Free tool · Scarlet Beast

When a bone might be broken

For anyone with someone hurt in front of them right now, anyone looking at a swollen ankle or wrist and wondering, and anyone living with a cast. When to call 911 and when not to move someone. What to do until help comes. A bone through the skin. A joint out of place. Sprains and strains. Children. An older person who fell. Casts and splints, and their warning signs. Where the sources differ. And the words to say when you call. No quiz and no score. One thing at a time.

This page and its wording were written with AI (Claude) for Scarlet Beast (our AI policy). The facts come from pages read on October 3, 2026: the American College of Emergency Physicians (Broken Bones, from its Know When to Go pages); Nemours KidsHealth (Broken Bone (Fracture): Treatment & Care; How to Handle Strains & Sprains; What to Do About a Dislocation); the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons on its OrthoInfo site (Fractures (Broken Bones); Open Fractures; Sprains, Strains, and Other Soft-Tissue Injuries; Sprained Ankle; Care of Casts and Splints; Compartment Syndrome; Hip Fractures; Growth Plate Fractures; Distal Radius Fractures (Broken Wrist); Shoulder Dislocation); the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (Sports Injuries: Diagnosis, Treatment, and Steps to Take; Osteoporosis); the National Institute on Aging (Falls and Fractures in Older Adults: Causes and Prevention); the American Academy of Pediatrics on HealthyChildren.org (Nursemaid’s Elbow); and MedlinePlus, from the U.S. National Library of Medicine (the summaries of Fractures, Sprains and Strains, and Dislocations, not its encyclopedia). The descriptions of the 988 Lifeline and Crisis Text Line are the ones on our other pages, from their own front pages. Some pages could not be read: the American Red Cross and Mayo Clinic sites refused our request, and the addresses we tried at the American Academy of Family Physicians and several at the American Academy of Pediatrics were not found, so none of them is used. We did not read any first aid course material, any page for the public on moving someone with a neck or back injury, on broken noses, jaws, teeth, skulls or collarbones, on stress fractures in any depth, or on crutches; where the page touches one of these, it says so. We did not call any number. Where two sources say different things, the page reports each: whether to put a limb back in line, ice for small children, and how long to ice a sprain. The page has no questionnaire and gives no score, on purpose. It names no person and no medicine, and it gives no figures for how many people break bones; the sources have them, with their context. The times and durations on the page are the sources’ own. Lines marked “Ours” are our own suggestions. This page saves nothing: no account, no cookies, nothing you tick is stored or sent, and no analytics (privacy). Scarlet Beast is not a clinic or an emergency service, and takes no money from anyone named here. English only for now. Found a mistake? Email [email protected].