The Bad Dude's Primer to being a Bad Dudes Medic
Welcome to the world of dealing with bullet wounds, shrapnel holes, blood loss, and sudden sleepytime. While running around doing the milsim make believe soldier thing, you will inevitably be injured in some format. This is a guide on how to medic.
Roles
Mom said it's my turn to be the machine gunner
There are two roles whose equipment has a higher focus on medical supplies. If you feel comfortable with it or want to try something different, don't be afraid to step up.
First Aid Rifleman
Also called the FAR. You are a rifleman with extra bandaids; you are a shooter first and medic second. You don't have to be the vanguard of the squad, but do not hang back and avoid combat while stockpiling meds. When someone is hit, then you can jump in to help. Otherwise, you have a gun for a reason.
Platoon Medic
With a larger stockpile of meds and likely the only one with splints, this is the dedicated healer role that moves between squads as needed. You'll be hanging out with the Command Squad, which can send you to support or replace medics in other squads. While your main focus is being a healer, you still got a gun. The enemy AI will not care if you have a red cross on your uniform.
Any other role
Everyone's got a small stock of bandages and morphine, and maybe an epinephrine depending on the mission. It's up to your discretion whether or not to heal yourself in the event of an injury or call for a medic, just keep in mind the situation. A medic can only deal with one person at a time, so in a scenario where triage is necessary, let the medic focus on bigger problems while you put a bandaid on your booboo.
Tools of the Trade
All I got left is two epis and a smoke grenade.
Bandage
Your most basic and important tool. This fixes the hole, but only one at a time.
Morphine
Feel good juice. If in pain, take the jab. Probably causes autism.
Epinephrine aka “epi”
Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey. This wakes people up from unconsciousness after being patched up and blooded up. Unless it doesn't, which means they're having a heart attack.
Tourniquet
Tie around a limb to slow the bleeding temporarily. Just be sure to take it off after dealing with the wound. Do not tourniquet the neck. Unless they're being an ass.
Blood Bags
Usually issued in 1000mL bags, but scavenged bags may be in smaller doses. In any case, life juice that needs to be put back into people.
Splints
Typically, only Platoon Medics will have this. Instantly fixes a broken arm or leg and lets you put the full weight of 40kg of gear in a full sprint on the limb.
Personal Aid Kit aka PAK
When you look like a member of the Blue Man Group, this fully heals you. Not always needed, but can give the edge to not-die.
How to Heal like a Bad Dude
This assumes you're a FAR or Platoon Medic, but pay attention anyways because someone is going to get shot or blown up. You will need to work quickly but efficiently, as seconds can determine if someone gets back in the fight or gets to sit in dead chat for thirty minutes, and it'll be all your fault.
To treat an injury, hold the ace button to bring up the context menu. Hover over the injured limb and select Bandage to start the process. Let the bar fill completely before moving on. Any disruption will cancel the action, no matter how far advanced the bar is filled, and you'll have to start over again.
Alternatively, you can use the medical menu (default H) to have everything show up as a clickable graphic interface. This is useful when a patient moves around too much and makes you accidentally tap their shoulder instead of bandaging their arm. Also, be very careful not to fatfinger the keyboard, as H is right next to G, and G makes you throw a grenade.
Mr. Grenade is not your friend.
Click on the affected limb--a part with no injury is white, while turning more red depending on the severity of the injury--and click on Bandage Injury.
After you bandage all wounds, give the patient a shot or two of morphine to stop the blurry vision and oof ow ouch grunting from the player models.
Use PAK only during downtime, and usually by request. Depending on how blue man group someone is, it can take some time.
Hey kids! Want to see a dead body?!
Is that a wounded person or a corpse? With how ace causes bodies to flop about, it can be difficult to determine if Garshne is actually dead or not. You would waste medical supplies if it’s a dead person, and how would you feel if you were knocked out, only for someone to go “oh that person’s dead, let’s get out of here” and leave your ass to bleed out?
A quick and dirty method is to walk into the body and if you can’t walk over them, they’re still alive and need to be medic’d. The tried and true way is to ace interact over their head or torso and select Diagnose. It takes a moment but will tell you if the person is alive or dead.
The same applies to enemy bodies, but the cure is a bullet to the brain instead.
Oh shit, someone got shot
Observe your surroundings. Chances are, you're also getting shot at. If the person is unconscious, try to drag the wounded to a safe place behind some sort of cover. It'd be silly to start healing someone only for you to get shot, or your patient to get shot again after you've patched them up. There is also the option to carry, but use this if you need to schlep them to a different location. Dragging keeps your gun up, in case the enemy is going to walk up on you. Be careful though, so you don't accidentally ND a friendly.
If they're not knocked out, communicate with them to the nature of their wounds. If it's just one injury, deal with it by bandaging it then a shot of morphine. Maybe two, if they're in severe pain. In the case of multiple injuries, talk with the patient so as to avoid overlapping treatment on the same injury.
If they're particularly fucked up, tourniquet any injured limbs and focus on torso and head injuries first. You cannot tourniquet the head (or at least, you shouldn't) or the torso, so they will continue to bleed. There may be multiple injuries on the same body part, requiring multiple bandages to fully treat.
With current ace settings, the type of injury is not that major of a deal. Rather, the size and location of the injury determines the bleedout rate. Large injuries mean more blood is leaking out, so prioritize those, especially if they are on the head and torso -- you DID tourniquet the limbs, right?
