet-keep-us-warm, accessed November 15, 2025

About Me

I live near Buffalo, New York and have more than 25 years of experience in the outdoors. I enjoy being in the wilderness, paddling a canoe or exploring the woods, when I am not researching survival, woodcraft, camping skills or life on the Old Northwest Frontier of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. I am a published author and I have been a guide for Birchbark Expeditions and an Outdoor Skills trainer for the Boy Scouts since 2014. I am also a martial artist, having studied several different combat arts over the past 30 years. Currently, I am the author of The Woodsman’s Journal Online and BandanaMan Productions on YouTube.

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Sunday, December 14, 2025

Severe Bleeding, STOP the Bleed – Direct Pressure©

Sunday, December 7, 2025

Severe Bleeding and You©

Thursday, November 27, 2025

It’s Thanksgiving, the time to give thanks for family and friends, and for Natures bounty.

Sunday, November 23, 2025

Samp...mmm...Good!©

Sunday, November 16, 2025

Baby It’s Cold Outside...Put on Socks©

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