Field Guide

Wounds don't bleed out on their own. The clock you're racing is the five-minute timer.

1. Diagnose. Pick Diagnose Injuries. You get a body map with six areas; the red ones are hurt. Click an area to see what's wrong with it.
2. Take their vitals. Check their blood pressure and listen to their chest with the BP Monitor. Do this on every patient, and always at the hospital.
3. Cut clothes off first. You can't treat an area that's still covered. Use Surgical Scissors on their top or trousers. If a procedure won't start, check their clothes before you check your bag.
4. Treat each red area using the table below.
5. Revive. It takes 10 seconds.

Press Esc to back out of any procedure.

Getting them to hospital

1. Hold Left Alt on the back of the ambulance and pick Take out Bed.
2. Use Drag Bed to push it to the patient, then Put in Stretcher on them.
3. Load up, and when you're done, Put Bed back in.

The bed is in the boot of the ambulances and the fire truck.

Other things on the target menu

• Pronounce Dead (Body Bag) — bags the body. A bagged body can still go on the stretcher.
• Prescriptions — the diagnosis screen has an Issue Prescription button. Civilians need one to buy Antibiotics, the Advanced First Aid Kit or a Wheelchair at the pharmacy, so a hospital visit is a real requirement for them, not a suggestion.

1. Run the readout

Type /checkaddiction [their ID]. You get their heart rate, blood pressure, mental state, a risk score out of 100, and a list of what they've been using. The two summary cards at the top can be about different substances, so scroll the list before deciding what you're treating.

2. Read the vitals

A heart rate above 72 always means drugs. Nothing else moves that number.

3. The shakes

Shaking, sweating, "everything aches" — give Lorazepam. Cravings and withdrawal both cause shaking, and Lorazepam treats both. Withdrawal keeps chipping their health away, so check it before you let them go.

Mental state (Unstable, Compromised, Impaired, Critical) is about how hooked they are. There's no cure for that part. Write it up in a certificate and refer them on.

Drunks

Drink never shows up as an overdose. If the readout says overdose, it's drugs.

To check how drunk someone is, use the Breathalyzer from your inventory and pick them from the list. They have to agree to it, and it takes 10 seconds.

Anything short of a blackout wears off by itself within a few minutes.

Pumping a stomach

• On foot: hold Left Alt on the patient and pick Perform stomach lavage.
• In your ambulance: the option won't show on someone sitting inside. Hold Left Alt on the ambulance itself and pick Perform stomach lavage. It treats whoever is sitting nearest you, so with two patients aboard, stand by the right door.

Nothing gets used up, so you can't run out.

Stumbling, but the breathalyzer reads clean?

That's a meth comedown: about a minute of drunken walking and tripping after the high wears off. It can't kill them. Run /checkaddiction anyway — meth hooks people fast.

Take out on every shift

Medical Bag, a stack of Bandages, a few Advanced First Aid Kits, Painkillers, Surgical Scissors, BP Monitor, Breathalyzer, and one of each medication. Add the Surgical Kit and Oxygen Mask once you're comfortable with the procedures.

Medical certificates

The /checkaddiction readout has a Medical Conclusion box and an Issue Medical Certificate button. It saves your name, your notes, and the patient's vitals at that moment to their file. The patient can show it to someone nearby or hand over a copy. It's the only medical paperwork other players can read, so it's what carries a diagnosis into court, a job interview or a rehab storyline.