The word “energy” gets tossed around a lot by folks who don’t really know what it means - most annoyingly, in the goofier alternative therapies. (”These crystals focus your body’s internal energy field and enhance energy flow, blah blah blah”). During my classes to become an EMIT I’ve been hearing the word plenty in a non-quantifiable but legitimate way to get across the concept that when dealing with trauma (which from an EMT’s point of view mostly means an injury that requires surgery), what you’re seeing is the result of  energy on bones, tissue and organs.

Your car hits a tree, and all its f=ma energy has to transfer out of the formerly moving object. So it gets transferred around to the tree, busting it up; throughout the car, crumpling it and smashing it, and worst of all to the body of the driver/passenger. When something really bad has happened, like the femur (a very big, strong bone) getting broken, you know a ton of energy has transferred into the patient’s body.

Which leads to this wonderful phrase I heard tonight: “trauma is kinetic energy poisoning.” This isn’t something I heard in physics class, but it’s a good concept: treating kinetic energy as if it is a hazardous material that “spills” in an accident, damaging things around it. Emergency personnel’s job is to determine what is damaged and how to fix it.

No goofy crystals needed.