After bandaging the patient, remember to remove the tourniquet.
Naptime is over
Get the fuck up!
Getting injured will usually knock out the patient, especially nasty wounds as it's compounded by pain and blood loss. A head wound, even a small one, will also instantly knock out a person, though patching it will usually wake them up. Often, it's the lack of blood that leaves a person unconscious.
One thing to note is transfusing blood can take a bit of time. While it's trickling into the patient, see if someone else needs help. A person passed out from blood loss isn't going anywhere.
Also, feel free to talk to the patient if they're unconscious. They can still hear you and might appreciate knowing you're working on them or that you're stepping away to deal with another thing. Just don't forget them in the field.
Lost some blood
The text is yellow, and is usually the result of a small injury. You can safely ignore this for now.
NOTE: when transfusing blood, epinephrine will only work when the patient reaches [Lost some blood]. They will also wake up without the epi, but this will take longer.
Lost a lot of blood
Text is orange. They may or may not be passed out at this point. If the former, it's a good idea to give them a pack of blood now so they don't possibly die from blood loss in their next injury.
Lost a large amount of blood
Text is a darker red-orange. Usually the state where they're passed out and can't wake up. They will definitely need blood but address wounds first. Will probably need two bags of blood to resuscitate fully.
Lost a fatal amount of blood
Text is red. Bandage the person and get blood transfusing ASAP, they are moments away from dying. Also likely to be having a heart attack and needs CPR. If you're with others, ask them to perform CPR while you patch up the patient and keep doing it until they're out of the danger zone. You definitely will need two blood bags for this.
Chest Compressions and You
So you've given the patient sufficient blood and need to wake them up. A shot of epinephrine should do the trick. What's that? They're still napping? lmao they're having a heart attack.
Use ace interact and hover over the torso. An option to CPR should be there. Select CPR and let the animation play through. They should be good to go for another epi shot after you feel up their chest a bit.
CPR should be given after a person is stabilized, or at very least, bandaged up. With current ace settings, here is a five minute grace period after CPR to address outstanding issues.
Scenarios
Lack of blood
They punched out all of my blood!
It's an hour into the mission and you're out of blood. Or maybe you're just a rifleman and gos no blood to give. Either way, your buddy is passed out and needs the red stuff.
If you're lucky, a dead enemy medic is nearby and you can scavenge a blood bag from their pack. Otherwise, get moving.
Now is the time to pick them up and carry them to someone who does have blood to offer. This can be risky in the middle of a fight, so be careful as you're a bigger target, unable to fight back, and can't sprint, kneel, etc. Go ahead and drop them on the floor if you need to fight back, though. No sense in having two people knocked out in a field where no one else is.
Be mindful of where you're dropping the patient, however. ARMA is jank and you could "accidentally" drop a person over an edge and have them fall on their head.
Mass Cas -- or Triage
RPG RPG-- then nothing.
So an RPG just fucking wrecked your group. Or maybe a bad grenade was thrown. Either way, multiple people are fucked up and needs meds.
Communicate, assess, react. Everyone should be checking themselves and getting out of the danger zone. Drag those passed out to safety. Anyone uninjured, pull security and fight back, or help with the wounded.
As a medic, you're no good dead either. Patch yourself up and let others know what you're doing. Forego the blood and morphine (unless you're in blinding pain) because others need you ASAP.
If someone reports that another is red all over, get help then get to work. Tourniquet limbs, stuff bandages into the torso and head, do CPR if needed. Give blood if they've lost a fatal amount, otherwise they can lay there for a bit while you go address other bleeders. After dealing with the wounded, you can go back to give blood.
Getting ARMA'd
I just phased through a wall and now everything inside me is broken
ARMA is jank, held together by prayer, spit, and code that really should have been updated ten years ago. This means that you could be grievously injured just for opening a door, touching a tire, or crawling over a stone the size of a beachball. Honestly, these injuries often affect multiple limbs and might be more trouble than it's worth to heal. Usually, you'll get a free respawn if you get ARMA'd, so just go with that.
Anyways...
No matter what role you're in, try to keep an ear out for wound sounds and character screams. This may be difficult in the chaos of gunfire and grenades, but we can easily lose track of a squadmate or team lead that got dinged in the head and went down. It's frustrating to lay there, unconscious and slowly bleeding out, and you can hear someone else get more distant. Keep in contact with your squad, or at least your battle buddy, and if they don't respond after a bit, turn around and look around. Chances are, they got hit and are bleeding out.
Don’t beat yourself up if you fail to heal someone and they die in your arms. It’s just a game, after all, and a dramatic NOOOOOOO is perfectly acceptable. Just don’t fail too much, otherwise you’ll get dunked on for being a shit medic.
FAQ
I started a blood transfusion. Why blood no go in?!
lol remove the tourniquet from the limb
I didn’t get shot, so why am I feeling pain / vision going blurry?
Someone probably stuck a tourniquet on you as a joke. Check yourself and remove any unneeded tourniquets
What happens if I actually tourniquet my head?
ask your buddy to do it to you. what you get is what you deserve.
OOOOH an enemy medic!
Scavenging for medical supplies is allowed if you’re short on supplies, which is bound to happen. But check with your fellow medics and see if you can get some from them, too.