Since this thread is drifting like a North Dakota back road:
Does anybody else use super-glue as a first aid staple? I keep a fresh tube on hand at all times, and glue cuts back together at least once a month. It's (by far) the most practical use of super-glue, since gluing skin together is what super-glue does best.
True story:
5 or so years ago, we were changing a rooftop HVAC unit on a strip mall, and I was headed down my extension ladder for maybe the 20th time that day. I took a step off the edge of the roof, and the ladder (which wasn't tied off) kicked out. I rode it down (apx 18 ft from roof edge to pavement) and landed on my back, banging my right elbow on the blacktop. I laid there with the ladder on top of me, determining if anything was broken. Everything important was somehow still intact, but the impact had split the elbow open pretty impressively. I decided to go home to have Jeanie glue me up, rather than go to the ER (I didn't want a work-comp claim). This was by no means the first (or last) time such a decision has been made in my life.
When I got home, she was really mad that I came home to bleed on the floor rather than go to the ER. We happened to be out of new tubes of glue, and all the open tubes were dried up. She made me take a shower to clean out the cut, then lay on my back on the bathroom floor while she drove out to get a fresh tube. I felt exactly like a beached whale laying there naked on the floor bleeding into an old tee-shirt wrapped around the elbow. I think she stopped for a cup of coffee along the way, because I was laying there for the better part of an hour.
Anyhow, she glued me up, I thanked her, and all was well for a day or two-- until the whole thing got pretty puffy and angry red. I wanted to go to Farm and Fleet to get some bovine antibiotics to shoot, but Jeanie put her foot down. I went to the prompt care, where they took one look at it and sent me to the ER.
I got to the ER about the same time as a drive-by shooting was happening in Peoria, so I got pushed into a back room while more pressing matters were attended to. When the nurse finally looked at me, I thought she was going to throw me out-- she and Jeanie had a nice discussion (right in front of me) regarding idiots getting what was deserved (and the like). It was 3 hrs before I saw the ER doc (I think deliberately). When he came in, I was fully expecting another lecture.
However, he was fantastic-- and fully vindicated my approach. We talked about antibiotics from farm supply places, and he pointed me where I could get "Vietnam powder" (coagulant). He loved the super-glue thing, and said that he would've done the same thing had I come the first day. The look on the nurse and Jeanie's faces almost made the entire thing worth it.
He opened the cut back up, drained it, and wrote a script for some nice, strong antibiotics after he stitched me up. He wrote it for 2 courses, so I could have a batch for the next time I needed it. We talked about when I could take the stitches out, as everybody in the room knew I wasn't coming back to have somebody else do it.
This was the only time (in probably 50 times of doing it) I've ever had a problem.