Which is utter bolloks!
"Anyone got a tourniquet?"
- Thread starter Stalker62
- Start date
As with Eddie P - tourniquet as last resort is not good info - tourniquet is first option for Catastrophic bleeds -
What era was the ex combat medic - not say this to be smart but I’ve come across one or two who have got out and still teaching old concepts. Trauma first aid and treatment has evolved alot.
There is lots of good info - the question was best place to get - SP services Emergency Medical Equipment | First Aid Supplies | SP Services
I’ve used regularly for last 8 years -
I would take a military trauma bandage first then tourniquet- trauma bandaged can be put on with enough pressure to cut most blood flow.
Educate yourself and make informed decisions. This can be from courses to YouTube - just consider credentials - also anyone who says use a tampon for first aid- ignore
What era was the ex combat medic - not say this to be smart but I’ve come across one or two who have got out and still teaching old concepts. Trauma first aid and treatment has evolved alot.
There is lots of good info - the question was best place to get - SP services Emergency Medical Equipment | First Aid Supplies | SP Services
I’ve used regularly for last 8 years -
I would take a military trauma bandage first then tourniquet- trauma bandaged can be put on with enough pressure to cut most blood flow.
Educate yourself and make informed decisions. This can be from courses to YouTube - just consider credentials - also anyone who says use a tampon for first aid- ignore
SikaSeeker
Well-Known Member
I’m an emergency situation, a lot of people will quietly freak out and not use aids appropriately. Seen it first hand several times. Yes, as above, tourniquets might save a life but the probability of loosing the limb is very high.
No, it absolutely is not.
SikaSeeker
Well-Known Member
Yes if not used correctly
Quietly?
Usually very noisy with lots of flapping…
And it’s almost impossible to predict who will be calm and who will flap.
I once stuck an axe blade into the back of my hand (let’s not enquire too closely about how). The guy I was with was a mild mannered theoretical population geneticist, described even by his friends as a nerd. He was utterly unphased, and proceeded to fashion a field dressing out of his son’s spare socks and some electrical tape. Completely calm, as if he was just pinning some butterflies.
By contrast, I’ve seen quite a few who ‘look the part’ (alleged military experience, all the gear, etc etc) completely lose it. Worst was when a student tried to open a wine bottle using the blade of a multi tool and it shut on their hand (yes, they were drunk). Our designated first aider was a bloke with 30+ years experience working in rough parts of the tropics. Absolutely looked the part. He took one look at the bloody hand, went pale and had to go lie down.
SikaSeeker
Well-Known Member
I was being nice, some quietly lose their **** and some freak out openly, but both types aren’t any good around you in an emergency situation. I’ve seen it a good few times around cardiac arrests
I’ve been extremely lucky in that all 3 times I’ve been badly injured, the people on the scene were very level headed.
Funniest (in retrospect) was when I got gored by an eland. They’d stopped the bleeding and put a dressing on, then tossed me in the back seat of a landcruiser and were about to head for town (3 hour drive away). The site manager’s wife appeared. She’d taken the 10 minutes I was being stabilised to change into her city dress, do her makeup and make a packed lunch for us. She hopped into the passenger seat with a cheery ‘hello boys’, set up her iPod so we had the right tunes (80s and 90s teen pop), and off we went. She played the role of mum on family pic nic as if it was straight out of a 70s sit com. Handed round juice boxes and sandwiches, played I-spy, bickered with her husband (driving at 120 on a bad dirt road). To this day I can’t work out if she knew exactly what she was doing to keep me cheerful and awake, or was just completely oblivious. It worked though.
The risk of loosing a limb is not very high with a tourniquet
Stalker62
Well-Known Member
You need to do a EFAW+F course. These generally focus on trauma injuries.
I’ll see if I can dig out the pictures.
Short version: I was doing research on birds, in the Kalahari, on a private game reserve up near the Botswana border. There was a full grown eland bull in the area, who had been hand raised as a calf, so had no fear of people (eland are usually quite shy). It was the breeding season, the the cows were in oestrus. Something about being hand reared meant that he was getting nowhere with them, and was clearly very frustrated.
First thing I knew about it, I heard that horrible clicking sound they make with their knees, and he was coming out of the scrub about 30m behind me, horns lowered. He picked up speed and came for me. I turned and ran, but there was no way I was outrunning that. He hit me from behind, one horn went through my left calf, and the other picked me up by the crotch. Flipped me clean over in the air. I crashed to the ground, and lay flat. He was thrashing the vegetation in front of me, horns scything back and forth and getting closer. I lay face down the sand, and had a moment of pure clarity: this is how I die.
Fortunately, my radio had been flung sideways and was lying on the ground about 3m away. Someone else started having a conversation, and the noise attracted the eland, who set about trying to destroy it. I lay there in the heat, slowly becoming aware that something was quite wrong with my leg. Very slowly patted myself down, until my hand slipped right into the hole in my leg. Nearly vomited. And then started to feel the pain. Lay there for what seemed like an hour trying to work out what to do. Eventually, the eland moved off far enough for me to crawl forward, get the radio and call for help.
The very Afrikaans doctor who stitched me up dryly commented 'you're very lucky you know, boet. People don't usually walk away from eland'.
While we were in town, a radio call came in. 'You need to buy a new freezer - a big one. There's 400kg of meat'.
I was handed the first steak off the bbq that evening. Off my face on painkillers, it was one of the best I've ever had.
Indeed.....considering people undergo orthopaedic and plastic surgery on a regular basis whilst using a tourniquet without problem. The one thing that is important is that time the tourniquet is/was applied is clear to all involved. Sometimes the discomfort from removing the tourniquet can be worse than the original injury as the blood and oxygen reach all the extremities....
Added to that a quickly and effectively applied tourniquet in a trauma situation can be a lifesaver - just look at the number of casualties from Iraq/Afghanistan due to IED's as evidence.....it's far easier to treat any hypoxic injuries to a limb after a tourniquet has been in place rather than trying to resuscitate a body that has exsanguinated from a major haemorrhage.
Oh I do, I do!
Sadly, the scar is not as dramatic as I would like.
I have far more dramatic scars...
... I was thrown off a motorboat once, and both legs went through the propeller. THOSE look very dramatic. I can convincingly claim they were lion or crocodile scars (and have profitably done so).
That whole episode was extremely nasty. Rural Malawi, mid 90s, Easter Sunday. It was something like 5 hours before we were able to find a hospital with a doctor and functional kit. I vividly remember the sound as they lowered the tailgate of the landcruiser I was lying in. Like a bucket of water being emptied. This was also at the height of the AIDS epidemic, and my parents were offered a choice: blood transfusion now, and almost certainly contract AIDS; or just try to keep the pressure up by running in bags of saline one after the other. They were given 20 seconds to decide. As a parent now, I can't imagine having to make that decision. They went with saline (no one knew about anti-retrovirals then), reasoning that if I had to die, it would be better going fast.
Me too!
Having walked away from two life threatening injuries in remote parts of Africa, I try to count my blessings and not take life too seriously.
Stalker62
Well-Known Member
These are only the worst of my injuries! And that’s before you get into all the times I got chased or attacked and didn’t get hurt…
For about 20 years, the joke on all the field sites was that if it was going to happen, it was going to happen to me. So in fact, people were keen to be with me, the logic being I was the Bad **** Lightning rod.
Stalker62
Well-Known Member
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