A couple other thoughts on wound care.
1. A hunting buddy of mine has used a medical stapler (available online or at a medical supply brick and mortar) to great effect. Clean/irrigate the wound well, staple, bandage, and maybe see a doc in a couple days. I plan to add these to my kits.
2. Sutures are pretty easy, but put them in shortly after the incident when your body is making the wound kind of numb. Otherwise, treat with alcohol. A few shots taken orally will do, then when you’re a little buzzed sew it up. I taught my daughter to stitch (me) when she was about junior high age and she’s pretty good at it.
3. Cleanliness! Irrigate the wound well with distilled water, IV fluid, rubbing alcohol, or rubbing alcohol/water mix. Use the cleanest stuff you have available. I grew up thinking peroxide was the best wound cleaner. Used to use it all the time. Then I found out that while it does clean, it kills the cells near the wound area and prolongs the healing process. Now I just use rubbing alcohol and neosporin. Experimentation has proven this to me.
4. If a wound does get infected, talking cuts and scratches here, there is a home remedy. Back when, at about six years old, I got a cut on my arm down by my wrist. It wasn’t cleaned well and, I was a little guy playing in the woods everyday, it got infected. The infection started spreading up my forearm to my elbow. My grannie set me down at the kitchen table and warmed a skillet of water hot enough to stand on my skin (not boiling!). She soaked pieces of bread in the hot water and applied them as a poultice to the red infected area. Replacing the bread as it got cool and fell apart. She did this for about 20 minutes. A few hours later, the infection was completely gone. White bread seems to work best, homemade white bread is even better. I don’t know why it works, but I’ve been doing that for local infections for decades and it always works.
This is all field-expedient type care. But if I can do it myself, I see no reason to go wait in an emergency room for hours and hours to have someone do something I can do for myself. Know your limits though.
A couple years ago, Mrs. Kit suffered a compound ankle fracture at home. With my home first aid kit, I was able to treat for shock, stop the bleeding, and splint the break, before the EMTs arrived. Once they arrived, they looked at the bandages, called them good and transported to the hospital. Being able to stabilize a serious injury like that until you can reach help, or it can reach you, is about my limit. Three surgeries, one plate, and fourteen screws later, her ankle is better now.
Good stuff.