Burn

A patient with burns on the left side of his torso.

Burns are wounds caused by erosion of the skin or other body tissue, either by fire or corrosive chemicals. These are treated using the "autografting" procedure, where skin from unharmed parts of the body are cultured and used as skin grafts.

Burns also tend to hemorrhage or worsen over time, and if blood pools form or if they do worsen, skin grafts cannot be placed on them, and any present skin grafts will fall off.

Treatment

Surgery

Burns are often first found with blood pooling on them. These must be drained before skin grafts can be applied. After which, the yellow culture fluid must be injected into the unharmed portions of skin (as indicated by white squares) to prepare the skin grafts. Cut out the skin grafts, and place them on the burns until it is completely covered. Then, affix the skin grafts with antibiotic gel.

If some burns are left untreated over time, they will turn black. Burns that have turned black will also cause gradual vital damage. If this happens, inject the blue coolant into the blackened necrotic tissue, excise it with the scalpel and remove it with the forceps. The burn underneath should be available for treatment afterwards.

First Response

As skin grafts are unavailable in Trauma Team's First Response section, burns are treated differently in order to stabilize the patient. First, anaesthesize the burn with a large amount of antibiotic gel. Once it's turned dark green, position gauze over the burn, apply gel over it, then secure the gauze with tape. Securing the gauze using only the tape without applying gel will result in a Bad being issued regardless of how well the tape is positioned.

General Tips

• A full syringe of culture fluid should be able to prepare 4-6 squares of skin grafts. A full syringe of coolant should be able to treat 2 blackened burns. A burn needs about 4 squares of skin before it can be fully treated.
• Cool and cut the necrotic tissue to reduce the vital loss it causes, but don't extract it until you're ready to treat. Blood pools will not accumulate under necrotic tissue.
• Unlike synthetic membranes, skin grafts can't be "placed aside" for reuse if the affected area gets obscured with a blood pool while you are still carrying them. Dropping them in order to switch tools will also register as a miss. Thus, you'd want to place the skin grafts over a burn almost immediately after draining off the blood on it.
• While cutting out the pieces of skin for skin grafts, note that you only need to cut at the corners of each membrane to successfully excise the skin. Use this to minimize vital loss due to the use of the scalpel (which would contribute the greatest to vital loss in burn operations), and to minimize the need to use the stabilizer.
• In First Response missions, a single application of tape can secure multiple patches of gauze. This saves a few valuable seconds' worth of time, and some missions even have a Special bonus for the player performing this.