The Hunger Games might be a series of young adult dystopian novels that warn about the perils of fascism and a two-tiered class system where the wealthy prey on the poor, but they also double as really useful guide books on how to survive in the wilderness. Which is how a 12-year-old girl knew what to do when her friend suffered a bad injury.
Young Megan Gething, whose story we came across at Entertainment Weekly, was playing with her pals in a marsh in Gloucester, Massachusetts when her friend Mackenzie George slipped on a metal structure and seriously sliced open her calf. A 10-inch long, 3-inch wide gash kind of serious.
While the rest of the group freaked out (completely understandable), Megan remembered what she had read in the first novel and used another friend’s shorts to create a tourniquet. That successfully stemmed the bleeding, and then she sent another friend for help.
“I figured it was a well-known method of stopping bleeding,†said Megan about how she picked up that first aid knowledge from Suzanne Collins‘ book.
Somebody send that girl some bread from District 11.
As for Mackenzie she was brought to the hospital and is reportedly doing well now. Turns out the best way to make sure the odds are ever in your favor is to have a calm, wise friend nearby during a crisis.
Because even though the novels are about a bunch of children murdering each other for entertainment, they also contain some helpful ways to help stop them from dying too.
What unlikely books have you picked up useful skills from? Volunteer as tribute and let us know in the comments below.
Images: Lionsgate
