tourniquets

[oded private]

You're probably right, but I'm not sure you realize how far it's gone in 
some places. IDF soldiers- and I'm not talking just about medics- have to 
carry a perssonal bandage with them at all times. Many of them carry a 
tourniqet with them- forgetting all about the bandage, and sometimes don't 
even carry it at all. They hang out of their pockets in a fashionable and 
"operationale" matter- while they don't understand that if they pull it out 
unrolled- it's no good. One time an instrouctor in medic's course talled me 
she carried a tourniquet instand of a perssonal bandage -"like I could ever 
save anyone's life using a bandage". As I stated before- even lay rescures 
use tourniqutes. They don't know of any other way to controll hemmorhage. 
They don't understand that you can use manual pressure to controll 
hemorhage. I know of a case were a kindergarten teacher brought a very young 
child (3 y/o if I remember correctly) with a bleeding soft tissue injury to 
leg cuased by a piece of broken glass. By the time she got her to the ED she 
had exshanguinated. Noone working in that kindergarten thought they could 
control it simply by pressing on it!

Just today I tought first aid class to lay rescures- when I said "now we are 
going to learn how to control external bleeding" (that's what I said- I 
didn't even ask a question) - someone immediatley said "tourniquets, right?"


>From: bensonblues at comcast.net
>Reply-To: "Trauma & Critical Care mailing list" 
><trauma-list at trauma.org>
>To: trauma-list at trauma.org
>Subject: tourniquets
>Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2006 07:47:27 +0000
>
>Pret had something with his "compare Baghdad to Baltimore" statement. I'll 
>take the liberty to compare Da Nang (circa '69) to Detroit: The homeboys in 
>Detroit 1) can't shoot straight (thank God), and 2) (usually) use low 
>velocity weapons (thank God again). Low-velocity GSWs tend to crush tissue, 
>and bleeding from an extremity is usually adequately controlled with direct 
>pressure.  Wounds produced by high-velocity rounds, however, such as the 
>7.62 x 39 mm (AK-47) produce considerable soft tissue injury and sometimes 
>near-amputation of an extremity. Bleeding from these injuries can be 
>difficult to control with direct pressure, and in many situations using a 
>tourniquet may be all that a corpsman can do to keep his Marine from 
>bleeding to death. I doubt that much has changed in terms of GSWs in 
>Bahgdad - the AK-47 is still a favorite killing tool. Likewise, wounds 
>produced by "Bouncing Bettys" (a creative VC modification of the Claymore 
>mine) or the contemporary IEDs are likely t
>  o prod
>uce extremity wounds in which hemorrrhage is difficult to control with 
>available hands, thus necessitating a tourniquet. Any young combat medics 
>out there with input?
>
>DB
>--
>trauma-list : TRAUMA.ORG
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