Medical and the Bloom

There are no hospitals and no ambulances. Press H to open triage: it shows every wound on your body, how much blood you have left, your pain, your temperature and your infection, and it tells you what each treatment will do before you use it.

Bleeding

Blood loss is what usually kills. Every open wound bleeds until you stop it.

• A rag stops some bleeding but leaves the wound dirty. A sterile dressing stops most of it and keeps it clean.
• A tourniquet stops all bleeding in a limb, but it hurts and the limb suffers if you leave it on. Take it off once the wound is dressed.
• Disinfect dirty wounds. Left dirty, a wound gets infected, then the infection spreads and turns into sepsis, which brings fever, then delirium, then death. Antibiotics fight it. See Dirty water, hygiene and sickness.
• Sutures close a clean wound so it stops reopening. A surgical kit digs out a lodged bullet or shrapnel.
• Your body makes blood back slowly while you're fed, watered and not bleeding. A saline drip or a transfusion is faster. Check the blood type first.
• An aloe leaf works as a poultice on light bleeding and fights infection. Two aloe leaves and a gauze pad make a burn dressing.

Fractures and pain

Falls, crashes and heavy blows can break bones. A broken leg makes you limp and a broken arm spoils your aim. Splint it so it can heal. A bone that heals badly leaves you with a lasting limp until it's reset. Painkillers dull the pain for a few minutes, and morphine kills almost all of it but slows your heart, so don't stack it.

Drips and oxygen

A med station can be fitted with an IV drip stand and an oxygen concentrator, and Haven's clinic has both. Hook up a saline drip with a Saline Bag and an IV Line: it runs for about six minutes and doubles how fast you make blood, even on an empty stomach. Stay by the stand, because walking off pulls the line out and wastes the bag. Breathe oxygen from a powered concentrator to clear carbon monoxide out of your blood after a smoky room. See Fires and cooking.

The Bloom

The Bloom is the infection that made the dead. It's a number that rises and falls, and it will kill you if you ignore it.

• It comes in from the world: bad food and infected meat, the Red Fog, the polluted water of the Rot, a swell's spores, and contaminated loot carried out of a Blackzone.
• Early on, a bite or a scratch from the infected is a wound. It bleeds and gets dirty, so treat it like any other wound. Triage always shows where you stand.
• It falls on its own while the load is low and you're fed and watered, faster sitting at a camp and fastest asleep. Past a certain point it starts spreading by itself.
• Antivirals push it back hard. An auto-injector does less than a full dose from someone with medical training. Herbal tea and an immune booster help a little.
• As it rises you run a fever, get hungrier and thirstier, and start to sway on your feet. Near the top it starts to take your health.

Going down

When your health runs out you usually go down rather than die. A red distress flare goes up by itself, your squad gets an SOS marker, and survivors nearby are told. You have a few minutes before you bleed out, and every blow from the infected while you're down costs you time.

• Stop your own bleeding if you can. Once you're stable and have enough blood left, hold E to struggle back up after about a minute.
• Anyone can revive you: a squadmate, or a stranger who earns honor for it. Adrenaline brings a downed survivor straight back to their feet.
• Hold X to give in if nobody is coming.

Dying drops your backpack. Killed by the infected or the world, your pack becomes a grave that only you and your squad can loot for twenty minutes. Your level and skills are never lost.

A round your vest stops leaves a bruise, not a bullet wound, and a bare steel plate can throw fragments that cut. See Body armor and plates.