In an emergency, a potato chip bag and duct tape can be used as a chest seal. I don’t recommend this unless you have advanced EMT training, and I’m not sure which flavor of chips works best.
$10,000 face value in pennies weighs approximately three tons.
I think that entire article is interesting: it goes into more detail than you ever wanted to know about US pennies (and to a lesser extent, Canadian ones), as well as the economics of same. The only issue is that the events the author describes took place between 2008 and 2009, so it is a little dated.
Pennybullion.com is still in business, and will sell you $100 (face value) worth of copper pennies for $169.95 (plus $10.95 shipping and handling). They are not currently purchasing pennies, just in case you were thinking about getting into the copper penny business.
And you can still buy a Ryedale Sorter, but they go for about $500 now instead of $250.
An FYI on sucking chest wounds. That is called an occlusive dressing. You seal 3 sides and leave one open. Air will escape from the chest cavity and not go back in, allowing the lungs to inflate. It works best if the material is a couple of inches larger than the wound on all sides. The commercial versions we use in EMS come with 2 dressings in each package. In the case of a gunshot or other deep penetrating wound there could also be an exit wound that needs to be addressed. If the patient is conscious, they will feel quick relief from being unable to breathe.
As far as pennies go; every penny I come in to possession of is date checked, and the ones dated 1981 or older are solid copper and put aside for future, ah… uses. 1982 pennies are segregated and have to be weighed because mid-year is when they switched to the modern copper plated zinc blanks. A reloaders powder scale works great for this purpose. The pennies we have now are JUNK and just get dumped in the coin counter.